


At the Lion's Cry

by OUATLovr



Series: Rose Fangs and Wolf Thorns [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Butterfly Effect, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dark, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Femslash, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, Past Rape/Non-con, Power Dynamics, Pregnancy, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, but not for this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-04-24 05:16:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 655,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19166569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OUATLovr/pseuds/OUATLovr
Summary: "Margaery stood in a pool of her husband's blood, and screamed."Joffrey is dead. Cersei plans to champion Tommen's claim to the throne, while the Tyrells cling to power through the child in Margaery's womb. Sansa dreams of Winterfell. To the East, a Targaryen approaches.





	1. Prologue: The North Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, sorry in advance for the long note.
> 
> I was going to wait until I had finished the Mummer's Tale to start this one, or maybe until the end of the summer, at the very least. And then, I lost all of my notes/drafts for my Braavos fic and for the next two fics in this series, and lost a bit of motivation in that fic with this last season. I will come back to the Braavos fic eventually, for those of you who are interested, to clear in a few plot holes, but for now, hopefully this tides you over. *Winks*
> 
> But anyway, you guys have been amazing and I didn't want to leave you with such a giant cliffhanger for too long.
> 
> Just a note on this fic: It's not going to make a lot of sense unless you've already read RFWT. Long story short, Sansa and Margaery have been in a secret relationship since Joffrey survived the Purple wedding, and now Margaery's pregnant with a child whom she's claiming belongs to Joffrey.
> 
> It begins a few months after the end of RFWT, and will deal with things that happened in between that time in flashbacks. The first few chapters are done, and I've got a shit ton of notes for where this story is going. The chapters are going to be quite a bit longer, and titled by their location instead of a specific character's POV, which means that updates will be slower. The overall fic is not going to be nearly as long as RFWT was, I promise.
> 
> Anyway, welcome back to this wild ride, for those of you still reading!

His name was no longer Young Griff, as he had gotten so used to people calling him. He was Aegon Targaryen, First of His Name, Lord of the Andals and of the First Men, and the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms, the only one with a true claim to the Iron Throne left.

That was all something it was going to take some time to get used to, he thought, lips quirking in self-deprecating amusement, as the ship rocked around him.

He’d known, of course, for most of his life, who he truly was, even if he had gone by Griff, the name of the man who claimed to be his father to all strangers, but never to him, for most of that life.

But it was something very different, indeed, to find himself finally embracing that identity, where he had always been in hiding, before this.

Aegon Targaryen, son of Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen, the last of the Targaryens save for an aunt who had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, returning at last to his homeland.

The titles, the names, they fit like an ill shaped glove.

Griff-Jon, as he had to get used to referring to the other man as, now, said that it would take little time before he began to see himself as he was, as a king. He was his father’s son, his mother’s son in every way, Jon had told him, before they had started out on this voyage.

But it had been some weeks since they had first set out with their Golden Company towards Westeros, and still, it felt strange, to give orders and speeches to a group of mercenaries set to fight and die in his name. And to see them listen to him, to see them bow before him as the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms, even if they themselves likely did not care at all who ended up sitting on the Iron Throne, so long as they got what was owed to them, in the end.

But, he supposed, that was what it meant to be a king. One day, if things went as they wanted them to, he would have sworn lords giving their lives for him, not just mercenaries, revered as the Golden Company were.

He still wasn’t certain what to make of the mercenary group that Jon Connington had managed to acquire for their...return to the Seven Kingdoms. He had, of course, learned of them as a child, but seeing them in person, and then watching them, one by one, swear themselves to his service until his contract with them was finished, was truly something else entirely.

They were rough men, for all of the stories of them being the only true knights to become mercenaries. Rough men who craved bloodshed and who had once betrayed Westeros during the Blackfyre Rebellion, but who honored their word. Well, usually. That was a record that Aegon himself had broken, in asking for their assistance while they still served Myr. Lord Harry had sworn their Company to Aegon, but he had looked at Aegon as if he knew that Aegon was a boy who had never fought in battle before, clicking his golden rings against each other where they rested three to a finger.

The sailors who drove these ships towards Westeros feared the Golden Company, as well. Aegon did not spend much time with the sailors because he spent so much of it being sick in his chambers, but he had noticed that they all had stories about the Golden Company, the sort of stories that peasants told.

The Golden Company kept at least a portion of the wealth from the cities that they sacked, every single time, and that wealth they carried with them. That they carried the skulls of their fiercest enemies in battle. That they swore allegiance to their general which they never broke, not even in death, even if they had done exactly that, in breaking their contract with Myr in order to follow him.

He supposed he ought to be honored, to be the first and only lord to convince them to do so.

Aegon had started to find himself believing some of those stories that the sailors whispered of, as his time at sea with the Golden Company continued.

He licked his lips as the ship rocked with a particular roughness, and he was nearly thrown from the chair that he was sitting in, in the cabin that he shared with G-Jon.

Lord Jon Connington, his father’s closest friend, before the Dragon Prince’s death, and not Griff, the man who had always insisted that Young Griff never think of him as his father, for all that it was the story they told everyone around them. That was yet another title that it was going to take some time for Aegon to get used to.

He grimaced, swallowing hard as he stared down at the notes on the table down in front of him, the letters swimming before his eyes. He reached up, brushing dyed blue hair behind an ear so that he could better see the words.

Jon had insisted that he learn all that he could about the current noble Houses of Westeros since he was a boy, even when Young Griff had not fully known who he was. He would need to know who his enemies were as well as his allies, after all, and Aegon found the knowledge fascinating, on a normal day. He loved studying, learning, the way some men loved drinking themselves into a stupor.

Today, he was having a hard time getting through the information that their informant in the Keep had sent them at all, for all the scandal that it promised.

It was concerning, the number of scandals that had cropped up in Westeros, of late, more and more their number seeming to grow.

It made him worry about what he was going to have to do to unite Westeros under his own claim, when he did take the throne. The noble Houses of Westeros were cruel to one another, none of them afraid to get their hands dirty as they grasped for a throne that not a single one of them had a legitimate claim to, anymore.

Aegon had heard the stories, since he was a child, though Jon had tried to shield him from the most grisly aspects of him then, about what had happened to his own family, for their part in Westerosi politics.

His grandfather had been a madman, and had burned subjects alive for minor offenses, and sometimes, for no offense at all, Aegon knew. He had been a cruel man, whose madness had only been exacerbated by his advisors, and the nearly unlimited power that the Iron Throne had given him.

And because of it, Aegon’s father, his mother, his sister, they had all paid the price, so Aegon could not be blind to the Mad King's faults, not when he had lost so much as a result of them.

Aegon did not want to be the sort of king known for his grasping at power, for his cruelty, for the madness of being a Targaryen.

They said that every time the Targaryens were born, the gods flipped a coin, to determine whether or not they would be mad. That was not the legacy that Aegon wanted to be remembered by.

And Aegon knew that he was an interloper, that he was coming into this fight long after it began, and he did not fool himself into believing that the noble Houses would lay down their fights and accept him, the moment he arrived.

That was why they had hired the Golden Company, after all.

But he read these horrible things before him, missives from their spy in King's Landing, about Joffrey the Illborn, and he did not want to one day read about himself, and the cruelties he had committed to become king, not after he had finally learned the truth about what had happened to his mother.

About what the Lannisters had done to his beautiful mother, as they stormed King’s Landing, a fate that Aegon himself had only barely managed to escape.

Sometimes, if Aegon closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he thought he could still smell his mother’s perfume, as she kissed his forehead for the last time, even if that shouldn’t have been possible, because he had been so young when she was taken from him.

After all, he had been nothing more than a babe when his mother had been butchered by Lannister soldiers alongside his sister. It was just his imagination, and yet the feeling was so strong.

And his imagination, or rather his nightmares, supplied him with other, less clear images, as well, images of what his mother must have looked like, in her final moments, after the Mountain had ripped her open and raped her, repeatedly, after butchering her daughter in front of her, after she had thought she had lost her son, as well.

Sometimes, in those nightmares, Elia Martell opened her eyes and stared right at Aegon. Usually, he awoke, then.

He knew that Jon felt guilty, for telling him the truth at all, even after Aegon had plagued him for it, especially after those nightmares had started, but Aegon was glad that he had. It gave him a sense of purpose, a higher calling, in returning to Westeros, than simply claiming a throne that others now laid claim to.

His mother had died, in the most horrible way that Aegon could imagine, for that throne, so that the Lannisters could prop up a usurper, the one who had killed his father, on that throne.

He owed it to her to take it back. He would do his mother proud, he vowed to himself, by taking back what had been stolen from them, all of them. Would avenge her memory by not becoming the sort of king who threatened children and courted madness.

Even if he was not yet quite certain how he was to achieve that.

But that was why he had Jon to help guide him, as his Lord Hand. He could not ask for a better counselor. 

Jon Connington, his father’s friend and a Targaryen supporter exiled from Westeros for his loyalty to Aegon’s father. The only person Aegon knew for certain that he could trust, who had practically raised Aegon as a son, from such a young age.

Jon knew the lords of Westeros better than anything that Aegon could ever read in a book, and he trusted the man to make sure that Aegon was the sort of king that would make his mother and father proud.

As if thinking of the man had summoned him, the door to Aegon’s cabin opened then, and Aegon tensed at the thought of having to deal with a member of their mercenary army before a shock of red hair had him relaxing, once more.

The years had not been kind to Lord Connington, since he had fled Westeros, though Aegon had no memory of a time when he had been a softer, kinder man. He was hardened now, willing to die to see Aegon on the throne, the Targaryen dynasty restored as a last service to the dead man he had once loved.

But Aegon knew nothing of this, as he smiled wanly at the other man, as Jon stepped inside the cabin and shut the door behind himself.

“Are you all right, Sire?” Jon asked, and Aegon almost didn’t respond to the question, because the last word, that title, threw him.

Sire.

Because he was a king now, Jon’s king, and that was perhaps stranger to him than being referred to as Aegon, now.

He shook his head, forcing himself to clear it.

“Fine,” he said, and grimaced at the way Jon kept staring at him, knowingly. He sighed, yawning, wondering if Jon could read him so well because he’d known him so long, or whether Aegon was simply that easy to read. It was a disturbing thought. “A bit queasy.”

When his aunt was born, she had been born on the rocky sea in the dead of night, during one of the worst storms in history. It had earned her the name Stormborn, and Aegon had assumed that, like his aunt, he would be able to brave the open seas.

But instead, he found himself getting sick the night after he set foot on the head of their fleet, and had felt queasy ever since, despite all of the ginger that Jon was forcing him to chew on at any given moment.

It was an embarrassing weakness, especially when he knew that this Golden Company was still skeptical of this king they were going to follow, for all of the fortune that they had been promised for doing so.

Jon did not bother to respond, coming forward and sitting on one of the two beds, across from him.

“How are your studies going?” Jon asked, and there was a gentleness in his tone that made Aegon feel a bit guilty for not trying to study harder.

He looked at the floor instead of Jon as he answered. “Not as well as I would like.”

Jon hummed. “Well,” he said, “Why don't we go over what you’ve read so far.”

A part of Aegon would much rather ask who the informant was, the one who kept sending them all of this information, but the last time he had asked, Jon had refused to tell him, saying that it was for the informant’s protection. That it was for the best that as few people knew as possible.

As if there was anyone Aegon would tell, and he had been slightly hurt by Jon’s refusal, even if he had understood the pragmatism of it. The less people he knew, the better.

But he couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person had lived so long in King’s Landing, and could still declare their loyalty to a far away prince.

“Joffrey the Illborn is dead,” Aegon reported, still feeling slightly numb about the news. Not because he cared much for a boy whom it was rumored like to rape serving girls and butcher peasants, best known for killing an entire Sept full of people, but because it seemed to him that kings died even more easily than anyone else.

And because the Seven Kingdoms that he would now inherit from Joffrey the Illborn had erupted into chaos, with his death. At least when Joffrey lived, he would have been facing one army.

Now, all of the kingdoms had splintered off, happy to fight for their own causes, and Aegon would have to contend with all of them.

Jon nodded for him to continue.

“Cersei Lannister, to the West, has yet to announce whether or not she will abide by Queen Margaery Tyrell's Regency, until her child is born and it is determined whether the throne belongs to that child, or Tommen Baratheon." Aegon grimaced, fully aware that it 'belonged' to neither of them. Jon nodded, and he went on, "Dorne has been silent, as has most of the North, and the Riverlands are still too busy fighting the Lannisters and amongst themselves to declare for anyone, though the Blackfish will likely declare for anyone against the Lannisters.”

That confused him, the new Queen Regent’s stance on the succession, for he didn’t think there had ever been a time in history when a Queen had done similarly, ruling in the name of a child who had not even been born yet, even if it was rumored that said Queen could have her child at any moment. But then, he supposed, most kings did not leave behind only a child in the womb for an heir.

“But these Tyrells,” Aegon said slowly, “if the child is born, and it’s a girl, then Tommen has the rightful claim to the throne, and the Lannisters will surely not allow Margaery Tyrell to be Regent, in that case. Why would they announce the Regency so quickly? And why wouldn't Kevan Lannister, Hand of the King, be Regent, in this case?”

It certainly made more sense. If Tommen turned out to be the heir to the Iron Throne, Kevan could better help the transition, and if the Queen did have a son, then she had still chosen him to be the Hand of the King, so she clearly trusted him.

Instead, a young woman who was barely older than Aegon sat on the Iron Throne, ruling on her own whims.

Jon grimaced. “Even in your father’s time, the Tyrells were always reaching above their station,” he explained, which wasn’t much of an explanation at all, not really. “At that time, they were loyal to House Targaryen. And not too long ago, if you remember, the Tyrells were claiming that Joffrey was a bastard born of incest. If they want to validate the claim of the child in the Queen Regent’s belly whether it is a boy or not, they will likely claim again that Tommen is a bastard, as well. And given the tensions between House Lannister and House Tyrell, I believe that this is the only choice before them that results in their hanging onto power.”

Aegon’s brow furrowed. “But wouldn’t that make the Queen’s child a bastard, as well, if they claim that Tommen is one?” he asked, a bit nervously, confused, now.

He had once thought he had a good grasp of Westerosi politics, that he knew these people, for all that he had never been here himself. Now, he was getting something of a migraine.

Jon smiled wanly. “I’m sure that they’ll find a way around it, Sire. But you see, it is yet another example of how there is no one left in the Seven Kingdoms who has a legitimate claim to the throne. Tommen is a bastard, and the Queen’s child, whether it is a boy or a girl, is the son of another bastard, whether they admit to that or not. The Tyrells simply have a large army to back up whatever claim they’d like to make at the moment, and the Queen Mother is out of favor, after her own son exiled her from King's Landing."

Aegon grimaced. He could never imagine doing such a thing, to his mother. “Is it as large as the Golden Company?” he asked, nervously. "The Tyrell army."

The ship rocked again, and Aegon was thrown back in his seat. Jon moved forward instinctively, to steady him, and then, realizing that Aegon was fine, stilled. Aegon wondered if his own face was green, yet.

Jon pursed his lips. “I will not lie to you, Your Grace,” he warned him, darkly. “The numbers are close. But as I said, the Tyrells barely have a claim to the throne, and you need not be afraid. We have many friends left in the Seven Kingdoms.”

Aegon licked his lips, thinking of what he knew of their allies in the Seven Kingdoms. He was not certain that he would describe them as 'many,' but Jon seemed convinced that now was the perfect time to return to the Seven Kingdoms, and Aegon trusted his judgment. “In Dorne,” he said, “my mother’s home.”

He tried to picture what Dorne might look like, in his mind, from what he knew of it. He knew from Jon, and from his studies, that it was a desert, a hot land filled with hot blooded people. That the Dornish had supported his father and mother during the war, despite the grievance that his father had committed against them, in dishonoring Elia Martell by running off with the Stark wench, and that they would likely support him, as well. That they had kept quiet, through much of the Usurper’s reign, for that very reason.

He wondered if Dorne was as beautiful as he thought his mother must have been. If it truly had suited her, as King's Landing never had. He would like to go there, someday soon, now that he finally had the opportunity to do just that.

Jon’s eyes softened. “Yes,” he said. “Doran Martell is your mother’s brother, and has, in the past, reached out to us to form an alliance.”

Aegon’s lip curled as he remembered the circumstances of that proposed alliance, the price that his mother's brother wanted in return for that allegiance. “If I marry his daughter.”

Jon sighed. “Yes.”

They had been over that, after all, quite a few times.

Aegon understood the reasons behind agreeing to such a match. With a marriage to the Dornish Princess, he would have Dorne fully on his side, a solid, unshaking ally against the other Houses. But he had no interest in marrying his cousin. Not for any distaste for her particularly, as he did not know her, but he thought it would be a far smarter move, in the end, to marry his aunt.

Daenerys Targaryen also had a claim to the Iron Throne, and he could not forget that, not when she had rebuffed any attempts to make contact with her, while she ruled in Mereen with an army roughly the size of his own, now.

He did not know if she would respect his claim to the throne when they did finally meet, face to face, and he thought it would be a far smarter plan to unite with her rather than fight against her.

“And Lord Stannis?” he asked, because privately, he thought that Stannis was the greatest threat to his taking the Iron Throne, at this point. Not because his other opponents were both women, but because they both had even weaker claims than the Usurper’s brother.

After all, Stannis Baratheon was at the very least the trueborn son of his mother and father, while neither the Tyrells nor the Lannisters had a convincing claim to that.

The only problem was, Lord Stannis seemed to have squandered that advantage, ever since he had started this war. That was, indeed, the only way that Aegon could understand his repeated losses against the Lannisters, when a boy of Aegon’s own age had been able to defeat Tywin Lannister in battle so many times, before being taken out by duplicity.

Stannis had won almost every fight he had chosen since his defeat at the Battle of Blackwater, their informant had told them, and Aegon did not want to worry about defeating the Lannisters and Tyrells only to turn around and find himself facing both his aunt and Stannis Baratheon’s army.

Jon hummed. “We know he has taken Winterfell and was about to take more than half of the West. The Lannisters might have been able to defeat him, but if they had, we would have heard about it.”

Aegon groaned in frustration. As grateful as he was for the information coming out of King’s Landing, it was frustrating not to know what was truly happening in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.

“But the last anyone has heard, he had vanished, somewhere up in the North, alongside Ser Jaime Lannister, and Lady Cersei had taken the Rock for herself, without a fight, even with many of Stannis' forces still there,” Jon said, not bothering to hide how much this news had disturbed him, and still did. He said the name 'Jaime Lannister' as if he wanted to spit it, but wasn't entirely certain how.

Aegon shuddered, wondering what could have taken out Stannis Baratheon at this late stage in his war. Wondered how a man who had been moderately successful in this war of succession could just...disappear, like that, without anyone knowing where he had gone, or why.

“Do we need to worry about him returning with a larger army of Northerners, once we have finally taken King’s Landing, then?” he asked, nervously.

He did not understand the North, despite any readings he had done about the kingdom. They seemed a savage, wild people, compared to the other kingdoms of Westeros, like the people of Further East, beyond the civilized edges of Essos. They answered to no one save themselves, and almost all of their House monikers seemed to speak of death and killing. And while the other noble Houses did not seem innocent, either, they at least had governments that Aegon could easily understand.

He worried that they would be the hardest kingdom to convince to bend the knee, in the end, especially after what his grandfather had done to the Starks. Aegon did not want to be hated by them for anything near the same level of violence.

He did not want to be a bad king. Did not want to be a king known for forcing his people to fear him, rather than love him.

Jon licked his lips. “I will not lie to you,” he repeated. “We are taking great advantage from his absence, but that is only because we are not first going to King’s Landing.”

Aegon blinked at him, confused, because he had thought that was exactly where they would strike first, with all of the studying Jon had made him do on House Tyrell, of late.

“Instead, we are going somewhere that will be an easy victory for Your Grace, and will declare to all of Westeros your intentions," Jon continued. Aegon thought he heard the sound of thunder cracking, outside of the cabin, and shivered.

The climate was a little chillier here, than what he was used to.

Aegon’s brows furrowed. “And where is that?” he asked, heart starting to beat a little faster at the prospect of finally going home, of knowing that there was at least one victory in sight, before they had even begun this war.

Jon smiled at him, the smile taking years off the face of a man whom Aegon had always seen as haunted by his past. “My home, Your Grace.”


	2. Dorne

“What are we going to do?” Tyene asked, scooping up the letter from where Arianne had just discarded it on the table between them, out in the gardens of Sunspear, which were not as magnificent as the Water Gardens, but she had not been able to bring herself to return there since she had imprisoned her own father.

Arianne barely noticed Tyene mouthing the words as she read them, the shock of what she had just read still settling over her shoulders. She reached, absently, for the chilled wine she had been casually drinking before the raven had arrived, and disrupted her whole world.

The missive was short, and to the point.

Joffrey the Illborn was dead, attacked in his own bedchambers by remnants of the religious fanatics who had followed the High Sparrow, wanting revenge for their martyr. His wife had been attacked as well, but had survived long enough to call a member of the Kingsguard, who should have been there far earlier, to save them.

The man had given his life in service of rescuing the Queen’s, and, thank the gods, her child was deemed still healthy by the maesters.

“This smells like bullshit,” Obara said, scrunching up her nose and reading the words over Tyene’s shoulder.

Tyene snorted. Arianne envied them their amusement, but could not deny the truth to their words.

“Looks like the Rose Queen really does have thorns, like she promised us,” Tyene said, and then smirked. “Do you think she killed the King herself, or had that Kingsguard do it, and then had him killed for his trouble?”

Arianne pursed her lips.

Either was a disturbing thought. The young woman she had met in Dorne, though fierce in her hatred of the Lannisters, had not been a killer, Arianne had seen that. Angry, yes, bent on revenge, yes, but not a killer, at the very least, not with her own hands.

It was the reason, in the end, that Arianne had agreed to go along with her plan. Because the Rose Queen, for all the insanity of the alliance she had offered, had been sane as she offered it, a woman as sick of the Lannisters as every lord or peasant in Dorne.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. The King is dead,” she said, finally, and ignored the slump in Tyene’s shoulders. She knew that her cousins were angling for war, knew that they had been wishing for it ever since they had been imprisoned, ever since they had learned about Qwentyn, marching with an army in the East.

Myrcella was a suitable replacement to her brother, but Margaery was an interesting enough one to keep them on their toes. Or so Arianne hoped.

In truth, she was not entirely certain if she would still be able to sell Margaery Tyrell to the lords of Dorne, for all that she had made such promises to the other woman. It was what Arianne wanted; the future that the Rose, eyes shining, had laid out before her was one that Arianne could not deny she found more appealing than putting a vulnerable child on the throne, protected only by Dorne and not by her own family, in order to bring said family down, or…

Or the future that her father had offered her, clearly thinking that she could ever want such a thing. Arianne wondered if he had ever known her at all, to offer her such a thing.

Obara let out a long sigh. “Myrcella is pregnant,” she said, and exchanged another look with Tyene that, dare Arianne think it, looked hopeful. “It might be more useful, to name her Queen, rather than support one belonging to a House which has hated us for some time.”

Myrcella was more than just pregnant. She had missed her moon’s blood for some time now, and her belly was ready to pop.

At least one of Arianne’s brothers was still of some good use, in doing his duty to his wife, though Arianne had to admit that it was causing more trouble than it was solutions for her, just now.

The news of Myrcella’s pregnancy was one that, despite its advancement, Arianne was trying to keep contained within Sunspear. She knew that the moment Margaery Tyrell learned of it, she would consider their alliance terminated, would consider Myrcella to a be a threat to everything they had planned together.

A part of Arianne almost wondered if Margaery herself had suspected what Myrcella had believed, about her ability to have children, for all the plans she had made around the other girl. It would be another hint that the Queen had no intention of honoring their alliance past the ceasefire that wiping out the Lannisters together brought them.

Arianne picked at her teeth. “House Tyrell no longer hates us,” she pointed out. “In fact, we have a common enemy.”

Obara rolled her eyes. “Yes, this is the story you’ve spun time and time again, but that enemy is dead now, or will be soon. House Lannister cannot survive while House Tyrell holds the Iron Throne. And what will we have gotten for our troubles, for our...patience?” she sneered the word. “You promised us that you would not be your father.”

Arianne stood to her feet then, towering over Obara. “And I have not been,” she snapped, genuinely hurt by the accusation. “Have I not given you war?”

“The Tyrells’ war,” Obara sneered out. “And no, not especially. Just the promise of it.”

Arianne felt something like fear shudder deep within her, and forced it down. It would not do to show weakness, now. Would not do to show that even that promise was an illusion.

Smoke and mirrors, the same game that her own father had been playing for many years, now.

Gods, she hated him. She hated that she was becoming like him by any measure of the word.

When she was a girl, she used to dream about her aunt Elia, killed by Lannister bannermen, the nightmares not helped by the anger she saw so constantly in her uncle Oberyn’s face, no matter how much he tried to hide it for the sake of the children.

It haunted him, and so it haunted her.

Now, when she dreamed at night, the nightmares were of herself, bent over with gout, forced to spend the rest of her days in a chair, wheeled around by those who pitied her for one who could have acted, but didn’t.

But that was not how her story was going to end.

She ought to be pleased that the bastard was finally dead. It meant that their plans could finally move forward.

With Joffrey dead, the only one who stood in their way, as she had tried time and again to explain to her cousins, was Cersei Lannister and her army, and the imagined threat of Quentyn Martell.

Arianne smiled slightly, at the thought.

Then, the Tyrells, and Obara and Tyene could have this war they were clamoring so hard for, because there would be none to declare that they couldn’t. They just needed to be patient for a little while longer.

When she had made this deal with Margaery Tyrell, she thought that both of them knew it was not in good faith, on either side. The moment Margaery returned to King’s Landing, she would begin plotting her ascension to the throne, her way of breaking arms with the Martells, and Arianne would do the same. Margaery did not even have the assurance that she could get pregnant, a loophole if Arianne had ever seen one.

She just had not anticipated how far things would go. That Margaery would get pregnant so quickly, that the imagined army of her brother across the sea was in fact two very different armies, belonging to two very different people, that Arianne had a chance to see the Tyrells and the Lannisters gone from this world for good, for all that she had rather liked Margaery.

After all, what was one woman compared to the fate of having two Targaryens owe you their lives, and their winnings?

Not that Arianne intended to play quite the long game with them that her father had wished for, but she could not deny that they could offer her more than a House which her own mistrusted so dearly.

“Then let me promise you,” Arianne said, over the rim of her cup, “That we will have war soon enough. Do you think I helped you depose my own father just to sit on my arse in Sunspear? Do you think that Cersei Lannister, sitting alone in the Rock, is just going to meekly accept what happened to her son? No, there will be war.”

Tyene and Obara exchanged glances again. She knew what they thought of her. They thought that she had grown soft with her arse on such a fine cushion.

They would rue such thoughts, one day.

A throat cleared, and Arianne glanced up, to find that Myrcella had joined them, was standing in front of their little table out in the gardens nervously.

She had been like that, lately, ever since she had found out that she was pregnant upon returning to Dorne, without her husband. The child was undoubtedly Trystane’s; she would be more nervous if it were not, and Arianne had seen the way the two of them looked at one another.

It was the sort of love that Arianne herself knew she would never find.

The nervousness was no doubt at the prospect of her own future, here in Dorne. After all, she had been kidnapped and brought here through a collaboration between the Martells and Margaery Tyrell, and she knew they wouldn’t have her family’s best interests at heart.

And while she had made it rather abundantly clear that she cared little for the concerns of her own family, besides Tommen and Jaime Lannister, two people whom she had once been content to leave behind as well, that having changed during her annoyingly long visit to King’s Landing, Myrcella had to wonder what it meant for her, that Dorne and Joffrey’s Queen found her so important.

Arianne sometimes amused herself with trying to guess when Myrcella would figure out the extent of the plans made around her. The girl was no fool, after all, and something of that analytical mind had emerged all the more, since her time in King’s Landing.

She forced herself to smile sympathetically at the girl, though the prospect of Joffrey’s death was not one that Arianne could find it within herself to pretend much grief over. It was not as if that mattered, however.

She only needed to be convincing enough.

“Myrcella,” she said, gesturing for Myrcella to take the empty chair at their table, the one that had been meant for her husband, should he deign to meet with them for the noon meal, this morning. “Sit, please.”

Myrcella did so, her legs shaking a bit from the weight of carrying her pregnant belly.

She must have been a little ways along, when she first left King’s Landing, and her husband, and not even known it.

Though, from the things she had admitted to Arianne about what her brother had done to her as a child, Arianne supposed it made sense, for her to doubt her ability to have children at all.

Arianne wondered if Myrcella would have allowed it, had she known she did have that ability.

There was a peculiar darkness about the girl, ever since her return from King’s Landing, as if something that had always been sitting just below the surface had finally been freed, by her visit there.

She was no longer the sweet girl that Arianne had known, innocent or otherwise. Now, she looked into Arianne’s eyes and Arianne found that she could not read Myrcella’s expression at all, did not know her thoughts.

Myrcella spent most of her days at the Sept in the city, praying for her beloved husband’s return, something which was now far more likely, with her brother dead. Arianne suspected this was to keep from letting anything of the carefully constructed mask she wore slip around those who knew her well.

No, she had changed, and Arianne found herself missing the girl that Myrcella had been, even as she found some appreciation for the woman before her.

“It’s your brother,” Arianne heard herself saying, as if from a long ways off, her eyes never leaving Myrcella’s carefully blank face. “We’ve received this message from King’s Landing.”

She handed the note over to the other girl without a word.

She couldn’t imagine what Myrcella must be feeling, just now. She knew that Myrcella and her brother had little love lost between the two of them; he had been cruel to her, and she had loathed him in turn.

But Arianne had believed her own brother capable of murdering her to take her claim to Dorne, and she still could not imagine the grief she would feel, at the knowledge that he had been killed.

And in such a horrible fashion, by peasants with delusions above their station.

Myrcella pursed her lips as she read the news, and then lifted her head, face carefully devoid of any emotion. If Arianne had not been expecting it, considering the things that Myrcella had confided in her, she might have been disturbed by the sight.

As it was, she thought she heard the sharp intake of Obara’s breath, behind her. Obara, for all her faults, had never gotten to know Myrcella personally as more than a piece in their game of cyvasse against the other Houses, not as Tyene and Arianne had.

For that matter, neither had Nym.

“Does my brother’s son survive? The Queen?” Myrcella asked, surprising Arianne when that was her first question. Still, Arianne hummed in answer, nodding her head, and Myrcella bit her lip.

Perhaps Myrcella did know more than she let on, to ask after the Queen and the Queen’s child of Arianne.

Obara and Tyene exchanged glances.

Arianne knew what they were thinking, for they had just explained such thoughts to her. The survival of the Queen and her son was an unwelcome thorn in their side, especially when they had Myrcella here and now, pregnant in front of them.

Arianne had a feeling Margaery Tyrell had a habit of being such to everyone around her. And if it were not for the alliance that she had made with Margaery in secret, she might have actually considered their ideas of crowning Myrcella.

But she wasn’t that much of a fool.

Margaery Tyrell had survived Cersei Lannister and her madman of a son, Joffrey. She had survived all of this time with one hand on the Iron Throne, and Arianne knew better than to underestimate her, as her cousins seemed to be doing.

Just as she knew better than to underestimate Myrcella.

She looked, for a moment, conflicted about speaking again at all, but that didn’t stop her from finally doing so.

“What’s going to happen, now?” Myrcella asked, and her voice was very small, in a way that Arianne didn’t believe at all.

Arianne forced a smile, getting to her feet and taking Myrcella’s hands into her own. She looked into the girl’s eyes, and was disturbed when she couldn’t read them as she had once been so good at doing.

“You will be safe here, Myrcella, always,” Arianne promised her. “You are my goodsister, and the mother of my nephew.”

“Or niece,” Myrcella said, in a very soft voice, so soft that Arianne had to struggle to hear her.

Arianne hummed. “Indeed,” she said. “Or niece.” She licked her lips, wondering if perhaps she shouldn’t have broken this news to Myrcella in some other way. “Myrcella…”

Myrcella blinked up at her, eyes very wide, and Arianne wondered if she truly didn’t know that most sisters would have at least feigned a few tears, for a dead brother.

“Am I to be allowed to go to the funeral?” Myrcella asked, and there was something calculating in her tone, something that had nothing to do with wanting to show her respects for her brother, Arianne knew, feeling cold despite the chiliness of the day. Arianne tried to tell herself that Myrcella was just desperate to see Trystane again, still locked away in King’s Landing as he was.

She resisted the urge to glance helplessly back at Obara and Tyene.

Tyene had once been so good at manipulating Myrcella.

Now, the other woman didn’t seem capable of looking at her for more than a few seconds. She had noticed the change, too.

“I will...consider it,” Arianne said, slowly. “But you have to understand why we believe it to be a risk, after the things you told us about your most recent stay in King’s Landing.”

Myrcella scoffed. “Those things happened because of my brother,” she said, slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “He’s dead, now.”

She needn’t sound so damn pleased, Arianne thought.

But she did, she realized, a moment later.

She sounded...very pleased by the news, far more pleased than she ought to, than she surely knew that she ought to, even if she had confided the truth about how horrible he had always been to her to all three of these women.

There were still guards listening to them, after all.

Obara narrowed her eyes at Myrcella, and the girl dropped her head, looking shamefaced. “Sorry,” she said. “I just...It’s such a shock. My brother...He was King. I never thought he would die.”

The words, Arianne had no doubt, had the advantage of being true.

Doublespeak, and Myrcella had always been good at that, but there was a sharpness to her words now which disturbed Arianne, which made her wonder if perhaps she hadn’t taught the girl rather too well through her own example.

Myrcella bit her lip, for a moment looking sad, but the look vanished soon enough, as if Myrcella herself wasn’t quite certain how long she had to hold it for so that it remained believable.

“May I go, now?” she asked, cocking her head at Arianne. “I should go to the Sept, and pray for his immortal soul. He was my brother, and my king.”

Arianne pulled back, startled into wondering whether the mask that Myrcella wore now had not been her true face all along, the melancholy girl Arianne had fallen in love with so fully the mask.

* * *

“His lordship is not yet out of bed,” the guard informed her, when Obara Sand came to a stop outside of Gerold Dayne’s chambers in the palace of Sunspear, the chambers that he no longer shared with his wife, despite the recentness of their marriage.

Arianne had tired of him, as she seemed to of most of her bed companions after they had outlived their usefulness to her. Marrying Gerold Dayne had kept him from marching to war, had waylaid the warmongering in Dorne for a few more months.

But Gerold Dayne had not outlived his usefulness to Obara Sand, for all that he might have done to her cousin. Oh, Obara had many things planned for his future, and she intended to ensure that they came to pass, rather than sitting meekly by the way that her uncle had, the way that her cousin did.

Obara was a woman of action; it was what she understood, and what's more, it was what Dorne understood.

And who was a better example of Dornish blood, than Gerold Dayne?

She snorted slightly, at the thought, and gave the guard another harsh look. He was used to her, especially, coming to visit Arianne's husband at all hours of the day, and she did not know why the man still put up a fuss about allowing her to pass.

For a moment, she allowed herself the amusement of wondering if he thought she was sleeping with Gerold, and disapproved. That would make the most sense, considering how often she came to visit him and the noise the two of them always seemed to end up making together.

Her gaze hardened.

Obara rolled her eyes. “It’s past the noon hour, though I’m well aware,” she said. “And he’s missed a great deal. Let me pass.”

The guard hesitated for a moment, but Obara knew well the orders he was under, and he quickly yielded, opening the door for her and announcing her to the uneasy occupant within.

Obara Sand sighed as she stepped into these chambers, shutting the door behind her with another nod at the guard, and words to not disturb them, not for anyone.

“If the Princess…” the guard began, but Obara held up a hand, cutting him off.

“Lord Gerold is your Prince Consort,” she said, “and these are his orders, not mine.”

And Obara was the daughter of Oberyn Martell, she wanted to add, but she did not. The guard seemed to get the hint, easily enough.

The guard ducked his head, and then, “Yes, my lady,” he said, with the same snide voice they all had started out using, when Arianne announced that her cousins were to be legitimized, by order of King Joffrey, weeks ago.

Obara had no idea if those orders had actually come from Gerold, or not, but a part of her could appreciate the gesture. Bastards may be treated far more kindly in Dorne than any other kingdom in Westeros, but they were still bastards.

They could not hold the same sort of authority that legitimate children could, where it mattered.

They could not hold the throne of Dorne.

The guard let her inside, and Obara walked primly past him, chin held high because even if she was a bastard, she was still Oberyn Martell's daughter, and that meant something, to her. 

She found Gerold laying in his bed, looking to all the world like a sad lump of a man who had married the wrong woman and was now paying the price for it with too much drinking.

Good.

“You’re up late,” she observed, to the man just rolling out of the bed that he shared with her cousin, these days. She pulled his sheets off the rest of the way, and the man shot her an annoyed glare.

He groaned, reaching up to rub at his eyes with one hand while another reached for a shirt. It was almost disappointing when he was covered, once more. Obara forced herself not to react; she had seen him shirtless often enough, after all.

He may be her cousin’s husband now, or, as some of the nobles had taken to calling him behind his back, her cousin’s wife, but that didn’t mean Obara had to feel guilty for appreciating him.

It was not as if her cousin seemed to appreciate the man at all, these days. Arianne had always been...short sighted, in that way, where she had so many plans to keep her afloat, but a terrible understanding of the people she needed in order to enact those plans.

Oh, she had been perfectly attentive, in the beginning of her marriage, because she had needed Gerold and his armies on her side.

But as time went on, and Quentyn did not emerge out of the desert with his fabled mercenary army, and the Tyrells continued sucking Joffrey's cock until the boy was dead by a mere chance, a fluke, Arianne had started to distance herself from her husband and his warmongering, had started to go on and on about the importance of their alliance with the Tyrells, who were hardly better than Lannisters, in the eyes of most of the people of Dorne.

Hells, to many of the Dornish people, they were worse. The Lannisters had committed two great offenses against them, in the murders of Elia Martell and Oberyn, and that pain still smarted, every time Obara gave herself a moment to think about it.

But the Tyrells had been the classic enemies of the Dornish for decades, and for all that Arianne seemed to have forgotten that, very few others in Dorne had.

She discouraged, with every chance she had, her husband attempts at rallying the noble Houses of Dorne into war against whoever stood in their way, of at least not sitting on their arses and waiting for House Tyrell to hand them a victory.

And she was smart about it, Obara knew; she knew that her cousin didn’t intend to remain friends with Margaery Tyrell forever. She had explained that to her people, the moment the Rose was gone from Sunspear with Nym.

Only so long as it suited Dorne.

But Dorne was beginning to get restless, and Arianne seemed purposely blind to that knowledge. Willfully so, Obara could not help but think, for she herself heard the complaints of their people off of every rooftop, from every mouth that she passed, in the eyes of every noble who came to bow before Arianne and wondered why they weren't bowing before Doran, anymore, when he had been much the same.

And now, with this newest piece of news…The Dornish people would want to act. Now.

And, well, Obara worried for her cousin’s very safety.

And that was exactly how she would spin this to Gerold, a man who would be happy enough to convince himself of her lies if it meant he got what he wanted out of the situation, in the end. She knew his type well.

“If you hadn’t spent so long drinking last night,” Obara commented, as Gerold got to his feet and ran a hand through his hair, giving him a dark look, “You’d know that a rather important piece of news has just reached us.”

Gerold hummed. “What is it, now?” he asked, darkly, and it seemed that his poor mood from the night before had spread into the morning, no doubt with the help of his current hangover. “Have the Tyrells finally subdued the Lannisters, and left us with nothing of our pride?”

Obara rolled her eyes.

Men.

Always so fucking dramatic.

If they spent less time wondering on the length of their dicks and more time plotting, the Iron Throne would have belonged to Dorne ages ago.

Pride. Honestly.

As if Dorne could afford pride, at a time like this, with Elia and her father's blood screaming in the sand and the Lannisters finally weakened for the first time since her aunt's death, many years ago.

“Joffrey the Illborn is dead,” Obara said bluntly, and got the satisfaction of watching Gerold spin around to face her, eyes wide.

“How?” he asked finally, sounding a bit too pleased about the news. She found herself suddenly glad that he had not been sitting at tea with them earlier this afternoon, when they had given the news to Myrcella.

She didn’t think he would have been able to contain his glee, and that would have been a rather poor thing to do to the girl.

Especially when they needed her amity, just now.

Well, for now.

Needed it until Obara could watch that amity drive a spike through Cersei Lannister’s heart, and that of her twin brother’s.

Obara shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care,” she admitted. “The letter they sent is awfully suspicious, but it claims they were killed by...fanatics. For all we know, that Tyrell bitch killed him herself when she finally got tired of stringing him along.”

Gerold snorted. “Doesn’t have it in her,” he said, shaking his head.

Obara pressed her lips together. For all they had known, Gerold Dayne didn’t have it in him to become nothing more than a drunk, either, and he had promised her war.

But that facade of drunkenness which he had dutifully and worryingly put on since the wedding, no doubt just like the letter that Margaery Tyrell had sent informing them of the King’s death at the hands of traitors, was just a sham.

The Gerold Dayne she had known before Arianne's marriage could hold his liquor just fine.

“Doesn’t matter, if she can hire someone to do the deed,” she said, shrugging. “And you didn’t really know her, for the short time that she was here. Girl was mad as they say her husband was.”

Not that that was a bad thing, of course. In fact, Obara hoped that it would become quite useful, to the future that she planned. 

Gerold snorted. “What do they say about me?” he asked, sounding genuinely interested as he shoved on his shoes, and glanced towards the closed door, where the guard stood outside, there to warn them if Arianne, or, gods forbid, anyone else, came along and found them together here.

Obara gave him an unamused look. “They say your wife took your balls the day she took your hand in marriage. That she wears them around her neck now,” she said, and was gratified by the way Gerold grimaced, at her words.

She had found, over the course of time that she’d come to know him, since he’d come to live in the palace, consort of their Princess, that he was rather motivated when she insulted him. It was a useful skill to have, this ability to influence him through bullying.

And Obara had never been particularly good at honeyed words, either.

“They won’t say that forever,” he said darkly, and when he breathed on her, as he passed her to grab up his scabbard from where it hung over the door frame, she smelled nothing of alcohol, on his breath.

He turned back to her as he fastened his scabbard, a careful performance in slothliness.

Obara smiled.

“Come on,” Obara said, coldly, tone not matching the look on her face, for there were guards outside the door who answered only to Arianne, “We have work to do.”

The grin slowly spread across Gerold’s face. "Finally."


	3. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks to past events will be in italics.

_“If I leave these here,” she whispered, careful to keep her voice as gentle as possible, though she wasn’t sure why, as she placed the bundle of nightclothes on the bed, “Will you wear them?”_

_Perhaps she spoke as if to a frightened animal because she was afraid of seeing how Margaery might react, if she were even a little bit louder, harsher sounding._

_She looked like a porcelain doll, sitting on Sansa’s bed in the Maidenvault, a bed which had once belonged to Margaery herself. Like she might genuinely break into a thousand pieces at any moment, and Sansa could not be the one to cause that._

_She felt bad enough, for what she had just been unable to stop. What she had just walked in on, too damn late to do anything about it._

_Margaery glanced up at her, from where she sat too straight backed on the bed, her eyes very wide, as if she had forgotten Sansa was there at all._

_Sansa felt a small pang of fear, at the look in those eyes. As if they belonged to a frightened animal, one without conscious thought, rather than the woman that she loved._

_It was strange; in all of those months after Ser Osmund had attacked Margaery, Sansa had never seen a hint of what he had done to her, not on her face, not in her words, nor her actions. She had been the same beautiful, ruthless woman that Sansa was slowly finding herself falling for, and when she had finally told Sansa the truth of what had happened to her, Sansa had been genuinely shocked._

_Sansa was no stranger to the threat of rape herself, though she thanked the gods that she had never been forced by a man. She hadn’t then quite known what to say in response to Margaery’s halting admission about what Ser Osmund had done to her on Cersei’s orders, but she had been there for the other woman, and somehow had felt like that was enough, in the moment._

_And while of course she knew that she could have no idea what Margaery had just faced, that all women reacted to this thing, this horrible, awful thing, differently, she couldn’t help but wonder, at that._

_Wonder what had been so different, this time, from what had happened with Ser Osmund, when Margaery had moments later marched into the throne room and demanded that her husband kill that man._

_That woman had worn skin made of hard steel._

_But this...this woman made of glass, sitting too straightly on Sansa’s bed, fingers digging into the flesh of her elbows so harshly Sansa could see the white spots there, still covered in Joffrey’s blood as well as her own bruises, she was someone that Sansa didn’t entirely recognize._

_What Joffrey had just done to her, what he had made her do to him, it was awful, and much as Sansa wanted to offer some sort of paltry words of comfort, she found that she had no idea what to say, to comfort Margaery, just now._

_Had no idea how to help her, beyond the hurried plots that Baelish had formed, as they all stood over Joffrey’s bleeding, broken, unrecognizable form on the floor of his own bedchambers._

_Unrecognizable in the way that Margaery seemed unrecognizable now, because something had changed them both utterly, tonight._

_Joffrey had not survived it. Sansa could only hope that Margaery could._

_Margaery blinked at her, looking very tired indeed. Her fingers were still digging into the smooth flesh of her already bruised arms, laying across her pregnant belly, and Sansa grimaced a little at the reminder that all of this had happened while Margaery was only a few months pregnant with another man’s child._

_She hadn’t asked Margaery, of course, if that was what had sparked this...episode. It had only been an hour since Joffrey’s death; the servants were still cleaning up the mess, though Sansa suspected it would take some time to scrub the floor of all that blood._

_And Margaery had explained, in halting, stuttering sentences, what had happened. Had not explained it fully, but explained enough, and been forced to sit on the bed her husband had just raped her in as Baelish was brought in, as Sansa explained all of it to him all over again, his cold, assessing gaze taking in more than Sansa ever could._

_She could only hope that the child was fine, now. If it wasn’t, if something was wrong because of what Joffrey had done to Margaery tonight, then all of this suffering that Margaery had undergone tonight...all of it would have been for nothing._

_The thought was a terrifying one. After everything they had endured, everything that they had sacrificed to get to this point, to find out that it was for nothing._

_The child had to be fine. It had to be._

_In the morning, Baelish would arrange for a maester with tighter lips than Pycelle to come and examine Margaery, to make sure that everything was fine. He did not dare risk it tonight, because he needed to make sure their story was perfect, and Sansa had agreed with that, much as she hated the thought of leaving Margaery in any sort of pain for the rest of the night, however many few hours remained of it._

_Gods, Sansa thought, reaching up and running a shaky hand through her hair. If Baelish had not agreed to help them, if she had not sold her soul to him in response, she didn’t know that either of them would have survived this night._

_She still was uncertain that they would, but she was certain enough, even in her current panicked state, that Baelish was obsessed with her enough to make sure that she didn't die. Which meant that he had to help Margaery tonight, as well._

_Margaery reached out, soundlessly, and took the nightgown from where Sansa had set it down in front of her. Slowly, agonizingly, she got to her feet._

_That had been difficult, as well, sneaking her here, despite Baelish’s knowledge of the secret ways of the castle, the ways that no one would happen upon them, not even the servants, when Margaery was hardly in a fit state to walk._

_Margaery didn’t seem at all bothered by Sansa’s presence as she stripped off the ripped gown she had been wearing when Joffrey had…_

_When he had…_

_Dear gods, how had everything gone so wrong? Two hours ago, three, they had been about to kill the little monster. Had been about to see him dead for all of the things he had done against them. He had finally been slotted by fate to be put down tonight, like the wild animal that he was._

_And fate, it seemed, had still wanted his life, on this night._

_But how the fuck had it happened like this? They’d had a plan, perhaps not the best one, but a plan nonetheless. And now, Joffrey was dead in a way that could so easily be traced back to the wife who had been the last person to see him, and Margaery…_

_She wasn’t even sure the woman stripping off her clothes was still Margaery, after what had happened to her._

_Sansa flinched as the gown fell to Margaery’s feet, as she saw the physical evidence of the way that Joffrey had abused his wife, in his final moments, too gruesome to ignore. The bruises covering her body, the scratches, the blood that had dried against her thighs, her knees. The slight protruding of her pregnant belly, the only part of her that wasn’t covered in bruises, Sansa noticed, and tried not to feel too relieved about that._

_Margaery swallowed hard, not looking at Sansa at all as she pulled on the fresh gown that Sansa had found for her, and slipped it over her head._

_She still wouldn’t look at Sansa as she sank down onto the bed again._

_Sansa licked her lips, folding her hands aimlessly in front of her now that she had nothing to hold onto, uncertain what to do, what to say, to salvage this. To see some glimpse of the woman she loved beneath this one’s exterior, once more._

_Margaery let out a full body shudder, then, sinking down from her straight back to hunch into herself, pulling her legs up to her chest._

_She didn’t cry, Sansa noticed, her face completely dry as it had been when Sansa had walked into the room alongside a Kingsguard who was now dead to find her standing over her husband, the two of them covered in blood. But the shuddering overtook her body all the same, and Sansa, for all that she didn’t know how to comfort the other woman, knew that she couldn’t just stand there any longer._

_She moved forward, with slow, gentle movements, sinking down onto the bed beside Margaery, reaching out to take the other woman’s hands into her own._

_She was just glad that the other woman was not still clinging to that golden lion statue that she had been holding, when Sansa entered her chambers, the top of it still covered in Joffrey’s blood and brains._

_It had been a trial, pulling it out of the other woman’s hands, to give it to Baelish to be disposed of. Sansa had felt cruel, taking it away from her, even if it was the one thing which could truly damn Margaery if it was found._

_Margaery flinched hard at the sudden contact of Sansa’s fingers against her own, snatching her hands away, and Sansa tried not to feel hurt as she felt something within her break in two in a way that the shock of seeing Margaery like this had not allowed her to, earlier._

_She bit her lip, lest she herself start crying in front of the other woman. She couldn’t do that to Margaery, just now. She had to be strong, for Margaery’s sake, she knew that, if nothing else._

_“Do you…” she realized even as she made the offer that it had been rather foolish, to have Margaery dress before she thought of this, “Do you want to bathe?”_

_She was still covered in blood, and while Sansa would not for a moment begrudge her sleeping in her current state in Sansa’s bed, she thought it might make Margaery feel a bit better, to at least be clean._

_Dear gods, what was she thinking? She had no idea how Margaery was feeling now, nor how to make her feel better, she knew that._

_Margaery swallowed hard, and then glanced up at her listlessly. “I had to do it,” she whispered, and her voice was hoarse._

_From screaming, Sansa realized, and felt another pang of guilt-sorrow-fear rush through her._

_Margaery had only spoken a few times, since Sansa had found her like this, to tell Sansa what had happened and to ask her for help, to ask her what to do._

_Sansa hadn’t known what to do. She had just sent away the one man who might actually be able to help them, and she had never been more aware of it than she was in that moment, of what a mistake it had been to lose Tyrion Lannister as an ally._

_And so she had sent for the next best thing._

_“I had to do it,” Margaery repeated, now, her eyes looking slightly frantic when Sansa only stared at her, and didn’t respond. “I had to do it.”_

_Sansa closed her eyes, dragging in a deep breath before she opened them once more._

_She was terrified. Everything had gone wrong, Margaery herself might be as dead as her husband now was, and in the morning, unless Baelish pulled off a miracle, this plan of his was going to get them all killed._

_But she didn’t dare let any of this show on her face as she reached for Margaery again, as she ignored the way the other woman flinched when she touched her, to take Margaery’s hands in her own and squeeze them almost to the point of pain._

_She didn’t quite know why she did it, even. Perhaps she wanted to ground Margaery. Perhaps she simply, selfishly, wanted someone else’s comforting hands in her own, after what she had just seen Margaery to be capable of._

_“Yes, you did,” Sansa said, her voice breathless as Margaery finally met her gaze, and she thought she saw something of the woman she knew so well in those eyes. “Yes, you did. You had to do this, Margaery. You had no choice.”_

_Margaery licked very dry lips, still staring at Sansa. Sansa wasn’t even entirely certain that the other woman was hearing her, and her heart sank at the discouraging thought._

_She vowed to herself that this wouldn’t last forever. That she would find the woman she loved in those eyes again, so help her gods, and drag her back to the surface, if need be._

_Baelish would save their lives, and Sansa would save Margaery. She would not let Joffrey’s last act be to damn Margaery for good._

_She would not allow it._

_The strength with which the thought hit her startled Sansa, and she dropped Margaery’s hand almost without thinking._

_Margaery, however, seemed grateful that she had done so, hunching further in on herself and her while body beginning to shake again, the moment that Sansa let go of her, and Sansa sagged a little, seeing her._

_She was just about to suggest tea when she realized, just as the door itself was thrown open, that she had not latched it securely behind her, and Sansa jumped up from the bed and spun around as the door flew open, heart hammering in her chest._

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._

_They were fucked, and the vow she had just made to Margaery, even if she had not made it allowed, felt like ash in her mouth, for being proven wrong so quickly._

_“What in the seven hells happened here?” Garlan Tyrell demanded, from the doorway, and Sansa felt her heart plummet down into her stomach as he glanced between them. Sansa, almost too afraid to reach out and touch the woman she had never been afraid to touch in the past, and Margaery, shaking like a leaf, covered in bruises._

_And Sansa realized, in that moment, that she had no idea how to salvage this moment. For all the pleasant lies Baelish had just filled her head with, all of his suggestions, as she stood there, the evidence of what had just occurred clear enough just from looking at Margaery, Sansa realized she didn’t know how she would make Garlan believe any of it._

_Garlan’s eyes darkened as he took in the sight of Margaery fully. And then he was moving, turning his back on them without a word and stalking from the room, and that fear in Sansa’s gut turned into a full panic._

_She glanced back at Margaery, terrified at the thought of leaving her like this, in her current state, but knowing that if Garlan walked out that door, by morning, despite Baelish’s best efforts, all of King’s Landing would know the truth of what had happened tonight._

_“Wait!” she cried, without a backward glance at Margaery, and pretended she didn’t notice the way that Margaery’s whole body flinched, at the loud noise, before Sansa left the room._

* * *

 

Elinor screamed, her back arching as the world seemed to go hazy around her, eyesight darkening around the edges. For a moment, she thought that the gods might grant her mercy of finally letting unconsciousness take her, but then another searing pain in her groin shocked her back to wakefulness once more.

“My lady, you have to push,” the woman assisting the maester snapped at her, sounding impatient for all that Elinor knew that a ploy to force this child out of her. The woman’s hand was deep within her already, waiting for the child to crown, and she could see the strain on the other woman’s features, as she felt it pulling at her own.

She wanted to snap at the other woman that she was pushing, damnit, as hard as she could, and that if she pushed any harder she thought she might push out her stomach, as well. She wanted to snap that it hurt, and dear gods, weren’t the maesters supposed to give her something to make this pain hurt a little less?

Out of the corners of her vision, she saw her husband standing in the corner of the room, haphazardly leaned against a cane, and biting on his nails. She wanted to scream at him, too, that this was his fault, surely, for doing this to her in the first place.

But she thought this might been more terrifying, this whole experience, if her husband was not here with her now. If he had died, as the lesson that Olenna had tried to impart would have allowed for.

The thought had her following those instructions, pushing with all of her might even as she felt that her body might break apart from the strain. She had been at this for what felt like hours, was uncertain how much longer she could do this at all.

But she would not lose her child, just as she had not lost her husband. The gods had granted her one miracle, and by the Seven, she would demand another from them as well, if she had to.

She screamed again, as another terrible contraction hit her, as she heard one of the women shouting that she could see the head of Elinor’s child, spurring her to push again, harder than she had at any point in the past.

She felt one of the servants brush up against her, and mourned the loss when the woman kept moving, not bothering to stop and offer Elinor some paltry comfort for all of her hard work.

Normally, that would be the duty of one of the companions Elinor had chosen to sit through the birthing with her, something reserved for her closest friends.

It was unusual, for a woman of Elinor’s status to be alone in her birthing, accompanied solely by the maester and his assistants, and by her husband, which in itself was unusual that he be here at all.

But there were no other ladies huddled around Elinor, as she had always expected as a child, and seen the few times her mother had allowed her to witness a birthing, as she brought her own child into this world.

She felt alone, as her fingers grasped at the sheets beneath her rather than at the hands of girls she had once believed to be her closest friends.

Not even her mother was here.

It was a strange time to feel so alone, but Elinor knew damn well why she was so, just now.

“My lady, push, or this child will die within you!” a woman’s voice was shouting, authoritative for all that she might never dare to speak to Elinor like that in public, no doubt trying to scare Elinor into action, but it worked, and Elinor let out another pained scream as her body raised into the air, and she felt something give way within her, finally.

“Yes!” the servant shouted. “Yes, well done, girl!”

Elinor panted, the words barely registering, flopping back against the bed as her adrenaline gave way easily to exhaustion, as moments later, her ears picked up the sound of a child’s cry, filling the room, and then her husband’s startled, relieved laughter.

“It’s a boy, my lord. The Mother has blessed you,” she heard someone saying, and Elinor’s body sagged with relief further against the pillows beneath her. Her husband was not a rich man, and giving him a boy was the greatest gift that a wife could give her husband, especially with the first child.

A boy.

All of these long months of pain and struggle, and she had finally been rewarded for her efforts.

And not just with the struggle of carrying this child, either, but the struggles that had accompanied that, of dealing with Olenna and Margaery and their wicked games, of dealing with Sansa, of learning that Alyn was still alive, of doing her damnedest to make sure that their family survived the war despite all of Margaery’s best attempts to the contrary.

She panted, flopping back onto the bed she was using for the birthing with no small amount of relief.

Dear gods.

Elinor had known that it would hurt, of course. Had known that bringing a child into this world was one of the hardest things she might ever have to do, but it hadn’t quite been that.

No, the hardest thing she had ever had to do had come months ago.

This...well, this felt like something of a relief, in comparison.

She glanced over at her husband, where he sat on the edge of her bed, after one of the servants had helped him walk over to it, and placed the child into his arms, as the child let out another loud cry, no doubt confused by the world that he had been brought into.

She glanced over at the two of them, at her child, swaddled in the towels that the servants had insisted on bringing in, when her water had broken in, his tiny fists batting at the air, her husband cooing rather adorably over him.

Her husband had been terrified, when she had first told him that she was pregnant, something of a wild surprise for him, since it had been some months since the last that they had seen of each other, and she had thought he would be dead.

Another miracle.

She swallowed hard, the sight of her husband, alive and mostly recovered before her, though he would never walk normally again, holding their child, bringing her nearly to tears.

Dear gods, she didn’t understand what she had done to deserve this, to deserve having her life given back to her, to be granted happiness when she was partially responsible for one of her closest friends losing it.

No, she told herself. No, she would not think about that today.

Today, she had brought a child, a son, into the world, and her husband was alive to see it. That was all that mattered, even if none of her friends had come to see her bring that child into this world.

“Elinor,” Alyn said, and then choked up, his eyes filled with unshed tears as he looked down at her, where he sat beside her on the bed. “Gods, I’m so proud of you. He’s…” he stared down at the child in her arms. Her husband had never been a particularly verbose man, but she could tell that the sight of their child, whole and hale before them, pleased him greatly. “He’s beautiful.”

Elinor sent her husband a hesitant smile, trying to ignore the pain in her loins from what she had just done. Women had been surviving births for years; she would get over it, as soon as that damned maester came back with something to take the edge off.

She glanced down instead at the bundle in her arms, unable to keep from smiling at the sight of the child, her child.

The child that she’d had with the man she loved.

She did not think many women could boast of that, these days.

“Yes,” she whispered, softly. “Yes, he is.” She bit her lip. “He looks just like his father.”

Alyn bent forward, kissing her forehead before reaching out a gentle hand to brush against their child’s forehead, as he looked down at the child between them. “Do you still want to call him Willas?” he asked.

Elinor swallowed hard. A part of her knew that it might be a mistake to go through with the plans that they had made months ago, before everything had turned to shit around them. Before Elinor had thought her husband dead, and Margaery had turned against the grandmother she never would have dared to go against, in the past.

But a part of her welcomed the confrontation that might cause as something, at the very least, to happen to disrupt the uneasiness that had been settling in Elinor’s gut ever since that fateful night when the King had died. At least then, she might know where she stood, in King’s Landing.

“Yes,” she whispered, smiling down at the child in her husband’s arms in lieu of seeing the worry on her husband’s face. “Yes, we should call him Willas. Lady Alerie gave me permission, before I came back to King’s Landing, to do so.”

Alyn smiled at her; they both knew it was not Alerie they might be worried about, if anyone objected to Willas’ name being given to their son.

* * *

“And, you’re dead,” Lady Nym said, with a cold sense of detachment, as Sansa sagged back against the wall, Nym’s spear raised level against her chest, panting hard.

She sighed, waving a hand for Nym to lower the weapon, which the other woman seemed to do only reluctantly. Sansa had a feeling that she would much rather run Sansa through, though Sansa hoped that at this point, after everything they’d been through today, she might at least hesitate.

Nym flashed her a sickly smile, and then pulled back, eying Sansa up and down. “You’re shit at this,” she said. “Should have stuck to embroidery.”

Sansa gritted her teeth, climbing to her feet once more, and holding her sword out again, the sword that Lady Nym insisted she learn how to use, if she was truly going to go through with this, even if she so often mocked Sansa’s ability to use it.

But Nym had had half a lifetime to learn how to use weapons that weren’t made of something as fragile as words, Sansa thought, bitterly, as she raised her sword.

They were in an abandoned courtyard, so that Sansa’s humiliation - or rather, her practice - could not be seen by anyone else, gods forbid someone amongst the Kingsguard, which would be humiliating, more so than Nym’s pointed jabs, Sansa knew.

But this was the courtyard that Margaery had used for her own private use, just outside the Maidenvault, Sansa knew. It was a beautiful place, for, while Margaery had still given a damn about it, she had ensured that so many rose bushes were planted here that it was nearly overflowing.

Now, the rose bushes were an effective shield against Nym, when the other woman sparred with her.

Nym raised her spear again, smirking. “Another round?” she asked, and Sansa bit back a sigh, reaching up to wipe at the sweat on her forehead.

They’d been practicing for the better part of an hour, and Sansa suspected that Nym had needed the chance to release her pent up energy just as much as Sansa did, today.

Neither one of them had spoken of what was to happen in...not so very long now, Sansa realized, brows furrowing together as she glanced up at the sun, shining brightly in the sky. Sansa suspected Nym was just as tight lipped as she was about it for the same reasons, though surely Nym did not know the truth of what had happened that night, the night Joffrey had died, even if she did suspect that there was more to the story than the Crown had admitted.

She licked her lips. “Fine,” she said, because she didn’t want to attend today’s event anymore than Nym did, even if she knew that she would have to be there, while Nym might make some excuse.

Nym grinned, and lunged. Sansa just barely managed to pull herself out of the way of the incoming spear, swearing softly under her breath.

“Not very ladylike,” Nym teased, but she too was sweating. Sansa glanced down at her leg, grimacing in sympathy, but she knew better, after the past few weeks of sparring with this woman, than to ask her if she needed a respite because of her injuries at the hands of Ser Robert Strong.

Nym might actually run her through for asking, rather than just threatening to do so.

And even with her injuries, injuries that, when she had first awoken from her deep sleep, the maesters had told her would prevent her from having quite the same range in fighting that she had once had, Nym was a fierce fighter, far more fierce than Sansa herself.

Sansa supposed that was the difference, in being trained from such a young age by the Viper.

But Sansa did not want to become a fierce fighter. She only wanted, in her new position, to know that she could protect herself.

The way that she hadn’t been able to, when Joffrey was the King. The way that she had not been able to protect Margaery, either.

The thought made her flinch, and Nym took advantage of the moment’s distraction, her spear clipping Sansa’s side and shoving her against the nearest wall. Sansa let out a pained cry, glaring at the other woman.

For once, she was glad that Brienne finally trusted Nym enough to let them spar alone, now. She remembered the beginning of their sparring, when Brienne had come running every time Sansa had cried out, or fallen.

It was part of the reason that Nym was training Sansa now, rather than Brienne. The other being that Nym was just injured enough to put them on nearly equal footing.

Nym did not go easy on her, either, the way that Brienne might have done. She pushed and she pushed, and Sansa let her, wondering how she had ever survived in King’s Landing without this outlet for her frustrations, in the first place.

She was glad that Nym had ever suggested it to her.

And then Nym’s spear was knocking the sword out of Sansa’s hands, pushing her up against the wall, her breaths heavy. Sansa glanced down at the other woman’s leg, and saw how she had twisted it, saw the way it spasmed.

She wondered if Nym had purposely put an end to the fight because of it.

“And you’re dead, again,” Nym said, surprising her by sounding disappointed.

Sansa gave her a small smile, putting her hands up in surrender. “You’re right,” she said. “My head isn’t in it, today.”

Nym gave her another little push against the wall, before she let go of her for good, and Sansa remembered to breathe again, only realizing in that moment that she hadn’t been. Nym let out a little grunt.

“Thinking about the executions we’re already late for, or about Margaery?”

Sansa grimaced. “Does it matter?”

Both were painful thoughts, after all.

They both sagged to the ground, then, Nym leaning back against the courtyard wall and eying Sansa suspiciously, as she squatted on the ground, panting hard.

The sun was beating down on them in earnest, now. They were most certainly late.

Sansa didn’t feel any great hurry to get to her feet, however.

“How is she?” Lady Nym asked, and Sansa furrowed her brows and tried to pretend she didn’t know exactly whom Lady Nym was referring to.

It was not as if there was anyone else lately who had been so...unbalanced.

Sansa grimaced, feeling instantly ashamed for the thought, even if a part of her still whispered that it was true. That, even if she could hardly blame Margaery for it if she were, it was the only explanation for the way she appeared to sleep with her eyes open through Small Council meetings, seemed to spend every moment that she did not have to be elsewhere locked up in her chambers, the ones that had once belonged to Cersei Lannister because they were the only ones Margaery had never been raped in, refusing any and all visitors, the way she seemed to see enemies where before there had been none. The way she didn’t seem to give a single fuck about the goings on of her own kingdom, only of her belly.

And Sansa couldn’t blame her for any of it, not after what had happened.

Not after the way that Sansa had failed to protect her.

And yes, no matter what Brienne had tried to tell her in the days after the King’s death, it had been a failure.

Sansa should never have listened to Margaery when the other woman told her that they ought to just go after Joffrey themselves. Olenna’s plan might have been flawed, and the old woman might have terrified Sansa, but she had known what she was doing, and if they had gone by her plan, none of this would have happened.

Sansa would not have had to push past the Kingsguard standing outside of Joffrey’s door and find…

All that blood. Blood that would forever be on Sansa’s hands, because Sansa hadn’t gotten there early enough. Sansa had been too caught up in saving the life of a boy who wasn’t even alive any longer, because the moment she had brought Lord Baelish into all of this, she had known that he wouldn’t be.

Sansa shut her eyes shut tightly, and when she opened them again, she thought Lady Nym was looking at her in something like sympathy, which was infuriating.

Sansa didn’t want her sympathy.

“She’s…” Sansa knew that whatever had happened in Dorne, beyond Margaery promising the Martells her soul, practically, in exchange for returning to King’s Landing, returning to Sansa, only to pay the ultimate price for it, Lady Nym and Margaery seemed to have formed some sort of bond.

Or, they had, at least, before Lady Nym had nearly gotten herself killed fighting the Mountain, and Margaery had withdrawn so deeply within herself that Sansa now sometimes wondered whether there was anything of the woman Sansa had loved so still within her.

Sansa didn’t know whether Margaery and Nym even spoke anymore, these days, just as Margaery hardly ever spoke to Sansa, save for when she needed to.

That worried Sansa, too, because she didn’t think the other girl was speaking to anyone, if she wasn’t speaking to the two of them.

“She’s pulling through,” Sansa said, which was almost the truth, and the only thing that she could offer Nym about Margaery, at the moment, when she herself didn’t know the answer to that question. “The maesters say that the child is healthy, within her, and that she should have it in the coming months with ease.”

Nym snorted, rolling her eyes. “They also say that the stars tell them it will be a son,” she said, spitting to the side. “Bullshit, if you ask me.”

Sansa shrugged, swallowing hard. She wasn’t as certain of that as the maesters seemed to be, but so far, she had not shared her concerns with anyone. They needed this to be a son, or they were all damned.

By now, Cersei had most certainly learned that her son the King was dead, and if she had not convinced half of the Lords of the Westerlands to crown Tommen already, she was a fool, even with the Tyrell army growing in size every day, even with Kevan Lannister still sitting on the Small Council as the Hand of the King.

Perhaps he knew even more about that than he had claimed, as well, for all that he had happily sworn his fealty to the Regent, until the child was born and its gender could be determined, once and for all.

Sansa just hoped the child didn’t come out a girl, with all of Olyvar and Margaery’s features, obvious to the world.

“That’s not what I meant, though,” Nym said, and Sansa blinked over at her, saw the sweat glistening on Nym’s skin, the tiredness in her features, as she stared out at the rose bushes, rather than Sansa.

The rose bushes were beginning to show the signs of not being tended to, but Sansa loathed the idea of bringing any of the servants here, to this place that had become she and Nym’s secret. Of exposing herself even more to the world.

“I came to see her, the first time after I awoke from the fight with the Mountain?” Nym shrugged, as Sansa’s eyes shot to her face, this time. She still wouldn’t look at Sansa. “She was standing on the ledge in her rooms. I thought she was going to jump.”

Sansa shuddered, her heart beating a little faster, at the thought.

Nym didn’t know the details of what had happened that night; only a few people did, and Sansa may have learned much from sparring and plotting with Nym, but she didn’t quite trust the other woman with that information, yet.

But she was certain that Nym must have suspected, seeing Margaery standing on a ledge like that. She had awoken not long after…

After Joffrey had died, after all. Margaery had still been...fragile, then. Like a teacup that Sansa was still piecing back together.

Spending a few moments alone with the girl not wearing the mask of Regent would be enough for anyone to know what must have happened to her.

“She has a guard with her at all times, now,” Sansa confessed, and didn’t know why her voice was just barely above a whisper. “She sent away her ladies, at first, but I told them never to let her out of their sight, no matter how she screamed at them.” Sansa shrugged, uncomfortably. “I don’t think she’s forgiven me, that.”

And Sansa couldn't even blame her for it, because Margaery had a much better reason to be angry with her, even if this was the one she had chosen to claim.

Nym licked her lips. “Do you think she’s...a danger to herself?” she asked, and Sansa squeezed her eyes shut.

She didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about the way that Margaery had closed in on herself, in the days after Joffrey’s death, as if the very touch of another human might kill her. Didn’t want ot think abotu the fact that they had not shared a bed or a stolen conversation since that night that did not pertain to the Crown, and Sansa missed her lover.

Didn’t want to think about the way Margaery had looked, when Sansa had walked in on her, standing over Joffrey’s mutilated corpse.

“Not anymore,’ Sansa said, softly.

Nym’s eyes widened. Then, “I’m taking a great risk here, Sansa, in taking her side over that of my own family. Bringing the Martell fleet here to protect her,” she reminded Sansa, who certainly hadn’t forgotten that, still didn’t know if Nym was even worthy of her trust. “Make sure she’s worth it.”

Sansa sighed, reaching up and rubbing at her temples. “She’s pregnant with the Heir to the Iron Throne,” she reminded Nym, as if it needed to be repeated. As if Sansa didn’t think about it every minute of every day. “You don’t need to worry about her hurting herself.”

Nym grunted. “I’d better not,” she said, harshly, but Sansa thought she saw something like pity in Nym’s eyes, anyway.

Sansa chewed on her lower lip, before adding, “She’s stronger than you think.”

Stronger than any of them had thought, Sansa thought, albeit nervously, thinking of the way that Margaery had managed to pull herself together, the morning after she’d butchered her own husband, and led them to this moment.

It had been brave, had been something that Sansa wasn’t entirely certain she could manage, after seeing the way she had reacted to Joffrey’s death, to what Joffrey had done to her.

But here they were.

There was a knock on the door leading from the Keep out into the courtyard, and both girls looked up as Megga Tyrell stuck her head out, squinting at them for a moment before rolling her eyes fondly, and calling over her shoulder, “Never mind, I found them.”

Sansa bit back another sigh, shielding her eyes as she glanced up at the sky again.

“It’s time,” Megga said, glancing between the two of them.

Yes, Sansa supposed it was.

Nym got to her feet with some strain then, sending Megga a smirk that had Sansa raising her eyebrows.

She had no idea when that had happened, only that the two of them seemed almost inseparable, these days. Rumor had it...Well, Alla said, Megga had been by Nym’s bedside every day while she had been in danger of never waking again, after fighting the Mountain.

Clearly, that had not changed even after Nym had awoken, even if Nym sometimes seemed annoyed by her constant shadow.

Sansa thought it might be good for them.

Her heart ached a little at the small pang of jealousy she felt, when she saw the smirk Megga returned to Nym.

Sansa huffed, exchanging her own glance with Nym. She thought that she saw the same level of reluctance in Nym’s eyes as she herself felt, but it lasted only a moment, before the other woman got to her feet and held a hand out to Sansa.

Sansa clenched her jaw, taking the hand and allowing Nym to pull her to her feet.

“Are you ready?” Nym asked, cocking her head at Sansa.

Sansa shrugged. Whether she was ready or not, this had to be done, after all.

Megga shot Sansa a look that was far more sympathetic and less wolfish than the one she had sent Nym. “Margaery’s already there,” she told Sansa, and Sansa flinched, before nodding.

Once upon a time, she mgiht have known that even before Megga.

Nym shot her another concerned look, one which Sansa pretended not to see as she passed the two of them and walked through the door, back into the Keep. She could hear their quiet footfalls behind her, but did not bother to turn around and wait for them.

* * *

Rosamund grimaced as she watched Lady Nym and Lady Sansa walk late out onto the steps of the Keep, when she knew, as few did, that Lady Sansa had been the one to insist on this particular execution, to all but put it together, in the first place.

There were few in King’s Landing who seemed to realize the power that Sansa Stark had over such things these days, though Rosamund suspected that was exactly how the other woman wanted it.

It seemed that she was learning much from the rather unholy alliance she had begun with a man who might as well be the Stranger himself, for all of the stories Rosamund had ever heard about him.

After all, it was far easier to underestimate someone when one didn’t know the power they had at all, and very few in King’s Landing seemed to understand the reach of Sansa’s power, to their own folly.

Still, Rosamund sighed a little at her lady’s tardiness, at the disapproving looks she received from the other members of the Small Council, as she joined them high up on the steps outside of the Keep, hovering above the crowd of angry smallfolk beneath them, all of them muttering to themselves, a loud, large crowd to watch the proceedings.

Even having this execution was a dangerous risk, Rosamund knew. The smallfolk had made it more than clear that they sympathized with the High Sparrow, when he had first spoken out against the King, and Rosamund did not think much had changed, with his death. The Slaughter of the Sept of Baelor was still fresh in their minds, another reminder that they were Other than the Crown.

One of the first things Margaery - well, Sansa - had done after Joffrey’s death was to remove the High Sparrow’s head from the gates and bury it with the rest of his remains, lest the people throw another fit, because of it, though Rosamund did not think that had been enough, even without another High Septon having yet been appointed.

And now, they were executing even more Sparrows.

Nym moved to her place within the Kingsguard, silently, and her tardiness was not nearly as noted as that of a member of the Small Council, and such a young one, at that. It might have been, though, if Margaery had not so recently named Nym as one of the Kingsguard, over the objections of well, everyone.

Lady Sansa took her place almost directly beside where the Queen stood, on the top step, surrounded by the Kingsguard, without a word, dipping her head to Margaery as she did so, and Rosamund did not fail to notice the way that her eyes caught Baelish’s, as she moved.

The Queen stood tall amongst her Kingsguard, her head held high, and her hair pulled up tightly around her head, in an elaborate set of braids that reminded Rosamund of the way she’d had them on her wedding day.

She wore a flowing black gown, with long sleeves and a hem that swept past her ankles, despite the heat of the noon day, a symbol of her mourning for her husband, though it had been some months since then, she was loathe to wear any other color, Rosamund thought.

The gown was slightly offset by the protrusion of her pregnant belly, and the golden armor glinting around her breasts and shoulders, literally protecting her from any attackers.

That reminded Rosamund rather of Cersei, though the gown, for all that it covered every inch of Margaery, from chin to ankles, was all Reach styles.

Below the Queen, her Small Council and guard, on the bottom steps of the Keep, were the traitors slated for execution, today.

Rosamund grimaced.

Rosamund knew well enough to keep her head down, with everything that she knew and saw in King’s Landing, for all that the knowledge plagued her. Her mistress had made it clear what would be done to her, should she have loose lips ever again, after the way that she had testified against Oberyn Martell, and she did not intend to suffer such a fate.

Sansa Stark would not allow her a quick, peaceful death, but she could make things much worse for Rosamund, as well. Rosamund had learned that well enough in the dungeons at Cersei’s command, the plaything of her pet maester.

But even if she knew not to notice the things around her too closely, Rosamund couldn’t help but notice the...particular closeness that had developed between her lady Sansa and Lord Baelish, since the event of the King’s death. Sansa had forbidden Rosamund from asking after it, but after the amount of times that she had seen Baelish coming and going from Sansa’s chambers in the Maidenvault, she had been able to intuit rather much, to her own misfortune.

She remembered one night, not so very long ago, when she had entered Sansa’s chambers just as Baelish was pressing a gentle, possessive kiss to Sansa’s temple, and Sansa had screamed at her to get out.

Later, when Baelish was gone, she had been summoned to Sansa’s chambers, and Sansa told her in no uncertain terms that this was not one of the things she wanted Rosamund writing to Cersei about, back at the Rock.

Rosamund hadn’t been planning on it.

She hadn’t bothered guessing about their strange relationship since the King’s death, beyond that.

It was not the only perk of the King’s death that Lord Baelish seemed to have profited from, Rosamund thought, and wondered where her bitterness at the thought came from, when it was not as if she cared overmuch for Sansa Stark, the girl who wouldn’t let her die.

Maybe it was just the thought of a man having that much power over a woman, after the amount of power men had had over her, in the Black Cells.

Baelish sent Lady Sansa a secretive smile, and Rosamund grimaced again, looking down at her hands because it was better than watching that.

Petyr Baelish. Now there was a man who seemed to have profited above any other, from the death of King Joffrey. By gods that Rosamund no longer believed in, he was practically Hand of the King now, even if that title still officially belonged to Kevan Lannister.

Of course, that was merely because divesting him of the title would merely send the Lannisters packing, and her lady seemed...uncertain, in how she wanted to deal with them, especially when there was no telling how Cersei might be reacting to all of this, back in King’s Landing.

There had been no official response, when they had sent ravens to the Westerlands, letting them know of King Joffrey’s death, though Sansa had confessed to Rosamund that she hadn’t expected one.

There had been no response to Rosamund’s missive to Cersei, either, as she sent her letter informing the other woman that Tyrion Lannister had fled King’s Landing at the same time of Joffrey’s death.

Arianne Martell had sent her condolences, for all that Sansa seemed to believe them halfhearted at best, but there had been nothing from the Rock.

The Westerlands was waiting, with bated breath, to see how Cersei Lannister would respond, before any of them promised to bend the knee to this newest king.

Because they all feared how Cersei might react to such betrayal. What she might do, in response, and the longer she stayed quiet, the more concerned they seemed to grow.

Rosamund may not be astute at politics, something that she had never disputed, not when she had testified against Oberyn Martell and certainly not before that, but she understood that as much.

She understood a healthy fear of Cersei Lannister.

The herald standing before the prisoners called for quiet, then, and the smallfolk seemed to still, at those words.

The Kingsguard around Margaery shifted.

Rosamund understood that there had been some concern about her attending this execution at all, with the way that the smallfolk seemed to have rallied behind the Sparrows up until this point, with the flimsiness of the Crown’s excuse in killing them, but in the end, it had been decided that she had to attend.

After all, if she did not attend, she risked the smallfolk wondering if she disapproved of the execution, and the Crown could not have that.

The herald started to speak, then, and Rosamund cleared her head as she pretended she was nothing more than the vapid serving girl of her lady, that she didn’t very much suspect the innocence of the men before her, as he shouted out to the crowd.

“These men, the last remnants of that fanatical, traitorous cult known as the Sparrows, have been tried in accordance with the law, and found guilty of treason, and the murder of King Joffrey of House Baratheon, First of His Name, after being let into the Red Keep by Tyrion of the House Lannister, a known collaborator against the King. They have confessed, and shall be sentenced to death by hanging.”

The herald turned then to the Queen, and Rosamund bit back a grimace as the whole crowd seemed to turn to her then, with bated breath.

Perhaps most of them, Rosamund thought, were too far away to see the paleness of her features, the way that her hand shook, at her side, before Sansa reached out and snatched it in her own, holding it tightly.

Rosamund swallowed hard.

She wondered if the rest of King’s Landing was truly so blind as to not see what she did, every time that she looked at them. Every time they looked at each other. It was so damn obvious to Rosamund, after all.

Margaery stepped forward, then, head held high as she dropped Sansa’s hand and placed her hand on her heavy stomach.

“In the name of the King,” Margaery said, and her voice was shaking a little too much for a queen. The people shifted restlessly below the steps of the Keep, and Margaery cleared her throat. “For treason, the Father’s judgment is clear; you are to be hung by the neck until dead, on the outer walls of the city, so that all may know your judgment. I, Margaery of House Tyrell, Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, in the name of the Heir, sentence you to death.”

Someone in the crowd let out a scream of horror, at the Queen’s words, and then someone still, a woman, no doubt a mother or wife to one of the men on the stairs, cried out, “Mercy, Your Grace!”

Rosamund doubted any of them would have dared or bothered to do so, had any of the men on the steps been members of the nobility.

But these were men of the people, smallfolk who had been rounded up by the Kingsguard and arrested for their treason in sneaking into the Keep of dead night, some months ago, and butchering the King in front of his queen.

It had taken this long to round all of them up, and even the woman screaming for it must have realized that there would be no mercy for these men, today.

Margaery stepped back, again, and Rosamund was certain she couldn’t have been the only person to notice the way that Margaery reached out of her own volition to snatch up Sansa’s hand, this time, and squeeze it until Rosamund could see Sansa’s hand turning white.

The nooses, hanging from a hastily constructed wooden structure at the bottom of the steps, this one surrounded by Green Cloaks meant to keep the smallfolk from interfering, were tied around the necks of the traitors, one at a time.

They were only smallfolk, and so they were not given last words, only the tired voice of a septon giving them last rites in the silence of their deaths, as the smallfolk waited without a word to watch each man lose his life to the noose.

Margaery and Sansa’s hands parted, with the last gurgling breath of the final man in the line of ten who had been executed this day, and Rosamund glanced away, somehow uncomfortable by the intimacy in that touch, for all that their fingers had only touched for a few moments.

Margaery was the first to turn away, her eyes hooded and downcast as she all but fled the steps of the Keep without actually doing so, her Kingsguard following hesitantly behind her.

Sansa stared after her, and a part of Rosamund wanted to scream at the both of them, wanted to scream at them that they were being too damn obvious, that they were being foolish, doing this, but she held her tongue, didn’t dare speak up. Anyone could look at them, as, indeed, Rosamund was doing right now, and know exactly what they were to each other.

Know exactly what they had done together, when they were staring at each other just like that, after killing those supposedly responsible for Margaery’s husband’s death.

Oh, Rosamund had no proof, of course, that the official story was not the truth of what had happened that night. She could not go to anyone with her suspicions, not even Cersei, even if she had wanted to. Tyrion Lannister had damned himself enough by fleeing on the night of the King’s death; the Queen Mother might be mad, but Rosamund did not think that even she would believe her, not when she loathed her brother so.

But Rosamund had spent every day in the company of Sansa Stark, since the King’s death. Had spent everyday brushing her hair while Sansa Stark stared at herself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Had spent every day watching her sigh over Margaery Tyrell from afar, because the other woman kept pushing her away, save for those days when she clung to her with all of the vigor of a drowning woman.

Rosamund knew what she saw, and she could say nothing about it, because Sansa Stark had dragged her into this life, now, just as assuredly as she had dragged the rest of King’s Landing into it.

And Rosamund worried about what might finally drag them out, when the rest of King’s Landing realized what those longing looks between those two young women actually meant, as she had.

She glanced up; Petyr Baelish, who had enjoyed far too much prestige since the King’s death, was staring directly at her, and Rosamund quickly ducked her head, not wanting to meet that probing gaze as she turned and followed after her mistress.

But then she paused, seeing the way that Sansa had stopped just inside the doorway of the Keep, despite the way that the smallfolk were beginning to mutter a bit too loudly amongst themselves, even as many of them dispersed.

Garlan Tyrell, wearing the thin green cloak of House Tyrell, stepped up to Sansa, placing a far too proprietary hand on her shoulder and leaning down to whisper something into her ear. Margaery had already disappeared within the Keep, but Sansa’s face went rather pale when Garlan whispered whatever it was he was saying to her.

Rosamund chewed the inside of her cheek, trying not to react, trying to hang behind without looking like she was waiting for her mistress.

And she tried very much to pretend that she did not notice the way that Petyr Baelish was watching Garlan and Sansa, his face pulling down into a disapproving scowl that he didn’t seem to realize anyone could see.


	4. King's Landing

_“Lady Sansa, of House Stark,” Margaery said, and her voice was light and musical as it filled the Great Hall, from where she sat atop the Iron Throne._

_Sansa pretended nervousness, as she stepped forward, until she came to a stop in the middle of the throne room and dropped into a deep curtsey before the Iron Throne._

_“Your Grace,” she said, and tried not to focus on how many eyes were on her, at the moment._

_So many of them nobles who had witnessed, time and time again, Sansa’s humiliation at the hands of the Lannisters, at the hands of the one who had sat on the Iron Throne before Margaery._

_None of them had said anything then, and none of them were saying anything as she was brought before the Iron Throne now._

_She licked her lips, glancing up at Margaery._

_Margaery, who looked fierce where she sat on the throne, her stomach finally protruding with the signs of her pregnancy, signs that twelve maesters a day told her were going well, that the child was as healthy as could possibly be expected, at this stage. Her face, harsh and lined in a way that it had not been when Margaery had first met Sansa, seemed to stand out against the bright lighting of the throne room._

_She wore the gown of a warrior, not a queen, dark, Lannister colors today, with harsh metal armor plating her breasts and her shoulders, where her clothes had always been silk and left so little to the imagination, in the past._

_The outfit today reminded Sansa of one that Cersei had taken to wearing after they had been attacked in Flea Bottom, one of the few outward symbols the other woman had let show of her vulnerability._

_Sansa wondered if Margaery was realizing that same vulnerability, now._

_She did not smile, as she took in the sight of Sansa, curtseying before her. As she gestured for Sansa to stand once more._

_“Lady Sansa,” she said, and her eyes were hard; Sansa could read nothing in them, but that was the point. No matter what Margaery felt outside of this throne room, she could not allow it to be guessed on her face the moment she walked through these doors._

_The moment she walked through these doors, she was a queen._

_That was the arrangement, and it was as much as Margaery could do, Sansa knew that, but godsdamnit, at least she was doing it._

_So long as she put on the show, they could survive this, Sansa knew._

_“You have continuously shown your loyalty to the Crown throughout these many years that you have spent in King’s Landing,” Margaery told her, voice ringing out through the Great Hall. “Even in the face of your own family’s treasons.”_

_Sansa flinched._

_“For this exemplary loyalty, it is the opinion of the Crown that you ought to be rewarded,” Margaery continued. “As such, you will be honored with the title of advisor to the Small Council.”_

_Shocked whispers rang through the crowd, but then, they had been expecting this, Sansa knew._

_Sansa’s heart was hammering in her chest, for all that this appointment had hardly come as a surprise. Hells, it had been her idea. But still, there was something about reaching for a power that had long been denied to her, and finding it so easily within her grasp, that made Sansa nervous._

_Still, Sansa glanced nervously over at Baelish, where he stood in the crowd. He sent her a subtle nod, one that she was sure only Lord Varys noticed, from where he was watching the other man like a hawk._

_They had to take care of that, as well. Varys had been watching Baelish ever more since the King’s death; if he began to suspect anything...if he knew something certain…_

_“This does not come with a title,” Margaery continued calmly, over the whispers, “But is an honor, nonetheless, for a woman, as it has not been given to a woman who was not Queen Mother in many years, if at all.”_

_Yes, as they had discussed._

_Margaery was...Margaery was putting on a good show right now, sitting tall on the Iron Throne with one hand on her pregnant belly, but the moment she walked out of these doors and knew that she was no longer being watched, Sansa knew, the truth would out, as it inevitably did._

_Baelish had already been sending Sansa alarming warnings, about Margaery’s behavior during the Small Council meetings. She was hardly paying attention to a word said around her, signing whatever was placed before her, as long as it first went before Baelish, and acting generally listless._

_They needed a Regent right now that they could trust to act in their best interest; the Small Council were subjects just as much as the smallfolk, after all. The moment they realized how little Margaery was actually governing at the moment, they would panic._

_This appointment was meant to help alleviate some of that panic. To, at the very least, make Margaery seem a bit more in control of her actions._

_To make sure that Sansa had access to as much of the information that she could get, in valuable time. They were finding that to be the biggest hiccup so far, after all. The Small Council might learn of something hours before Sansa did, and even with Baelish and Garlan on the Small Council, that was hours they would never get back._

_Pycelle, then, stepped forward, clearing his throat. “And with...good reason, Your Grace,” he said, and Sansa found herself grinding her teeth, for she had not even been allowed to thank the Queen for granting her this position and already, someone was trying to take it away from her._

_Typical._

_“Lady Sansa is little more than a girl, and besides that, the daughter of traitors, the sister of traitors,” Pycelle lumbered on, and Sansa found herself trying hard not to roll her eyes. “To allow her a seat on the Small Council, any seat, is to court danger, Your Grace.”_

_Margaery glanced down, examining her nails, and ti took everything within Sansa, then, not to clear her throat loudly in reminder to the other girl._

_It was all well and good that she made it known her...grief, on the Small Council, but to show it before so many people now…_

_Pycelle cleared his throat, clearly trying to regain the Queen’s attention, though Sansa pitied the man for trying to do so as well, where Kevan Lannister was not only not trying to object to the position, but was not even present in the Great Hall for the announcement, one that had already been discussed with both he and Lord Baelish, of course._

_Sansa sometimes wondered what a man like Grandmaester Pycelle gained from all of this. It was clear what Kevan Lannister gained; his niece was no doubt clamoring for a war, back in Casterly Rock while her son was not even yet buried. That was a foregone conclusion, and one that they were even now preparing for, though they had yet to announce anything, and neither had Cersei._

_But Kevan had to know it was a possibility, and so he remained as the Hand of the King, at Margaery’s invitation after the news of her husband’s death got out, because he knew the value in keeping an alliance, especially with a child supposed to be Joffrey’s, when Tommen was also only supposed to be Robert’s._

_But Pycelle… Pycelle, Sansa remembered from her time with Tyrion, had always been Cersei’s creature, and her father’s before her. He had no reason to stand alongside House Tyrell when Cersei would be declaring war at any moment, on any grounds she could find, and they all knew it._

_The calm before the storm._

_She wondered how the Tyrells had gotten to him, as well, for him to appear so...comfortable here. Sansa knew that he had been moved into even better rooms, since the King’s death, to honor his position as Grandmaester._

_Still, he was questioning the Queen, and if he were anyone else, Sansa would have been less concerned about it._

_“Yes, I am well aware,” Margaery said, coldly, as she looked up at Pycelle and the old man seemed to shrink in on himself. “But as I have just explained, I believe the Lady Sansa to have demonstrated her remarkable loyalty to the Crown in spite of her family’s...loyalties, or lack thereof, in the past. She was well trusted by my lord husband, for her valuable insight into his enemies, as well as her insight in other matters, pertaining to the North, and I would share that insight than remain blinded to it. Are you questioning my judgment, now?”_

_A dangerous silence fell over the room._

_They all, everyone in this room, knew what it had meant to question Joffrey’s judgment, if one’s name was not Tywin Lannister._

_Margaery was not her husband, but the hushed scare that fell over the crowd at the question made it clear that many in the room had not forgotten that instant fear, at the thought of what their king might do if provoked in the least, nor indeed that up until his dying breath, Margaery had remained at her husband’s side throughout such tyranny._

_“Of course not, Your Grace,” Pycelle said, clearing his throat even as he continued to dig his own grave. “But this has not been discussed amongst the members of your Small Council. Perhaps if Your Grace had more information…”_

_“My lord husband, may he rest eternally in peace,” Margaery said, a shadow falling over her features, “Hardly, if ever, consulted his Small Council before his marriage to me, and afterwards, only because of my own intervention. I know well their uses; I did not think it prudent to utilize them in this case. Sansa of House Stark shall be a member of the Small Council, because I trust her not to bow and scrape before me, as she did not before my husband, while still offering her loyalty.”_

_Silence._

_Pycelle dipped his head again. “As Your Grace commands,” he said, and Margaery sent him a far too bright smile._

_If that smile had belonged to Joffrey, the room would have been right ot be afraid._

_And then Margaery was dismissing them all, like they were nothing but her servants, which, in a way, Sansa supposed they were._

_But she also knew that they couldn't afford to make any of these nobles feel that they were being used, that they were not respected by their Regent, when she was clinging to the throne by such a thin thread._

_A throat cleared behind her, and Sansa jumped a little as she turned around, eyes blown wide as she looked up into the dark eyed of Lord Baelish, because of course he was right there, behind her, the moment she could be alone again._

_He was always there, ready and waiting for her. Waiting for her to fulfill the promise that she had made to him._

_“Congratulations, Lady Sansa,” Petyr said then, reaching out to take her hand in his, and kissing it with all of the gentleness and intimacy of a lover._

_It was all Sansa could do not to pull away at the touch, blushing as she realized how many people were watching them, just now._

_“Lord Baelish,” she dipped her head to him. “It...It is an honor I am uncertain that I have earned.”_

_Baelish scoffed, at that. “You have earned it more than many of us, my lady,” he told her._

_She wondered if he meant that because of the many things that she had suffered since her time at court had begun, or because she had killed the previous king and was sleeping with - well, had been sleeping with - the current one._

_She forced a smile, all the same. “My thanks, Lord Baelish.”_

_He moved forward, then, the better to whisper in her ear, “We need to speak, later,” and Sansa bit back a sigh._

_Of course they did, because the Realm could never sleep, it seemed._

_“Of course,” she told him, forcing another smile._

* * *

Trystane didn’t know why they were still bothering to invite him to Small Council meetings. His seat, the seat that he had inherited from his uncle, who had inherited it from his father, had been given to his cousin, Lady Nym, even if she was now an honorary member of the Kingsguard.

But the Small Council still included him, apparently, as a new seat had been created for Dorne, the Queen Regent insistent that Dorne be better represented, here. The one time that he had refused to come to these meetings, in the wake of Joffrey’s death, his cousin had arrived at his door, all but ready to drag him there herself.

Which would have been quite a feat, considering her recent injuries, but Trystane had felt just guilty enough to go, at the thought. And had gone every time, since, for the little good his presence offered.

The old men of the Small Council didn’t seem like they knew why he was there, either, especially after the way that he had outright challenged the King, just before his death.

And hadn’t that been fun, being led down to the Black Cells which he had been forced to live in for some time just because Joffrey disliked his marriage to Myrcella, and rather politely interrogated on whether or not he knew of any of the secret passageways that the traitors might have used to enter the Keep.

Trystane wasn’t a fool; he knew of them, because Myrcella had shown them to him, when the two of them were trying to pretend that their lives didn’t belong to her mad brother, while she was still here to keep him company, but he hadn’t said as much.

He’d claimed that he had no idea about such passageways, and asked yet again that he might be permitted to write to his sister and beg her help for him here, for all the good he might have thought it would do him.

She had not responded to his past three attempts, after all, though she had allowed Myrcella to write him in turn, letting him know that she was safe, and that she missed him.

Trystane’s heart ached a bit, at the reminder. He did not blame Myrcella for leaving him here, either because she had truly believed her uncle was taking her to the Rock or because his cousins had absconded back to the Dorne with her. He would not have wanted her to remain here with Joffrey, either, in the worsening moods he’d had near the end of his life, but still, it pained Trystane, to be stuck here while Myrcella was back home, in Dorne.

Gods, how he missed her.

That was not to say that his current captors were cruel. On the contrary; they were strangely kind to him, allowing him free reign throughout the place after their first interrogation, because, they’d explained, or rather, some faceless guard had done so, he had challenged the King to single combat just weeks before.

He was just not allowed to leave the Keep, not allowed to go out to the harbor where the Martell fleet might actually pick him up and take him back to Dorne, his sister be damned for leaving him here in the first place.

He sighed, flicking at a fly that had landed on the table in front of him, and earning the Grandmaester’s sharp look of disapproval.

Gods, it was damnably hot in here, and Trystane hated the feeling of being cooped up, these days, even if the Black Cells had been cold, not hot.

In the days after his questioning, it had been determined by the Crown that a conveniently absent Tyrion Lannister must have been the one to let the traitors into the Keep.

He sighed, leaning back into his chair at the Small Council table. No one glanced his way; sometimes, he thought the old men here were trying to pretend that he did not exist at all. He certainly never disabused them of the notion by bothering to speak up during these meetings.

He knew better than to think his opinion might be wanted, for all that the Regent and Lady Nym insisted on his presence.

Trystane sometimes amused himself, at these incredibly boring meetings during which old men argued about the things that didn’t matter, such as whether the fanatics who had killed their king ought to be beheaded or hanged, rather than worrying about what Stannis Baratheon or his sister might be up to, with wondering whether the fragile truce that the Regent insisted on with Dorne was because she had fucked his sister.

He glanced over at her, where Margaery Tyrell sat at the head of the Small Council table, looking just as bored as he felt but hiding it far less, slouched in her chair and picking at the dirt the servants had not been able to remove from her nails.

She was more Lady Nym’s type than Arianne’s, he thought finally, wondering how the dirt had gotten there in the first place.

He wondered if that armor she was wearing over her dark black gown, which covered far too much of her for the weather today, hurt, after so many hours.

He wondered if her apathy, since her husband’s death, was just as put on as his own. After all, he was beginning to wonder if he would ver leave this place, and while he knew better than to speak up at these meetings, listening to what he could was important, he knew.

Learning how to survive here, if his sister really had abandoned him to this place and his cousin didn’t care to liberate him from it, would be important.

“Well,” Lord Kevan, current Hand of the King in a rather thankless job, considering the Regent’s apathy towards the Crown these days, cleared his throat finally, breaking the silence. They’d been sitting in silence for far too long, for Trystane’s comfort. “Perhaps we should begin without the Lady Sansa.”

There was a chorus of agreement around the table, and, when heads turned her way, Margaery Tyrell at least appeared aware enough to nod her approval.

Lady Sansa. Now there, Trystane thought, was another example of a placeholder created on the Small Council, a way of keeping seats out of the hands of the Lannisters. Trystane might not be totally adept at politics, but he had figured out that as much about his own appointment.

Sansa Stark was perhaps the last person either the Tyrells or the Lannisters would have wanted on the Small Council, and yet, she came every time there was a meeting, granted an official seat because the Regent had demanded as much, it was rumored.

She did not speak, during any of these meetings, merely sat beside the Queen and made everyone wonder why she was there, face grave, listening intently to those around her.

Today, seeing the Queen’s apparent apathy toward her Small Council at all - Trystane had the pleasure of watching his cousin all but drag her to this meeting, after the execution - Trystane wondered if Sansa Stark wasn’t, perhaps, the Queen’s ears.

Now there was a frightening thought, that the girl who had once looked to his uncle as a savior had so easily managed to befriend Joffrey Baratheon’s wife.

Kevan began to list off the most pressing issues facing the Crown, and Trystane listened with half a care, because he knew that his father would have been angry to see him paying so little attention to the world around him, but Trystane could not bring himself to care about anything overmuch that did not concern Dorne.

And, specifically, his returning to it.

“The most pressing matter of state is, of course, the funeral ceremony,” Kevan said, and Margaery blinked almost owlishly at him.

“What about it?” she asked, darkly. “Now that those who murdered our king have been apprehended and punished, I intend to go ahead with it.”

Kevan grimaced. “Your Grace,” he said, in a patient, almost condescending tone, “There remains some...confusion, about how to go ahead with the funeral.”

Margaery raised an eyebrow, looking...more alert, now, as she glanced over to where Baelish sat beside her, Sansa Stark’s empty chair between them. “Go on,” she said, calmly enough.

Kevan pressed his lips together. “It has been the tradition to inter the King in the Sept of Baelor at the time of their death,” he said. “Given the circumstances, King Joffrey’s body was left in his own chambers for seven days while it was prepared for burial, but the funeral never took place while we waited for those who had murdered the King to be apprehended.”

If Kevan Lannister disbelieved a word of the official story surrounding the King’s death, it did not show on his face.

Trystane eyed him. He didn’t seem torn about the King’s death, either, and even if Trystane couldn’t imagine anyone was, it seemed...strange that he would not be, even a little. That he was so levelheaded.

“And his body was placed in the Tower of the Hand,” Margaery pointed out. “Yes, I am aware.”

Kevan looked slightly frustrated, glancing over at the other members of the Small Council before saying, “But now that your vow to apprehend his murderers has been upheld, his body must either be returned to the Stormlands, or buried here, in the Sept. There will be questions, otherwise.”

Margaery raised a brow. “Returned to the Stormlands?” she asked, and Trystane sucked in a breath. Baelish shot her a furious glance. She shrugged. “It...My husband’s body should be interred in the Sept. It is what he would want. He was always...so intrigued, by the Targaryen remains there. I think he would appreciate joining them.”

Baelish was grinding his teeth so loudly that Trystane could hear it from across the table.

Kevan eyed the Queen. “Your Grace, considering the King’s most recent actions against the Sept, many of us feel that it would be...unwise, to place him there, lest the people riot while the funeral procession takes him there, or his body be mutilated.”

Margaery did snort, at that.

This time, Trystane thought he saw his cousin kick her under the table.

He didn’t look at his cousin, though. Didn’t want to meet her eyes and see the confusing lack of answers, there. Didn’t want to ask her why she had insisted on getting him a seat on the Small Council if he was meant to keep silent, why she couldn’t intercede with his sister for him to go home.

He no longer knew if he could trust her.

The only reason he knew she was not pocketing his letters to Arianne and Myrcella, when he asked her to send them for him, as he could not do so himself, was because Myrcella responded, as infrequent as those missives were.

He resisted a smirk, himself, wondering how the Regent was going to save herself from this one.

He had gone to see the King, in the seven days that his body was being prepared for burial, before his Queen had visited him on that last day and insisted that she would not see her husband buried until those who had killed him were brought to justice.

Looking back, he wondered if his visit was the reason anyone had remembered the way he had threatened the King in the first place.

But it was because of that visit that he understood the Queen’s humor. After those seven days had ended, the King’s body had been placed somewhere secret and guarded by a member of the Kingsguard at every hour, but Trystane had seen it, then.

What was left of it was not a pretty sight

Finally, Trystane had thought vindictively, as he looked down on it, Myrcella’s brother looked as ugly on the outside as he truly was on the inside.

“I’m sorry,” Margaery said then, sucking in air. She had grown very pale. “But those...traitorous fanatics brutalized my husband, before his death. There is not much more of him to mutilate, and so I find your choice of the word...surprising.”

There was an awkward silence from the men around the table. They did not seem to know what to do with a woman’s grief.

Kevan dipped his head. “My apologies, Your Grace.”

The men around the table repeated this, as well.

Margaery sighed, reaching up and running a hand through her hair. It had been short, Trystane remembered, when she had first arrived here.

It looked better, then.

“Ensure that there are one hundred soldiers following the funeral procession,” she decreed, “So that the smallfolk do not get any ideas. And see to it that a guard remains with the King’s body, if necessary, but he will be buried in the Sept as Kings were before him, and shall be after. If the septons object, remind them why it would be in their best interests not to.”

Trystane saw Varys and Baelish exchanging glances.

Then, surprising the whole table, Margaery continued, “Lord Baelish, you will see to these arrangements?”

Every eye in the room turned to Baelish.

Then, slowly, the Grandmaester wheezed, “Your Grace, as Hand of the King, surely Lord Kevan ought to be placed in charge of…”

Margaery raised a hand, cutting him off. “I have asked this burden of Lord Baelish. Do you question your Regent?”

Trystane sucked in a silent breath, interested despite himself, now.

The Queen may have been outwardly dignified for all her silence, in every Small Council meeting since her husband’s death, but this had been the first Small Council meeting where he actually found her interesting.

Before this moment, he had thought her sharp enough to have plotted...something, with his sister, for Arianne to have sent her back here, but still something of a vapid creature, content to allow the larger politics of everything into the hands of her counselors.

She’d never put so much interest into anything they’d brought before her until now, besides rounding up the men who had murdered her husband, a husband Trystane didn’t think she’d cared for anymore than he had, for all that she might have been able to hide it better.

And, incidentally, this was also the first Small Council meeting Sansa Stark had not attended.

The Grandmaester cleared his throat. “I...No, Your Grace.”

Margaery turned sharp eyes over to Baelish. He dipped his head in acceptance.

“Your Grace honors me with a weighty charge. I will see to it that your faith is not misplaced,” he told her, and Trystane had to resist the urge to roll his eyes, not entirely certain why giving this particular charge to Baelish, rather than the Hand of the King, was so important.

Baelish did not look at all surprised by the Queen’s appointment, after all.

He supposed it had something to do with the fact that besides being Hand of the King, Kevan Lannister was actually Joffrey’s family, while Baelish was not.

But the Queen had been affording more and more honors to Baelish, of late, sometimes with a purpose, sometimes seemingly randomly.

Trystane had not wondered before today if there was some pattern to the randomness, all the same.

But Baelish was, without a doubt, the one man who had benefited the most from the King’s death, Trystane knew. While Randyl Tarly and half a dozen other Houses loyal to the Tyrells had suddenly found themselves with seats on the Small Council, Baelish had found himself with all of the titles and honors that belonged to a man who had not yet been named Hand ofthe King.

Trystane would not be surprised if it came soon, though, especially when House Tyrell shared such little love with House Lannister, and House Lannister would be stupid not to fight a babe in the womb’s claim to the throne.

Margaery nodded to him. “You will have my thanks and more if you can make my husband’s ceremony...memorable,” she told him.

Trystane privately thought that they ought to have just buried Joffrey when they executed all those men. It would have been the sort of ceremony he might have liked, after all.

“Very well,” Kevan said, and Trystane wondered why, if it mattered so much to the others on the Small Council, he had not tried to contest the Queen’s decision. “As for the Westerlands…”

Margaery yawned and sat back in her seat again, displaying her usual amount of boredom at the reminder of the Westerlands. Now, though, Trystane wondered if it was because she was truly uncaring, or she only wanted her Small Council to believe so.

He didn’t know what sort of game she was playing, but he almost wanted to lean across the table and let her know that it wasn’t having its intended effect; Trystane might not be included amongst their inner circles, but he knew damn well that the Small Council found its new Regent borderline incompetent, at best.

If Sansa Stark was not present at these Small Council meetings, of course.

“There has still been no word from Stannis Baratheon, since he and my nephew, the Lord Commander, traveled North after they made their truce at the Rock,” Kevan continued, undaunted by the Queen’s apparent lack of interest.

Trystane raised an eyebrow, because while the Queen seemed to find this new vein of discussion boring, he found it rather fascinating.

Joffrey had sent his uncle (ha!) to the Westerlands to wrest them out of the hands of Stannis Baratheon, if it came to that, once House Lefford had allowed the Baratheon army through their gates. Trystane only truly cared about that because Myrcella had gone with Jaime, at first, before his wretched cousins had conspired to get her back to Dorne.

But Jaime had not been gone long before word came back from the Rock, in the form of Cersei, pleading with a son she didn’t already know was dead, letting them know that Jaime and Stannis had both abandoned the Rock by the time that she had arrived, traveling North to fight...fairytales, as she had called them.

The Others.

The subject of Trystane’s nightmares, as a child, because his cousins had been rather amused by his reactions when they told him stories of those fabled beings who lived beyond the Wall, waiting to kill and eat the whole of Westeros.

And now, Jaime Lannister and Stannis Baratheon, two men who loathed each other and stood on opposite sides of a war, had banded together to go and fight them themselves, deeming this so important that they had both agreed to leave their fighting over Casterly Rock until it was done.

Of course, Cersei had not been happy with this arrangement anymore than the Small Council was; when she had arrived at the Rock, she claimed, it was half overtaken by the Baratheon soldiers who had refused to follow Stannis North, and Selyse Baratheon was sitting in the seat Cersei had wanted to take for herself.

What had followed was a rather uneasy truce; the Crown had decided that they could not spare the troops to go to the Westerlands and liberate it from soldiers who seemed happy enough to allow Cersei and the rather large army that had refused to follow Ser Jaime North to live there without a fight, largely because the Small Council was as yet undecided about whether or not this had been another trick from the Lannister woman.

After all, Stannis Baratheon was not the sort of man any of them knew to give up on a fight, halfway through, only to fight another one.

But it was indisputable that Cersei was at the Rock since her exile, with her son, and that no one else had heard of Stannis Baratheon, in that time.

Trystane didn’t know what it all meant, but he could see the men around him, thinking hard about how they wanted to handle this situation.

The Queen did not appear to be among them. “Against the orders of his King, Ser Jaime left with half of Stannis Baratheon’s army behind him, after making crude, vague threats to the King’s life and demanding that Myrcella and Tommen Baratheon be handed over to him when he did leave,” she said, coldly. “I think it wise to consider the fact that Ser Jaime is no longer acting in the interests of the Crown.”

This time, for all the times Lord Kevan had been passive in the past, he leaned forward, giving the Regent a sharp look, and Trystane was reminded that she only held onto her power by a thread, just now.

Had the baby been born before her husband’s untimely death, perhaps things would be different, but he wondered if she truly didn’t understand how thin that thread was, just now.

“Ser Jaime held Stannis Baratheon off from taking Casterly Rock, at great personal risk to himself and to our army, for the Crown,” Kevan reminded her, through gritted teeth, and an unnatural silence fell over the table.

And then Baelish, as he always did, rose to the Queen’s defense. “I would say that rather, he handed Casterly Rock over to Stannis on a silver platter, to avoid a fight with him,” he argued.

Kevan shot Baelish a disapproving look, now, as the Queen crossed her arms over her pregnant belly.

“He was doing what he believed to be in the best interests of the Westerlands,” he corrected. “As he was uncertain whether the Lannister forces would be able to take on Stannis.”

“Forgive me,” Margaery interrupted then, flashing a cold smile at Lord Kevan, and Trystane wondered how much longer either of them would be in power, “The subtleties of war are so often lost on a woman such as myself, but doesn’t handing half of the Rock over to the enemy in a truce which two armies have attested to rather defeat the purpose of keeping Stannis’ hands off the Westerlands?”

Silence.

The Grandmaester cleared his throat. “Perhaps Ser Jaime had a good reason…”

Baelish scoffed. “Your Grace, this debate is pointless. The fact of the matter is, Ser Jaime handed half of the Rock over to Stannis Baratheon to avoid another fight with the man, and then absconded with him to the North. For all we know, they’re both already dead.”

“Fighting believed fairytales, as Cersei called them,” Margaery repeated.

Trystane closed his eyes.

“In any case, something should be done,” Kevan gritted out. “We cannot allow this temporary truce with Stannis to stand, so long as my niece the Queen Mother, and Tommen remain in the Rock.”

Margaery closed her eyes, and then breathed out through her nose.

“I am open to suggestions,” she told Lord Kevan, and the man bristled slightly; Trystane figured the whole reason he had brought this up in the first place was to offer some. “So long as they do not include endangering the Crown by sending half of our army to deal with half of Stannis’.”

“The disbelieving half,” Baelish muttered, under his breath.

Margaery shot him a slightly amused glance.

Trystane’s cousin leaned forward in her chair then, for the first time, her eyes lighting up. “Your Grace,” she reminded Margaery, “The Martell fleet stands in your harbor, willing to defend Your Grace and Your Grace’s son to the death, if necessary. If you were to send forces to the Rock, you could count on their protection.”

Trystane raised an eyebrow, wondering what sort of game his cousin was playing, now. He still didn’t know whether or not he could trust her, and it was infuriating him. She’d been nice enough, after she had nearly died for him, but she, like Arianne, was content to leave him here.

Margaery sent Lady Nym a thin smile, one that Trystane almost admired.

Perhaps she didn’t need Sansa Stark here, after all.

“The offer is kind, but…” she turned back to Kevan, now. “Has the Rock pledged to bend the knee yet? We have heard from all of the Houses within the Reach, as well as many within the Westerlands, and even the Vale, but nothing from your dear niece, my exiled goodmother.”

Kevan gritted his teeth. “Your Grace, I have heard nothing.”

Margaery hummed. “Well then, I don’t understand why we’re having this conversation. Hopefully, Lord Stannis will get himself killed, traveling North of the Wall, and we won’t have to worry about him at all. Perhaps that is why Ser Jaime has gone with him.”

Another uncomfortable silence, save for the scratching of quills against ink.

Trystane drummed his fingers on the table, and ignored the annoyed look that Lady Nym sent him.

“There is another concern that I hesitate to bring before Your Grace,” Varys said, when it seemed as if Trystane might finally be freed to leave this confined space, and he bit back a groan, slumping down in his chair in much the same way that the Regent was doing, now.

He wondered if it was true boredom, or if the weight of her child caused the slump.

Margaery turned her sharp eyes on Lord Varys. No, it had to be boredom. “I begin to see why my husband so loathed these meetings. What is it now?”

Varys grimaced. “It is something so slight that I hesitate to bring it before Your Grace,” he said, “But there are...rumors, to the East.”

Margaery rolled her eyes. “I hope you are not wasting my time with rumors, Spy Master,” she told him, sharply. “I understand there are others at this table who feed me more secrets than you.”

Baelish sat up a little higher in his seat.

Trystane rolled his eyes.

Varys did not seem at all concerned by the Queen’s posturing. “Exactly why I hesitate, but I thought that Your Grace should know. There are rumors that the Golden Company has left their contract with Myr.”

Margaery raised an eyebrow. “And? Myr is a thousand leagues from here.”

Varys’ jaw ticked. Baelish looked amused by his embarrassment. “Yes, Your Grace, but these same little birds inform me that the Golden Company has been...commissioned, by one traveling West.”

Margaery sat up a little straighter, now. “Daenerys?” she asked.

Trystane perked up a little, at the mention of the Targaryens, glancing over at his cousin, across the table.

She seemed suddenly very uninterested in the conversation, but Trystane knew his cousin, knew that she was very much listening.

Varys shook his head. “Another, Your Grace, claiming Targaryen blood,” he said.

Margaery shook her head, muttering something under her breath which sounded suspiciously like, “Where the fuck do they all come from?” and Trystane bit back a snort, even as he was wondering the same thing.

Margaery lifted her head. “Is that a possibility?” she demanded.

Baelish leaned forward, then. “Not one that has a claim to the throne, Your Grace,” he told her. “The Targaryens died with their Mad King. The Dragon Queen is the last of them to cling to her ambitions, and she seems content in Slaver’s Bay, these days.”

Margaery didn’t look at him, though. “Is that a possibility, Lord Varys? You knew the Targaryens as well as anyone at this table.”

The words were not quite a threat.

Varys pressed his lips together. “I am...uncertain, Your Grace. But I think it would be wise not to underestimate such a threat. The Golden Company has yet to loose any battles they have fought.”

The Queen stared at him a second longer, and then slumped. “Then find out whether there is any truth to these rumors, Spy Master,” she told him, sharply. Then, she grimaced. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, this child demands that I rest.”

The men around the table all stood as she did, dipping their heads into bows, wishing the Queen well.

Trystane slumped in relief the moment the door shut behind her.

But he did not fail to notice the concerned look that Lord Varys sent after the Queen, as if he was truly worried for her.

* * *

“Your absence was...noted from the Small Council, my lady,” Baelish said, as he stepped into her chambers, the ones in the Maidenvault now, because that was where Sansa felt the safest these days.

After all, the Tower of the Hand would seen be a place she could not easily escape, if she wished, for all the comfort that it had offered her in the few days after Joffrey’s death, while Margaery hid away in Sansa’s old chambers so that she did not have to face her own.

Sansa did not often try to examine why the rooms she had once shared with her husband felt more comforting to her than Margaery’s old rooms, these days.

She supposed it was because she did not sleep in them, any longer.

He had known that he could find her here, of course. She knew that his spies, whether whores or not, were plentiful within the Keep these days, and would have known that this was where she had retired.

What she did not know was whether or not they had seen who she had retired with, when she had arrived here.

It was a constant game of cat and mouse, with Petyr Baelish, and Sansa loathed every moment of the migraines playing this particular game gave her.

But Baelish was here, now, and her absence could not be helped, at the Small Council meeting, even if she felt guilty for missing it. For not being there, an anchor for Margaery, after what had just happened.

She had known that it would be difficult for her, to witness the executions in the first place, and then for someone to beg the Queen’s mercy from the crowd…

It had been a difficult decision, in the first place, to have Margaery attend the executions. Sansa may love her with her last breath, but Margaery was...not well, since the King’s death, had not fully recovered from what had happened, and Sansa had not honestly been able to say that she knew how Margaery would react, to an execution for those who had killed the King.

Had not known if she would even allow it, in the end.

And beyond that, Sansa had not known how the smallfolk would react. They were still bitter, many of them, about what had happened at the Sept of Baelor, far more bitter than they had been when Joffrey had cut off her father’s head at that place, because Joffrey had done more than just spill one man’s blood, this time. They would not act on it, yet, but Sansa knew from Baelish’s spies that many of them were annoyed the Queen had reacted so harshly to the King’s murder, at all.

Were annoyed at the months she had spent tracking down every last man who had supposedly been involved in the King’s butchering, annoyed that she had been the one to call for their confessions and executions.

It was not as if Margaery could pardon the men who had killed her husband, but Sansa doubted that such things mattered to a mob.

It was a terrible risk, to place Margaery before them, to have her call for the deaths of men who had killed Joffrey, that they might lose the last of the love they felt for their queen, and just now, the Crown could not afford to lose anymore appreciation from the smallfolk.

She pressed her lips together, forcing herself to turn around and offer Baelish an apologetic smile. It was what he would expect, after all.

She gestured to Brienne, who waited impatiently in the doorway, hand on the hilt of her sword, looking happy enough to remove Baelish himself if Sansa asked it of her, that all was fine, that she could go.

Brienne all but sighed as she walked out of the room and closed the doors behind herself.

Baelish didn’t move until the door had shut behind Brienne, and then he latched it. Sansa stood very still, as Baelish turned back to her for an explanation, his eyes hard, demanding.

Gods, she did not want to deal with this right now.

“I...the execution,” she said, and hated the vulnerability, the hesitation in her voice, as if she craved his approval.

As if she wanted it.

“I didn’t think that I would be able to stomach going and speaking of politics, after that,’ she whispered, and she remembered what Margaery had told her once, what she thought Cersei might have taught her, as well.

It was far easier to lie about something if it was encased in half-truths.

Baelish moved forward then, his long robes sweeping along the floor before he stood before her, and Sansa glanced over his shoulder, saw that he had tightly latched the door to her chambers before stepping inside.

He reached up at the same time, running a hand through her hair, pushing it gently behind an ear.

He did that often, when they were alone. Sansa thought it was because he enjoyed the thought of controlling even that small part of her, of keeping her in line here when he could not exactly do so outside of these chambers.

She leaned into the touch, all the same.

“And do you feel better now?” he asked her, and she thought there might have been something like genuine concern in his tone, for which she shuddered a little, leaning further into the touch to disguise her action.

It was better, not looking him in the eyes as he talked to her, as she lied to him. He was the sort of man who had mastered this game long before she was born, she knew, and Sansa could never tell if he was believing her lies, or if he was lying to her, in turn.

It was unsettling, looking into a mask of a face, one that did not betray a single shred of emotion.

“Yes,” she said, softly. “I...was sick, for a little while, which is why I did not bother to come late.”

And she knew that she had burned yet more bridges, with her absence. The men of the Small Council all disapproved of her appointment, anyway, just as they had disapproved of Lady Nym’s appointment, but she thought that they had even more cause to be concerned with her own. And now, she was not even showing up to Small Council meetings pertaining to the King’s death.

She sighed. It could not have been helped, of course.

Sansa cleared her throat then, moving away from Baelish and putting the table that had been set up in the outer chambers of her room in the Maidenvault - Margaery’s old chambers, because Margaery now lived in Cersei’s chambers and even now, for some unholy reason, plotted to sleep in Joffrey’s - between them.

And Sansa...did not understand that. Did not understand why Margaery had told Lady Nym she wanted to sleep in her dead husband's rooms, rather than Cersei's, because of course both were haunting, but Sansa would have thought the one worse than the other. Would have thought that Margaery would never want to step into her husband's rooms, again.

The table for their war council, she had heard Rosamund call it once, and Sansa privately thought the name fitting, though she would never admit to such around the other girl, who was far more obvious these days in her disdain for Sansa, and the tasks she demanded of her.

Sansa knew that something was going to have to be done about that, and soon.

“We need to appoint a new High Septon,” Sansa told him, raising an eyebrow, expectant, for she knew that Baelish would have noticed this particular hiccup in their plans long before she had.

Baelish, without blinking, responded, “Only the septons appoint a new High Septon, my lady, and they seem to be in...short supply, these days.”

Sansa snorted. “My husband appointed the last High Septon,” she pointed out. “Because he liked the depth of the man’s pockets. The septons themselves appointed that fanatic, and it did not do the Crown any good.”

To say the least.

She forced a smile, reaching out and placing a hand on Baelish’s arm, across the table. She might not have been brave enough, had he been standing directly next to her.

“Besides, the people will never accept our union if a High Septon does not annul my first marriage,” she pointed out.

Baelish pressed his lips together. He knew he was being manipulated, and also knew that it was working, Sansa thought, triumphantly.

Yes, it helped, she thought darkly, to know what it was that he wanted from her so badly. To know how to exploit that. She supposed that was something else he had taught her, in their few short months together.

She hated the thought of even using that promise, one that she had made to him in the heat of the moment, desperate because she did not know who else to turn to, for this. Hated the thought of reminding him what gaining a new High Septon might gain him, when in fact it was important, just now, to find a High Septon that might appease the people.

Because she knew that Baelish would remember this conversation, as soon as that High Septon was appointed.

“I’ll look into it,” he promised, which was as good as a guarantee.

And then, because she knew that leaving this conversation with the upper hand would not do her any favors, and because she knew there had to be another reason Baelish had come asking why she had not been at the Small Council, Sansa dropped her arm and looked down at her hands, forced her voice to sound small, like that of a child’s.

“Who were they?’ she asked, and hated the tremor in her voice.

Baelish eyed her carefully, before lowering his hand. “My lady…” he began, looking uncomfortable, but Sansa wasn’t about to let him get away with not answering her. She had to know.

She had just watched a dozen men killed, knowing that they had been tortured for their confessions before their deaths, and that they were innocent of the thing for which they had all been hanged.

She needed to know.

Baelish shrugged. “No one,” he said, and Sansa’s gut twisted, the way it had when she had watched the men kicking against thin air, as their necks snapped.

“Just men that I found off the streets, those without families to miss them, those whom it could not be proven were not members of the Sparrows,” Baelish continued, in his annoyingly soothing voice, and Sansa squeezed her eyes, shut remembering the woman who had screamed for the Queen’s mercy.

Remembering that all of the Sparrows - or, at least, any of them who had truly cared about their High Sparrow - had died in the Slaughter of the Sept.

“But there was someone who missed them, who believed their innocence enough to beg for mercy, or perhaps thought the Queen might spare them, anyway. The Queen should not have been exposed to that doubt,” Sansa snapped, peevish.

Baelish raised an eyebrow. “There were few amongst the smallfolk who adored the King, my lady,” and his words were more stiff now, almost amused. “Would you protect your queen from all of them?”

Your queen.

She closed her eyes. “What did she do now?” she asked, dread filling her.

Gods, just for once, Sansa thought, she would appreciate getting some good news.

Baelish sighed. There was not an ounce of sympathy in his features, as she looked over at him. “Her Grace generally can keep her composure amongst her Small Council,” he told Sansa. “Especially with you present. It...unsettles them when she therefore loses that composure.”

Sansa sighed. “I’ll talk to her,” she promised, even if she had no idea whether it might do a bit of good, and Baelish just nodded.

“There is...something else that we need to discuss,” Baelish said, slowly. “Something, incidentally, that no one at the Small Council dared bring up before the Regent.”

Sansa closed her eyes. Yes, she knew exactly what it was that Baelish wanted to discuss, the same worry which had been plaguing her mind, since the day after Joffrey’s death, when she realized that a king’s death was inevitably followed by a funeral.

If she had been worried about how Margaery might react to the deaths of those innocent men in place of her, Sansa was absolutely terrified about how Margaery might react to this.

“He exiled her, the last time he saw her,” Sansa pointed out, desperately, though she knew that Baelish would have a thousand counterpoints to that.

Baelish gave her a knowing look. “And Tommen Baratheon is currently in the Rock, with his mother whispering in his ear that perhaps he ought to have been crowned king, rather than a child still in his goodsister’s womb. After all, they have the Westerlands behind them,” he said, darkly, bluntly, and Sansa flinched at the reminder.

Tommen was a sweet boy, and Sansa had never gotten the impression that he wanted to be king, for all that she had once fantasized about what being his queen might have meant for her, rather than being Joffrey’s, and she wished that she had been able to spare him this earlier, that she had been able to convince Joffrey to bring Tommen to King’s Landing before Margaery had bashed his head in.

It would have saved her this particular headache, as well.

“Half the Westerlands, if that,” Sansa pointed out, because things had certainly changed in the Westerlands since Joffrey’s death.

Cersei may be seated at the Rock, but she was not truly its lady.

At the moment, she shared that title with Selyse Baratheon, strange as it sounded.

Baelish shrugged. “A strong half,” he allowed.

“Kevan Lannister is still the Hand of the King, and as long as he remains Hand of the King, Cersei does not have the Westerlands behind Tommen,” Sansa pointed out, but she could hear the doubt in her own words, which meant that Baelish would pick them apart easily. “He knows the danger of handing power back over to her. What do you think the first thing she’ll order will be?”

Kevan Lannister was the sort of pragmatic man who knew better than to trust his niece with an iota of power, Sansa was certain of that much about him. He had bent the knee the day Margaery had sat herself on the Iron Throne and declared her intention to be Regent for her child, so long as it was a boy. Margaery had named him Hand of the King for her Regency seconds later.

And Sansa had seen him with Cersei, when she was still here. He was no more fond of his niece than Tywin Lannister had been of her, which meant that they could count him as an ally...for now.

Baelish raised an eyebrow. “Kevan Lannister is a bright mind, my lady,” he reminded her. “He knows, as you do, that it is not necessary to name a mother as Regent for her son, even if it is customary. If he liked, he could have Tommen brought here and named King, and preside as Regent himself, with Cersei stuck at the Rock throughout her second son’s reign, as well.”

Sansa sighed. “You’re telling me that there is no other solution but war?” she asked, because a part of her had long feared that, even while she’d known it to be the case.

The moment she’d walked in on Margaery, standing bloodied over Joffrey’s mutilated corpse, Sansa had known there would be war. Had known that while Cersei might hate her brother enough to believe their story, it would unravel, some day.

Even day they lived since then had been on borrowed time.

Baelish did not bother to answer her. At least, not directly, He glanced down at the map nailed down to the table between them, considering. “What do you think will happen if the Queen bears a daughter?”

Sansa closed her eyes.

“The Tyrells may be able to summon great forces, but it will take them some time, while the Lannisters have soldiers aplenty to fight for them, now,” Baelish pointed out. “And the Tyrells are weakened by the fact that they must protect two strongholds, and the Lannisters need protect only one.”

Sansa shook her head. She knew all of this, of course, and didn’t like the reminder of it, but she understood the importance of listening to Baelish, just now, because, after all, there was half a chance that the child Margaery was carrying would be a girl.

And they would hardly have the strength of the realms behind them, then.

“And you think that bringing Cersei here will help that in any way? That she won’t arrive at King’s Landing at the head of an army?” Sansa finally asked, glancing up at Baelish, because no, she didn’t have any other arguments, but she hated the thought of this, all the same.

Baelish shrugged, looking far too unconcerned for Sansa’s liking. “Perhaps, perhaps not,” he allowed. “But if we do not invite her, we will seem cold, cruel, keeping a mother from her child’s funeral. If we do and she does arrive at the head of an army, we will look like the aggrieved party, if she does when we have extended the hand of friendship to her.”

Sansa sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose, as she had once seen her husband do often. She didn’t bother to ask Baelish who was even keeping track of such things, anymore.

“Well,” she muttered, “Fuck.”

Perhaps she was picking up too many of Tyrion Lannister’s bad habits.

She only hoped she didn’t pick up his strange affinity for being accused of murders, once Cersei did arrive here.

Baelish let out an inelegant snort. “I will see to it that she does not arrive in King’s Landing at the head of an army, my lady,” he promised her, and Sansa nodded, shakily.

“I...Thank you, Petyr,” she whispered, and Petyr eyed her a moment longer, before giving her something like a hesitant smile.

“I don’t want Margaery having to interact with her anymore than absolutely necessary,” Sansa said, a moment later, and that hesitant smile shuttered.

“Of course not, my lady,” Baelish told her, in that same informal tone that he used with her when they were not alone behind closed doors, and Sansa closed her eyes.

As he always did, when their conversations inevitably returned to Margaery.

Someday, Sansa was going to have to deal with that.

* * *

“Your Grace, I wonder if I might have a word,” Lord Varys said behind her, and Margaery closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, because the excuse about being tired had been just that, an excuse, but that didn’t mean she wanted to find herself trapped in yet another conversation with Lord Varys about her irresponsibility so far in guiding the Realm.

If she had wanted his opinion, she would have asked for it.

They were in the corridor outside of the Small Council chambers which Margaery had just left, a meeting which had been absolutely disastrous without Sansa there, she knew that, even if she hadn’t been paying attention for at least half of it.

She wanted nothing more than to escape back to her chambers - the King's chambers, not Cersei's, though she doubted those were ready for her yet, if Lady Nym had even listened to her about preparing them at all - and collapse on the bed, close her eyes and close out the rest of the world for as long as she could manage.

She shuddered a little, at the thought.

Perhaps she could ask one of the servants who stood around all day, waiting for her to order them to do something she could easily do herself, and did, these days, to bring her something a little stronger than wine.

She sighed.

The last thing she wanted to do, just now, was reveal more of the incompetence she could feel crawling up her throat, to Lord Varys again.

Slowly, Margaery turned around, forcing a cold smile in Lord Varys’ direction. They were alone now, save for the Kingsguard surrounding her, who would never dare to repeat what they heard.

Margaery had made sure of that when she had herself surrounded by Reach-loyal soldiers, rather than the Old Guard who had been so loyal to Joffrey and Cersei that they had been more than happy to beat a hapless girl on Joffrey’s orders.

To be silent, as Joffrey raped her.

She gritted her teeth, rubbing her wrists awkwardly together, more than aware that Lord Varys no doubt noticed the movement, though he was kind enough not to comment on it.

No, the Kingsguard who were allowed to guard her now were only those who had been carefully chosen by her brother, in the weeks after Joffrey’s death, all carefully appointed because they knew better than to go against House Tyrell, but were not so loyal that they would suck her grandmother’s teat, rather than listen to an order that Margaery gave them, herself.

She tried hard not to think at all of Ser Meryn Trant.

Her four guards shifted restlessly, and Margaery bit back a smile, wiping at her fully clothed arms.

She would never feel safe under the protection of a man again, but it was nice to know that these men would gladly kill for her. She’d never had the same assurance under the men who had served as Joffrey’s Kingsguard.

“What is it, Lord Varys?” She asked, coldly. “I thought that I had made it clear that I had no interest in continuing to speak of politics, just now. I am…very tired.”

She probably looked tired, she knew. She had looked tired this morning, as well, when she had awoken and looked at herself in the mirror, as she dressed herself despite her servants constantly hinting that they would be happy to dress her themselves, as they had always done in the past.

If she wanted them to dress her, if she wanted them to come into the sanctuary of her bedchambers - Joffrey’s mother’s old bedchambers - she would damn well ask it of them, after all.

“I will, endeavor to make it as quick as possible, Your Grace,” he told her, and Margaery closed her eyes and breathed out slowly through her nose.

When she opened her eyes again, Varys was bent over, looking a bit more servile, but she was no longer fooled by the other man.

“Yes?” She asked.

He squinted at her. “Perhaps it would be better to have this conversation somewhere a little more…” he glanced at the open hallway, out of which were still trickling members of the Small Council, Lord Baelish eyeing them suspiciously as he passed. “Private.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “You have less than a minute left, Lord Varys. My lord husband, may he rest in peace, always used to joke that at some point, it should become treason to waste a monarch’s time. I am not entirely certain that should be a joke.”

Varys swallowed. “Of course, Your Grace,” He said. “Well…” he waited a moment, and Margaery tapped her foot impatiently. Then, when the other members of the Small Council were gone, “I merely wish to warn Your Grace that I think it is a mistake, to bestow such power on Lord Baelish, who does not have anyone’s best interests but his own at heart, and to take away duties meant for the Lord Hand from Lord Kevan Lannister.”

Margaery raised a brow. “I thought we’d covered this during our meeting of the Small Council,” she told him, coldly. “I am the Regent, and Lord Baelish is a trusted servant of the Crown.”

She tried not to grit her teeth too hard as she said the words, because even if Lord Baelish had rounded the corner and was gone from their sight now, she knew that he had his spies everywhere, these days, just as Lord Varys had.

Neither of them could be trusted.

But she trusted Baelish just a little bit more, these days. Well, she trusted his ambitions, his desires, to get her exactly what she wanted.

He wouldn’t fail her so long as he thought he was still getting the thing that they had promised him, on the night of Joffrey’s death, out of all of this.

Varys eyed her. “Your Grace…” he said carefully, and there was something like concern in his expression, “Surely you don’t believe that.”

Margaery closed her eyes again, breathed deeply.

It was a calming technique that Megga had taught her, after the…after Joffrey’s death. It had helped Megga, apparently, during her time in the Black Cells.

Margaery did not find that it did very much for her.

“You have made your position on Lord Baelish very clear, in recent weeks,” Margaery reminded the other man, coldly, because even if he was right, even if it was more than true that Baelish was nothing more than an ambitious, untrustworthy snake, she could not allow there to be any doubt about her loyalty to the man.

Certainly not to Lord Varys.

Still, the thought of lying to him well enough to make him believe she trusted Baelish made her stomach twist; she didn’t think she was so accomplished of a liar anymore, these days.

“And,” she lifted a hand, when Lord Varys opened his mouth to speak, “I think you’ll find that I don’t care to hear any more of it.”

He closed his mouth.

Margaery smiled at him. “There, now,” she said. “Was that so hard?”

Varys squinted at her; for a moment, she found herself wondering if he was studying her every expression, trying so hard to find the lie in her gaze.

She forced her face to remain neutral, the way that she had somehow managed to do the day after Joffrey’s…after his death, when she’d been forced to announce what had happened to him in the throne room, in front of every noble in King’s Landing, and pretend like she believed every word.

Pretend like she hadn’t been the one to…

She cleared her throat. “Is that all, Lord Varys?”

He stared at her for a moment longer, before letting out a sigh. “That is all, Your Grace,” he said, and there was something like disappointment in his gaze, and his voice.

Margaery beamed at him, before turning and stalking away from the Small Council chambers, which reminded her rather to much of Joffrey, of all the time that he had spent there, clutching her thigh instead of listening to his advisors.

It was so hard to think, in those rooms.

She walked away from Lord Varys with the strange, distinct feeling that she had somehow failed a test, but as she did not know what he had been looking for, she determined not to let it bother her.

And then Lady Nym was there, quite suddenly by her side, reaching out to place a hand on Margaery’s elbow, and Margaery flinched at the contact. The other members of the Kingsguard went still, clearly unsure if they were meant to defend against this one, or not.

Lady Nym, who would likely never fight with the same grace and skill she’d had in the past, had been named an honorary member of the Kingsguard; partially to appease Arianne, who had been furious, Margaery was told, in learning what had happened to both her cousin and her brother, and partially because Margaery wanted an excuse to keep the other woman close.

She’d seen the loyalty with which the other woman had faced Ser Robert Strong. Margaery wanted nothing more than that loyalty for herself.

“Your Grace,” Lady Nym acknowledged, seeming to only notice her discomfort then, as she dropped her elbow.

Margaery remembered to breathe again, as she remembered what Lady Nym might perhaps be here to talk about, and she glanced sharply over at the other woman, raising an expectant eyebrow.

“Were you serious, with what you demanded of me the other day?” Nym asked, and Margaery went still.

She tried to think back to what she could possibly have asked of Lady Nym; to be honest, most days blurred together, for her.

And then she remembered, and her eyes unconsciously sought out her husband’s chambers, not so very far from the ones she’d been sleeping in, of late.

Oh gods, Nym had really listened to her. She'd really done it, and Margaery could not be more grateful for the thought, as soon as it arrived.

“Are they ready?” She asked, and wondered why she should be so excited at the thought of sleeping in the rooms her husband had died in. Wondered if that meant that there was something wrong with her, if she'd wanted to keep this from Sansa because she truly was going mad, to want to sleep in the rooms where her husband had...

But still. She could not sleep in Cersei’s chambers, and she was not cruel enough to demand that Sansa give her back her old rooms in the Maidenvault; at least in the chambers her husband had raped her in, she might have some excuse for not sleeping at all.

And she had endured the worst things she could possibly imagine still happening to her, in those rooms. At least she would be safe from facing them there again. She could not say the same of bedchambers that Cersei Lannister, still living and breathing, knew better than she.

And it would have the added benefit of scaring her ladies and servants away, all afraid already that those rooms were haunted, especially with the months that they had spent housing her husband's corpse, kept nice only by the maesters' preservatives.

Nym pressed her lips together. She was not happy with this arrangement, Margaery could tell, but Margaery thought that she had scared her enough, the last time they'd had this particular conversation, that she was clearly willing to do as Margaery wished, int his one regard. “There was a…particular stain that we could not get out, Your Grace, but you insisted that this happen as quickly as possible, so if that doesn’t bother you…”

The guards behind her shifted restlessly. It was odd enough that she would be taking over her husband's chambers; as the Regent, she would be displaying that she thought herself as powerful as a King, to do so, but to speak of the stains still there since the day his brains had been bashed into the flooring...

Margaery was already moving down the short corridor to her husband’s chambers, at those words.

Nym trailed behind her, hesitant. “Though I have to say, again, I don’t really understand why you would want to sleep in these rooms, and why Lady Sansa wasn’t supposed to know…”

A carefully worded phrase; clearly, this secret had not been kept from Sansa, who would no doubt think her mad for wanting this, but Margaery could not bring herself to care, overmuch.

When she made it to her husband’s old chambers, which had stood empty since his death, Margaery stood very still, outside of them, licking her lips and not bothering to open the door. "Is..." she started, the thought honestly just occurring to her, "The King's body..."

She'd ordered it placed there, until his funeral could actually take place in the Sept of Baelor, once those who had murdered him had all been found.

Nym dipped her head. "It has been returned to the Black Cells, Your Grace, where the maesters keep it until it is time for the burial," she said, and her voice had an odd, tinny sound to it, Margaery thought, though she didn't stop to examine why.

Margaery had of course not expected to find that she was to be sharing these rooms with her dead husband, but then again, that was almost exactly what she had expected to find. It was what would be happening, after all, either way.

One of her Kingsguard stepped forward then, a Florent, she thought, even if one of them was married to Stannis. He cleared his throat. “Is something wrong, Your Grace?” He asked her, no doubt wondering why the fuck she was standing in front of a closed door.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathed out deeply again. Turned a smile on the young man.

Another convenient thing about replacing as many of the Kingsguard with accomplished knights from the Reach was that they did not know what had happened, had no way of guessing.

Hells, they knew little of anything that had gone on in Kings’ Landing in recent months, and so they still looked at her with respect.

Margaery forced a smile. “Everything is fine,” she assured the man. “I just…remembered something.”

Blood, staining the floor of the King’s chambers so deeply that it was still visible there, beside the bed that she slept in every night because she couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping anywhere else, and she knew that there was something inherently wrong with that, she shouldn’t want to sleep in the bed her husband had raped her in.

She grimaced. “It’s nothing,” she assured the man. Then, because she could, “Stand outside these doors and make sure that no one comes inside. Including the Lady Sansa. Is that understood?”

The guards exchanged glances, but then, they were still new, so they nodded agreeably.

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Margaery bit back a hysterical laugh.

Lady Nym gave Margaery a short nod. “I hope you find a…peaceful rest here, Your Grace,” she said, in a voice that implied that she, too, thought Margaery quite mad for wanting these rooms at all. But she was not arguing with her, the way that Sansa would have, if Margaery had gone to her about this, for which Margaery was rather grateful to the other woman.

She did not want to have to argue about this. A part of her did not even know why she was insisting on this, knew only that this had to happen, for her own peace of mind, if she was ever to achieve such a state again.

When she stepped inside, the rooms still smelled of death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to comment!


	5. The Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to comment!

_Cersei swallowed hard, sagging down against the wall the moment she stepped into her own chambers and slammed the door behind her, screaming at the servants to get out. The women fled, looking frightened, in a way that none of her servants ever had in King’s Landing._

_Cersei’s eyes swam, and she reached up, covering them like a small child might, like doing so might hide her from the knowledge that the messenger had just brought her._

_In one hand, she still clung to the crumpled up missive that she had been sent by the Crown, sent by a raven, of all things, as if they did not believe that the Mother of the King deserved to know in person, rather than in some servant’s handwriting, that her son had been killed._

_More than that, butchered, Cersei thought darkly, as she reread the missive. He had been murdered in the dead of night, killed in his own bed, and killed by more than ten men, she knew._

_Butchered._

_She closed her eyes, dragging in one shaky breath, and then another, difficult as they seemed to come. She could no longer read the missive in her hands, for it swam before her eyes, and frustrated, Cersei tossed it aside and ran her fingers through her hair, letting out another horrified scream._

_Her son, her darling boy, was dead._

_She had never even gotten the chance to make amends with him, after he had sent her away from King’s Landing on the word of that shrew, and now, she never would, because she had lost him for good._

_He was dead, and she would never be able to hold him in her arms again, to beg his forgiveness for doing what she had thought she had to, to protect him._

_Would never be able to convince him that she had been right to do so. Would never know her son’s thoughts, again, as he wondered how to take control of the Realm, as he sought her advice as he had once done, as a child._

_Her darling boy was dead, and the world felt a little grayer, for it._

_Her next scream choked off into something like a whimper, and Cersei’s hands fell uselessly, into her lap as she slammed her head back against the wall of her chambers._

_She had known that something like this was going to happen, the moment she left her son behind in King’s Landing. She hadn’t been there to protect him, and now, he was dead._

_He was dead, and there was no bringing him back from death. Qyburn might have brought back the Mountain, but he had been nothing more than a shell of his former self, without the emotions and the Lannister fire that had made her love her Joffrey so._

_She gritted her teeth as the tears slipped freely down her face, now._

_Her son was gone, and Jaime was gone from this place, and Tyrion had likely been responsible for her son’s death, fro all that the Crown claimed it had been members of the Sparrows to kill him, in the end._

_She had never felt more alone in her entire life, than she did just now._

_Gods, if only Jaime were here, she thought she might be able to bear it._

_But Jaime had abandoned her, too, and he might as well be dead, for all the hope she held out that he might one day return to her. Chasing fairytales beyond the Wall, indeed, while their son lay dead in the crypts of King’s Landing, at the hands of a brother he should have listened to her and killed, years ago, when they were still children and not even their father would have protested the Imp’s death._

_Gods, he would pay for this. She would see more than just the joy turn to ash in his throat, as he had once promised her, as she had tried to return on to him, by having Shae murdered._

_She had known all of her life how her brother had hated her, because he was a hateful little creature who seemed to need no reason to turn on his own family. He had killed their mother as he left her body, and he would be happy enough to see the rest of them dead, too._

_She imagined that when Jaime had left for the Kingsguard, there had been tears in her younger brother’s eyes because he was so ecstatic at the thought that he now stood to inherit the Rock._

_As if their father would ever willingly hand it over to him alone._

_But she had never imagined that the Imp might turn his hatred upon her own children._

_She would not lie; she knew Joffrey’s faults, just as any who met him did, but he had been her firstborn son, her darling boy, and her own brother had seen fit to let monsters into the Keep to butcher him where he slept._

_He’d killed her son. Killed him, like a pig. Like something less than human, and worse than that, he’d gotten away with it. Had left King’s Landing unscathed._

_If Cersei had been there, she would have seen him ripped limb from limb, rather than escaping fate._

_She wondered what empty platitudes Jaime would have left to defend his brother, when he returned to the Rock. If there were any left, after the Imp had seen her son butchered like that, their son._

_Jaime may not have loved Joffrey the way that he had so clearly come to love Myrcella and Tommen, but he had distanced himself from them when they were smaller, as well. Cersei had hoped that there might come a day when he would come to love Joffrey for all his faults, as she had._

_And now, that day would never come, because Tyrion had stolen it from them._

_Had stolen Joffrey from them, while Cersei could not even hold her son in her final moments._

_She let out another pained scream._

_No mother should ever have to outlive their child._

_Cersei did not think that she had ever felt a pain quite like this one. Every part of her wanted to die with it._

_She thought of Joffrey, of his smiles in the rare moments when he was truly innocent, truly happy. Of the way he had confided in her so often, the things he would never dare to tell another soul._

_Of the way he had cried, like a child far more prone to emotions than he was when he was older, when Robert had hit him, or sent him away._

_A part of her had wanted to kill Robert for that reason alone, the first time that her husband had raised a hand to her son._

_Cersei closed her eyes._

_Perhaps the only consolation that she might have, in all of this, was the knowledge that Joffrey was not totally gone. After all, his child, whom she knew he had longed for, lived on in Margaery Tyrell’s womb. A part of her son still lived within that child, even if she could hardly stand the mother who would bring it into this world._

_But that was hardly a good consolation. She knew that the moment that child, boy or girl, entered this world, it would be a threat to her, to her own two living children. The Tyrells would wrap their claws around that child the same way that they had done with Joffrey._

_He would never be her grandchild, only a tool of that far too ambitious House, as they reached for the throne, her throne._

_If only she could have the child at her side the moment it was born, could know that it would not become some pawn of the Tyrells’, then, perhaps, she might have learned to love it._

_But she could not have that, and Cersei knew that child would be raised to loathe his father, as the Tyrells had. Would be raised to adore that bitch of a mother of his, while Cersei lost everything._

_Her son, her throne._

_She let out another silent scream, and was surprised by the tentative knock of one of the servants, outside._

_“Your Grace? Is all well?”_

_A Lannister servant, then, not one loyal to Stannis, and that alone made Cersei not want to bite their head off._

_Cersei sniffed, wiping at her eyes as she crawled to her feet, deciding what she had to do, in this moment._

_The rest of the Rock would learn, in time, what had become of her son. Would learn that he was dead, and would see two choices set before them._

_To either bend the knee to Stannis in total, as many of them had already threatened, with his invasion of the Westerlands, as the Leffords had done, or wait and bend the knee to a child still in the womb, once it came into this world._

_And neither one of those options suited Cersei. Neither one of them would allow her to hold onto enough power to protect her two remaining children, her son, here, all but a hostage of the Baratheon forces that remained here, or her daughter, a hostage to the Martells._

_She had to protect them, and so, Cersei knew what she had to do._

_Joffrey would understand, if he still lived. He would understand, if only he knew what Margaery truly was, and forgive her for this._

_But Joffrey was dead. He was dead, and it was Margaery’s fault that Cersei had not been there with him, in his final moments, and his child would never truly belong to Cersei._

_Cersei threw open the door to her chambers, and the servant standing outside with a bundle of clothes started, nearly falling into her._

_Cersei ignored the woman, pushing past her. “Is my son in his chambers?” she demanded to know, but Cersei suspected she already knew the answer to that._

_Since her arrival, her son had barely left his chambers. She did not know if that was a result of her brother Jaime’s poison, or his fear of Stannis Baratheon._

_It would probably be for the best to keep him there, until she could name him King and know that he was protected when she did so._

_But still, she should go and tell him. He deserved to learn what had happened to his brother from her, at the very least, rather than from some passing servant._

_He was Tommen’s brother. She would not abide him learning of Joffrey’s death from anyone else._

_And then...and then, she would decide what the fuck she was meant to do, in this situation, because she truly didn’t know._

_She had lost her son, and she was suddenly terrified that the rest of if was going to come crumbling down around her._

_Margaery was pregnant with her son’s child, but that child would never be hers. And Olenna Tyrell would come after her other son, if Cersei dared to give her the chance._

_Cersei could not loose another child, she thought suddenly, fiercely, as she stalked down the short hall to her own son’s chambers, because she had insisted on them not being far from her own, when she had arrived to find half an army of Baratheon soldiers holding her poor boy hostage here._

_There was a Lannister guard and a Baratheon guard standing outside her son’s chambers, a living embodiment of the fragile truce that her fool of a brother had created with Stannis before they had fucked off to who knew where, leaving her child behind to be killed by an errant sword, for all that Jaime had claimed to be bringing Tommen her for his protection._

_Cersei scoffed at the thought. She had not quite forgiven Jaime for that, either, but she did not have the willpower to be furious with him, today._

_Not when she felt suddenly drained of everything, everything but the pain she felt as she thought of Joffrey’s smile, permanently torn away from this world._

_She gave the two guards a scorching look. “I need to speak with my son,” she said, reaching up to wipe at her eyes when she saw how wide their own had grown._

_The Lannister solder - Tylund, she thought his name was - leaned forward. “Is...all well, Your Grace?” he asked her._

_The Baratheon soldier did not seem as concerned, only disturbed by the sight of such a highborn lady, in tears._

_She thought of the way that she had railed against every single one of these Baratheon soldiers, when she had arrived here to find them drinking her father’s wine and eating at her father’s table, and thought the man ought to be used to the sight of a highborn woman in tears._

_Sometimes, when she was particularly worried, she dreamt that Jaime never returned for them, and these Baratheon soldiers ate her and her son upon that feasting table._

_She shut her eyes tightly._

_She had lost Joffrey. She’d be damned before she lost Tommen, as well, even if she didn’t know how she was going to find herself out of this situation._

_“I need to speak with my son,” she repeated, hoarsely. “Are you keeping me from him?”_

_The Lannister guard cleared his throat. “Of course not, Your Grace,” he assured her, throwing the door open for her, and Cersei sniffed, before walking past him and into her son’s chambers, Jaime’s old chambers, in the Rock, before he had ever gone to the Kingsguard and they had ever entered this mess._

_Sometimes, when she brought her son here to escape Robert for a few weeks at a time, he had slept in these rooms. Looking around, Cersei saw images of him everywhere, and she squeezed her eyes shut again._

_When she opened them, Tommen was sitting up in the bed, not Joffrey, and Cersei felt a pang of sadness, that that was so._

_Gods, this didn’t feel real, not at all. None of this had felt real, not since her own son had banished her from court._

_Tommen looked more at home in these chambers, though, as he blinked up at his mother in surprise at her entrance._

_He looked like he was going to jump up out of the bed, then, but Cersei held up a hand, stilling him._

_She wanted him sitting down, as she explained this to him._

_“Tommen,” she said, forcing a watery smile, telling herself that it was not Tommen’s fault that he looked more at home in her brother’s chambers than Joffrey ever had. “Did I wake you?”_

_The boy shook his head, fiddling nervously with his blankets where he sat on the bed that her brother had once slept in. These had been jaime’s chambers when they were children, after all, and Cersei smiled bitterly at the thought._

_It had been Jaime who had left Tommen in these chambers, surrounded by armed guards whom she hoped it had been Stannis to order them not to let her in to see her own son, at first._

_But then, Jaime had not known that Cersei was coming here, and she took hope, in that thought. When he had ordered that no one but Gemma and Dorna be allowed to see his son, besides the Lannister servants, he had not known that she was coming here._

_Her brother had much to explain about his actions of late, but he did not have to explain a desire to protect their son, especially just now, to Cersei’s mind, when he was the only one they had left._

_She was going to fix this. She had to._

_She still didn’t know how she was going to fix this, didn’t know how she was going to bring them all together as a family again…_

_A family._

_Joffrey was dead, and Myrcella was in Dorne, which meant, to Cersei’s suddenly petrified mind, that she might as well be dead._

_Cersei did not know how the Martells had managed to convince Myrcella, her poor, darling, sweet girl, that they were a family to her, but she did know that Myrcella would be their pawn, now that Joffrey was dead, just as the child within Margaery Tyrell’s belly was a pawn of the Tyrells, now._

_Cersei felt like the world was slipping through her fingers, and she didn’t know how to get it back._

_Tommen shook his head, weakly, and Cersei bit back a sigh._

_Despite not wanting the servants to be the ones to break this news to Tommen, Cersei did not particularly relish telling him his brother was dead, herself._

_Despite the paranoid plan formulating in her head, she almost couldn’t see it taking root, couldn’t see the boy before her sitting on the Iron Throne like Joffrey had, like he was born into it._

_“Your brother…” Cersei licked her lips, having not realized how hard this would be. She resolved not to cry in front of her son. He needed her to be strong now, to protect him, the way that she had failed to protect Joffrey. “Your brother has been killed. He...barely a week ago, now.”_

_A week, and she hadn’t known until today._

_Tommen blinked at her, the blanket falling from his twitching fingers. He didn’t move, as Cersei moved forward to the bed and sat on the edge of it, taking one of her hands in his._

_“Oh,” her son said, the word absolutely expressionless, and Cersei felt her gut twist at what she thought she saw in his eyes. The apathy there made her ground her teeth._

_Still, she told herself that it was just shock, the same shock she had felt the first two times she had read the words on the missive from King’s Landing, before the words made any sense to her._

_Tommen stared up at her with wide eyes. She wondered if the shock of his brother’s death was too much for him, if she ought to have tried harder to be kind, with the way that she informed him of it._

_But she was grief stricken herself, and too concerned with the fear that someone might tell him first, and poison his mind against what was truly his destiny._

_“W...what does that mean?” he said, sounding very young, and Cersei’s heart pinged in sympathy for him._

_Joffrey had been too young for the throne, and Tommen? Tommen was just a child. He didn’t deserve the sudden responsibility that this would bring upon him._

_But she knew what it would mean to do otherwise, to fall back and bend the knee to Margaery Tyrell and her child._

_Even if he was Joffrey’s child, something that Margaery seemed to have taken far too much aggression with trying to prove while Cersei still lived in King’s Landing to be taken at face value, recognizing him as Joffrey’s heir would only mean handing over the Iron Throne to the Tyrells._

_And Cersei would not abide that. She would not allow it, not when she knew that the moment they had unlimited power in the Seven Kingdoms, they would turn on her, and her children. Would remove any threats to their rule._

_“It means that you are going to be the King, my love,” Cersei whispered, brushing the hair out of her son’s eyes and trying not to feel a smidgen of guilt, at the way that his eyes widened with her words._

_No doubt, he was terrified, after just learning that his brother, who had been King before him, had just died. Perhaps she should not have sprung this new existence on him so quickly._

_“But…” Tommen chewed on his lower lip, reaching out with a shaking hand to cling to the blanket over his hips, a nervous gesture that Cersei would have to cure him of, if he was truly to sit on the Iron Thorne, one day._

_Was truly to keep the Crown in her possession, where it belonged._

_Oh, she would not make the same mistakes that she had with Joffrey, once Tommen sat on the Iron Throne. She would ensure that he was safe there, protected, and that he couldn’t make the sort of foolish decisions which had resulted in Joffrey exiling his own mother, spurred into fear of the one person who could protect him by a woman batting her eyelashes._

_This way, her son would sit on the Iron Throne, where he belonged, where Cersei belonged._

_I waited, she thought, And so he can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert’s drunken groping, Jaime’s jealousy, Renly’s mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day, it would be her turn._

_If Margaery Tyrell thought to cheat her in her hour in the sun, all on the hopes that her own child might be a boy rather than a girl when it finally entered this world, then she had bloody well better think again, Cersei thought, her lips twisting into something like a sneer._

_But this all meant that Cersei was going to have to work fast._

_Tommen swallowed. “I don’t understand. Has Joffrey’s son been born yet?”_

_Cersei ground her teeth together. These were exactly the same sort of questions she would have to work through in order to gain supporters, but she didn’t appreciate her son being so docile as to not even want the throne, his throne. Her throne._

_“Heir,” she said, perhaps more harshly than she had intended, if the way that Tommen flinched was any indication. “And no, it has not. But when it is, it could easily be a girl, or a bastard, and then you would be king.”_

_If it came out with dark hair, or with hair that looked like anything but Joffrey’s golden locks, they would know._

_And in the mean time, a child in the womb had no rights to the Iron Throne, at all._

_“Then...how am I to be King?” Tommen asked._

_Yes, that was a difficulty that Cersei would have to work through, to gain supporters, but she thought she could easily manage it. After all, Stannis had done the same thing, and Tommen was older than an unborn child._

_She leaned forward then, kissing Tommen gently on the forehead, and trying not to feel anything when he flinched back from her._

_“We will wait until then, of course,” she promised him, something she had no intention of doing, “But I simply want you to be open to the possibility.”_

_Tommen blinked up at her. “I...But I don’t want to be King,” he whispered, and Cersei would say later, when she apologized to her son through gritted teeth, that the emotion of the moment had caused her to do as she did next, nothing else._

_But it felt good to slap someone when she was hurting so, all the same._

* * *

Tommen looked down at the kitten in his arms as he ran a hand over its fur, listening to it purr where it lay in his lap.

It was not Ser Pounce; in the haste of their leaving King’s Landing, his uncle had not let him stop and bring along Ser Pounce, or Balerion, though his uncle had seemed more concerned with leaving that cat behind than he had Ser Pounce.

When he was younger, Joffrey had told him that Balerion had belonged to the little Targaryen princess, before she had been butchered by the Mountain, the same way that Joffrey threatened to have Tommen butchered by his own Hound if he ever did anything that made Joffrey angry, once he was king.

The threat had terrified Tommen, before he had ever known what Joffrey was truly capable of.

And his uncle seemed more disturbed by the cat than he had ever been by Joffrey, as he knelt down in front of Tommen, just outside the Great Hall, and told him as patiently as Tommen thought Uncle Jaime could manage that no, they could not bring the kittens along, and there were kittens aplenty in the Rock, surely.

Tommen knew of no less than three cats who roamed the halls of the Rock, finding food from the more particularly kind cooks, the ones who were more inclined to slip Tommen some sweets before he went to bed, as well, but that hadn’t mattered.

Ser Pounce was the cat that Joffrey had threatened to gut in front of him, once, and Tommen had hated the thought of leaving any of his cats behind with Joffrey, but especially not Ser Pounce, and especially not when Joffrey looked so angry at their departure.

But Joffrey was dead now.

Joffrey was dead, and Tommen didn’t know how to feel about his brother’s death at all, because he knew that Joffrey had never loved him, just as Myrcella had never loved Joffrey, and Joffrey had been cruel, and had thought it funny when Tommen cried at his tormenting.

But he’d been Tommen’s brother, and when his mother had come to tell him that Joffrey was dead, she had been upset that Tommen didn’t seem more saddened, by his brother’s death.

Perhaps she was right.

Perhaps there was something wrong with Tommen, that he didn’t feel much of anything - beyond a terrible, honest sense of relief - that his brother was dead. Perhaps he was just as bad as Joffrey, because of that.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t think many people had loved his brother - he had been killed by a bunch of peasants, at the bidding of their uncle, after all - but he’d still been family.

Perhaps Tommen ought to want to mourn him just because of that.

Myrcella had told him, on the road to the Rock, that of course Joffrey would never dare to harm Ser Pounce, something dark and twisted in her eyes as she had said it, and Tommen had believed her.

But he had also believed her when she’d held him close and told him that they were never going to be away from each other again, not if she could help it, and she had turned around and disappeared with the Martells, the moment that they were all out of King’s Landing, when Tommen had thought she was coming to the Rock with them.

Uncle Jaime had been furious. He’d paced in the hastily erected encampment, back and forth, back and forth, and Tommen had felt something like hot tears at the back of his eyes, but he hadn’t let them fall, because Joffrey had told him that it was a sign of weakness, for a boy of his age to cry, and Tommen didn’t want his uncle to think him weak.

Jaime had already looked so hurt, by the fact that Myrcella had abandoned them like this. Like he didn’t know what to do at all, now.

Tommen gave the cat in his arms another reassuring pat, before she leapt out of the room and marched unhappily across the bed, down the small futon Tommen had insisted on placing in front of it for her, and over to the little pail of milk in the corner.

Jaime had smiled at the request when they had arrived at the Rock and Tommen had found the kitten rooting through the trash of the kitchens two days later, though it had been the same sort of sad smile that he had ever since Myrcella had left them, that smile of sadness that reeked of betrayal, and let Tommen know, no matter what else it was that he knew, that Myrcella had left them willingly.

If she hadn’t, his uncle wouldn’t look so betrayed by her absence, and Tommen didn’t know what to think with that knowledge, that secret knowledge that he had never sought the answer to from his uncle.

He thought that if he had, it would have broken Jaime, to admit the truth. To admit that Myrcella had left them, after the way that the servants said his uncle had put himself on the line, to get them out of King’s Landing, and away from his brother.

Of course, they’d said that while they were unpacking Tommen’s things and while they had thought he wasn’t listening.

He learned quite a bit that he wasn’t supposed to know like that, listening in at doorways to servants’ conversations. They knew quite a bit, for the ones that his family seemed to overlook the most.

He let out a sigh, settling deeper into his blankets, because, for as far up within the Rock as these rooms were, these rooms were terribly cold, sometimes.

He wanted to sleep, because he knew that the servants would not be back for a little while to bring him food, and it was not as if he had much else to do up here.

Now that his uncle Jaime was gone and his mother had returned, she had forbidden him from playing at sword again, as she had called it, and he was not allowed to go riding, either, not with so many Baratheon soldiers nearby.

She had prohibited him from doing much of anything outside of these rooms, because she was afraid that Stannis’ shaky truce with his uncle had just been for show, or that the men who had refused to follow their king North would just as happily turn around and butcher Tommen, the moment they had the chance.

And Tommen did not even know if she was wrong to think that.

A Lannister guard stood outside of his chambers at all times, but so did a Baratheon loyal soldier. It made it rather difficult to sleep, these days.

But there was not much else to do in these rooms. A maester came to help him with his studies every day, and the servants were kind enough, but Tommen had been less bored in King’s Landing, he had to admit.

And less likely to be killed, even if his brother was a monster.

It was broad daylight, but the rooms that Tommen slept in were nearly pitch black, for not having a window and being so deep within Casterly Rock. It felt like night, because of that.

Sometimes, Tommen was not even certain what time of day it was, because he spent so much time within these four walls. Jaime had not wanted him to leave because he was afraid that Tommen would be captured by one of Stannis’ spies, or by a stray arrow, later, when Stannis’ forces had marched here to take the Rock from Jaime.

Even if a part of Tommen wondered if his uncle had not wanted him to leave these rooms because he was terrified that Tommen was going to leave, the way that Myrcella had.

Tommen could have happily disabused him of the notion, if he thought it was worth it, if he thought that bringing it up at all wouldn’t cause another headache, because he didn’t know any more than Jaime how he felt about Myrcella’s leaving them.

It was not as if Tommen had anywhere else to go, like his sister did.

Leaving King’s Landing had not felt like the freeing experience that Tommen had thought it was going to be.

He shook his head, glancing around his rooms for something else to do, because he knew that he was not going to be able to sleep, just now, and that was when he saw it.

A knife, glinting dangerously in the candlelight of the darkened room.

“Don’t make a sound,” the man told him, putting a finger to his lips that seemed almost comical, here in the dark, and Tommen swallowed hard.

The man took a step forward, his knife shining now, and Tommen didn’t know how he had gotten into his rooms, when Tommen’s bed faced the door, and he’d been dozing earlier, but he would have seen that, surely.

Tommen let out a scream.

The man with the knife let out a sound of annoyance, and then lunged forward, taking across the room in two large steps, and Tommen screamed again, because he had guards outside who should have been able to hear that, and because he wasn’t sure that he would be able to scream again.

The knife came down, hurtling towards the bed, and Tommen gritted his teeth and wondered if his brother had been this scared, in his final moments. If death had terrified him as much as it did Tommen.

It was the first time Tommen had ever imagined himself having the same exact thoughts as his brother.

And then the knife never hit him, a clatter resounded through the air, a grunt of pain, and Tommen slowly opened his eyes, to find the Baratheon guard who had stood outside his doors for many days now standing over him, the man with the knife lying at his feet, a sword through his neck.

Tommen flinched, and quickly looked away.

The Lannister guard cleared his throat then, stepping forward. He had been several feet behind the Baratheon guard, and Tommen didn’t know what to make of that, to realize that he had been rescued by someone his mother had thought might be sent to kill him.

Had been rescued from someone trying to kill him, no less.

Tommen shivered, looking down at the man on the ground, his blood pooling in a rather large, wet circle.

Tommen wondered if that stain would ever come out.

It didn’t look like it, and the thought that he would have to sleep in these rooms again, after a man had been killed in them, even if that man had meant to kill him, made him want to vomit.

His two guards were staring at him in something like concern, now, as the Baratheon guard leaned down to check on the man with the knife.

He didn’t need to, Tommen thought, with a strange sort of conviction. The man was dead, he knew it.

The Lannister guard moved forward. Tommen felt bad that he didn’t remember the man’s name, when he had been guarding Tommen every third day since he had arrived at the Rock.

“Are you all right, Your Grace?” The man asked.

Tommen blinked owlishly at him.

“Your Grace. Are you hurt?” The man repeated.

Tommen hugged himself.

He’d seen dead bodies before, of course. He’d seen his father, just before the man had died, and then later, when his body was displayed for seven days after his death, as the Faith commanded, before it was returned to Storm’s End, his father’s ancestral home, rather than the Sept of Baelor, at Cersei’s command.

He’d seen the bodies of those whom Joffrey thought it was amusing to abuse, at his will.

He’d never seen his brother’s body, after he died, though.

In a way, that made it feel like Joffrey was more alive than the man bleeding out in front of his bed.

His kitten, where she stood by her milk pail in the corner of the room, let out a loud hiss as one of the guards moved towards her, but she hadn’t seemed bothered at all by the sight of the assassin.

Traitor, Tommen thought, and shuddered again.

That had been one of his brother’s favorite words, once he had become king.

“I’m fine,” he whispered, and realized, for the first time since his brother’s death, that it might be a lie.

The guard looked uncertain, then, as he stepped forward and checked Tommen over or injuries. Tommen let him, soundless.

The doors to his chambers burst open again as the guard had just gotten Tommen to his feet, and Tommen jumped at the same time as his kitten, whom he still needed to find a name for.

“Tommen,” his mother cried, rushing forward.

Her hair was windblown, her eyes wild, and two servants were rushing after her; clearly, she was not meant to be here, and had come running the moment she had heard what happened to Tommen, though how she had gotten here so quickly, he couldn’t say.

She was there, though, kneeling down in front of him, all but pushing aside the two guards and ignoring the sight of the dead man on the floor altogether. Her hands clasped at Tommen’s cheeks, then his shoulders.

“Tommen, are you all right?” She whispered, and her voice was panicked, needy. Her eyes were still wild, and growing wet.

He forced himself to nod.

He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had hugged him like this, he thought a moment later, as her arms wrapped around him and pulled him devastatingly close, squeezing the air from his lungs.

“Oh, my dear boy,” she whispered, and he remembered the way that she had slapped him, when he hadn’t seemed bothered enough by Joffrey’s death, the day she came to tell him about it.

“My darling,” she whispered, and he could feel the wetness from her eyes on his sleeve, before she pulled back. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, again, his lips parting finally. “I’m fine, Mother,” he said, and Cersei looked pained for a moment, as her eyes searched his.

For the first time in his life, Tommen thought his mother looked truly concerned about hi, the way that she had always seemed so concerned about Joffrey, only ever Joffrey, before.

But Joffrey was dead, now.

It felt…nice, to have her worrying over him like this, even with the body of a dead man at their feet, with the guards clearing it away soundlessly.

And he immediately felt guilty, about the thought. After all, he had almost...he had just almost…

Of course his mother was worried about him. Joffrey had been her firstborn, and so she loved him the most, but she loved all of her children, he knew that.

He did.

And then Cersei, satisfied that her son was all right, got to her feet and rounded on the two guards.

“And where the fuck were you, while a man crept into my son’s chambers and tried to kill him?” She asked, glaring down at the glinting knife on the floor by the assassin’s feet.

The guards exchanged glances.

“I swear, by all the gods,” Cersei said then, taking a step closer to the man wearing Baratheon colors, and Tommen shivered at the intensity in her tone, because it reminded her of Joffrey’s voice, “If I find that your master had something to do with this, if he broke the peace by ordering my son’s death, you will wish you had gone to the North to freeze with him.”

The man lifted his chin. “My master gave me strict orders to see to it that the boy did not come to harm, Your Grace," he told her. “And we honor our oaths.”

Cersei glared at the man a moment longer, before snorting and turning back to Tommen, giving him another long look before she forced a smile, and held out her hand to him.

“Tommen, darling, you’re shaking,” she said, and her own voice was shaking in turn, nothing like it had been a moment ago, when she had been screaming at the guard. “Come. Let’s get you some warm milk from the kitchens, yes?”

Tommen reached out, and took her hand, allowing her to lead him out of his rooms and down the hall.

Her servants settled in behind them, silent as the grave, and Cersei gave Tommen’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” She asked, glancing down at him, and Tommen forced himself to look up and meet her gaze.

She looked so very pained, at the thought of what might have happened to him, and he didn’t know if it was because she loved him, or because she was terrified at the thought of losing another son so soon after the last.

She smiled at him, and it was a sad, confused smile.

Tommen bit his lip, and glanced away. “What’s going to happen, now?” He whispered, and hated how needy, how terrified, his voice sounded.

He didn’t look at his mother, so that he didn’t have to see the disappointment in her gaze, that he was not her other son, the one who gave orders rather than the one who followed them.

He remembered what she had told him, on the night that Joffrey had died. That he was going to be a king, now that his brother was dead, even though the Queen was pregnant with his brother’s son.

He didn’t want to be the king.

Kings died, like his brother had died, like his father had died.

And his mother had said nothing more on the matter after she had slapped him, not that night, nor any day since. She had seemed content with Tommen’s honest disinterest in his brother’s title, and Tommen had hoped that nothing more would come of it, even though he had known that was likely not to be the case.

That his mother was always plotting something, even if she smelled of chilled wine and berries.

But she hadn’t said anything about it, and Tommen had hoped that he could live out the rest of his days at the Rock, not having to worry about the things his mother had wanted for him, and that he didn’t want.

It had been some time since then, and the fragile peace between the troops following Stannis and those following the Lannisters had remained, and his mother had remained, a constant fixture in his life.

No one else had even indicated that Tommen was to be king, the way his mother had that first night. It seemed clear to everyone else, as Tommen had originally thought, that they were to wait for the Queen’s child to be born, to determine whether or not it was a boy or a girl, before a true king was named. In the mean time, the Queen was acting as Regent for the Crown, under the direction of Uncle Kevan.

Cersei had not been happy with that, either, the moment she had learned of it. Tommen had not asked why.

He knew, though he didn’t understand why, that his mother didn’t like his brother’s wife. But she had not acted against it, for which Tommen was rather relieved. She was merely waiting, with the rest of the Rock.

The world seemed to be holding its breath.

Tommen hadn’t known what it was waiting for, until he saw that knife in his darkened room, and now, his breath hitched.

Cersei glanced at him in concern.

And still, he didn’t know the truth of it. Didn’t know what the world waited so impatiently for, that it sometimes felt like he couldn’t draw in enough air because of it.

But something about the way that man had gotten into his rooms, without his guards finding out, something about the way his blood glinted on the floor…

It made Tommen shiver.

He felt like something was very, very wrong. Like something had just happened, with that man trying to kill him, which could not be undone.

Cersei forced a smile. He could tell it was forced because when she was nervous, she only smelled of wine.

“Everything is going to be fine, my love,” she promised him. “The way it should be.”

He wondered if they had the same ideas about the way things should be.

He wondered if he was going to die now, too, because his mother wanted him to be a king, and kings always seemed to die from anything but old age.

But Tommen smiled, because his mother was smiling, and when she ordered the cooks to give him some warm milk once they reached the kitchens, Tommen felt his stomach beginning to settle, a little.

* * *

“What’s she done now?” Genna asked, with a sigh, as she saw the look on her servant’s face when the girl entered her chambers.

She glanced down at her embroidery, realizing that at this rate, in between suspected attacks from Stannis Baratheon and her niece, it was never going to be finished, and she ought to just give it up.

She was getting damned tired of putting out Cersei’s fires, these days.

The serving girl glanced down at her hands, and Genna’s hackles rose, at the other girl’s hesitation. She stepped forward, lifting her chin and crossing her arms over her chest, leaving her embroidery aside.

The serving girl gulped. “She…in the Great Hall. She’s just…The Tyrells attempted to kill the little prince, and the Queen Mother, she…”

“Oh, for gods’ sake,” Genna snapped, pushing past her. It seemed that, these days, she had to do everything herself.

She supposed she could understand the uselessness of the servants, with so many soldiers here in the Rock, but she would have thought that her own girls would be able to get around such impediments.

They had always been able to get around anything Tywin had thrown at them, in the past.

But it seemed that Stannis Baratheon had finally brought the Rock to its knees, without ever even having to order a single strike.

Genna did not know whether to be impressed or disgusted by that knowledge.

She knew that Jaime had not had another choice, for all that orders kept raining down from King’s Landing to see Stannis Baratheon destroyed for daring to attack the West.

Her nephew had done what he thought was best for the Westerlands, as well as for Tommen, when he had agreed to meet Stannis on the field of battle, a rather odd request from the other man, when, for all of Jaime’s victories so far, he still had the upper hand in this war against them, at the moment, stretched out though his armies were.

And then the request that Stannis had made, once Jaime had reached his tent for treating, had been even stranger.

But Jaime wasn’t here now, and neither was Stannis, and so Genna was left with nothing but a massive headache that lasted through the nights, induced by her fucking niece.

And now, it seemed, she had done something. Again.

Genna had that thought just as she stepped into the Great Hall, and her breath caught in her throat the sight that greeted her, because Cersei had done quite a few stupid things throughout her lifetime, but this…

This had to be the dumbest thing the girl had ever done.

Genna remembered the first time she had walked in on Cersei and Jaime, kissing in the abandoned gardens that had always been Joanna’s domain, while she lived. Tywin had ordered that they not be disturbed, after her death, and obviously the children had thought they would not be found there.

Genna had had to send their guard to the Wall, to avoid the rumors spreading about them, and even then, that had not stopped rumor. Nor Jaime and Cersei, from letting half the world know about their feelings for each other.

But this…this was by far, worse than that.

Because when she walked into the Great Hall, Cersei was standing just behind the chair that Genna’s father had once ruled so foolishly from, that her brother had taken over, in his death, and ruled with a firmer hand from.

The Seat of House Lannister, at the Rock.

But she was not the one sitting in it.

No, Tommen, who looked incredibly dwarfed and terrified within it, was sitting in that seat, and it was so very obvious that it was not because he was ruling the Rock.

Especially when he wore a golden crown upon his head, its golden needles jutting out into the air, the crown looking much too big for the child’s head.

Genna remembered to breathe again, as she stalked forward, horrified.

She saw that half of the court which still remained at the Rock was all gathered there, that she had been conspicuously left out.

Dorna, where she stood with what remained of Kevan’s children, now that both Lancel and Willem were dead, and Jaime had insisted Dorna bring them to the Rock for their own protection, turned wide, horrified eyes to meet Genna’s, the moment she stepped through the doorway of the Great Hall.

In those eyes, Genna saw the fears that she herself had been trying to force down, ever since Cersei had returned to the Rock, the terror she had felt ever since the news of Joffrey’s death had reached them.

Behind her son’s chair ( _throne_ , a nasty voice whispered in Genna’s ear, a voice which reminded her of Walder Frey), Cersei was smiling, as if she did not realize at all that she had just damned them all.

And, most especially, her son, who sat on that throne like he did not know how to sit at all, fingers fidgeting against each other, that crown too big for his head.

He should never have been burdened with it.

“All hail King Tommen of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and of the First Men,” the herald said, sounding slightly uncertain, but with the particularly fearsome glare that Cersei was sending his way, he didn’t hesitate.

Genna wondered if he would have been so impressed by Cersei’s glares if he had been subject to them when she was a child, wanting her way and not understanding why the world would not therefore bend around her.

Genna reached up, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Gods.

Tommen, where he sat in what had been her brother’s chair, and now belonged to…Jaime? Cersei? Gods knew, at this point. What was clear was that it did not belong to Tyrion, after he had all but signed it away with the murder of his nephew.

The murder of his nephew.

Genna still didn’t believe that particular rumor. Her nephew may have hated Joffrey, but Tyrion was the smartest of her brother’s children, and he had to know what killing Joffrey would have done to the realm, the chaos that it would throw them all into it.

No, she did not believe that he had killed his nephew, but she had not dared to share such suspicions with Cersei, who had seemed happy to damn him for it the moment she learned what it was that he had done.

She licked her lips, staring up at Tommen, in her brother’s Seat at the front of the Great Hall, and wondered how much longer either she or Cersei would be alive, before the two of them tried to stab one another in the throat.

She could feel the sudden urge coming on, after all, and Cersei had been no more sympathetic towards her since her own arrival here. Genna was rather sure that Cersei blamed her for much of what had gone on while she had been gone.

Tommen, where he sat on the throne, dwarfed and lost, looked too much like Jaime had, as a child, the day he'd sat outside his mother's chambers and listened to her die.

There was a hesitation within the crowd, and then someone, some fool who also did not know what suicide meant, shouted, “Long live the King!” And the cry was hesitantly taken up by the rest of the crowd.

Genna wondered how they did not all see it, especially when this child was not Joffrey. How they did not all see Jaime, sitting on that throne, his sister’s lion’s claws sinking into his shoulder.

“Long live the King!”

* * *

“What is the meaning of this?” Genna demanded, storming into Tywin’s old study, the one that Cersei was using, now, because her father was dead alongside her son.

She pursed her lips, setting down her quill, trying to pretend like she hadn’t just been writing letters to every major House in the Westerlands, thanking them for their support.

Well, every House save for the Leffords.

She had known this confrontation with Genna was coming, of course; it did not shock her that once again, Genna Lannister was questioning her every move, just as she had always questioned Tywin’s.

The difference being that Tywin had sometimes listened to her, and Cersei did not intend to listen to a woman who could not even stand by the side of the husband who had been chosen for her, while Cersei had been forced to be Robert’s loyal wife throughout the years of their marriage.

And at this point, with her brother dead and Cersei the rightful heir to Casterly Rock, now that Jaime too had left them, she had no choice but to sit by and let Cersei do as she willed, as head of their family.

Of course, Jaime would not be gone forever, she would see to that. Was, already, seeing to that, in the only way that she knew how.

One day soon, they would be together again, and then she would worry about getting Myrcella here, because at least in that one thing, she and Jaime could agree.

And they could be a family again, just as she had always wanted.

A family, save for Joffrey, and the pain of his loss still plagued at her, but in some ways, she wondered if perhaps this wouldn’t be easier. Jaime and Myrcella would be easier to bring back into the fold without Joffrey, loathe as she was to have the thought at all.

“I should think that would be self-evident,” Cersei said primly, and took a quiet pleasure in the way that Genna’s lips tightened, with her words.

It was all that she had anymore.

Joffrey was dead, and now, she must do everything that she could to protect Tommen, the true heir to the throne.

Surely even Genna could understand the reasoning behind her actions.

Genna pursed her lips. “If by that you mean you’re trying to get all of us killed, and that boy first of all, then yes, I know what you’re doing,” she snapped, and Cersei looked up at her sharply from the behind the safety of her desk.

“I am protecting him,” she gritted out, because the words made her feel oddly uncomfortable, in a way that she did not want to closely examine.

Genna snorted. “How, Cersei? By inciting a war with House Tyrell over a thing as vulnerable as the succession? That is the exact same thing that the man whom you hate so, who has taken half of the Westerlands for himself, said when he started the War of the Five Kings.”

Cersei felt her heart skip a beat. She felt the same way that she had on that horrible day, when she had learned through a letter delivered by ravens, of all things, that her beloved son was dead.

That horrible, terrifying feeling of helplessness, something that Cersei intended never to feel again.

Genna looked helpless, before her. That was how she knew not to listen to the other woman’s words.

“This is exactly why I didn’t ask for your counsel, Aunt Genna, and I would request that you keep said counsel to yourself, in the future. You bring nothing but doubts.”

Genna surged forward. “You do not want me to speak again because I am right, and you know it,” she hissed out, slamming her fist down on the table. “You still have time to turn this around, Cersei. Retract the coronation. Tell the world that you were wrong, that you had panicked. That Tommen is not yet claiming the Crown.”

Cersei closed her eyes. “It is done,” she whispered, and she heard rather than saw Genna moving away from her. She opened her eyes, forcing herself to face the other woman.

When she did, Genna took another step back from her, and Cersei stood to her feet, behind the desk.

She thought of how that knife had looked, sitting on the floor of Tommen’s chambers, pooling in an assassin’s blood, and her heart skipped another beat.

That same helplessness that she had felt when she had learned, after the fact, that Joffrey was dead, plagued her, at the sight of that assassin on the ground before her son.

This one hadn’t succeeded, but how long before her son, trapped in the Rock and surrounded by Stannis’ men, a direct threat to the child in Margaery Tyrell’s belly, was targeted again?

She was just doing what she had to do. What she had to do to protect her son from those who would only ever see him as a pawn until she forced them to see otherwise.

“Come now, Aunt. Who do you think ordered my son to be killed? Who do you think brought that man into the Rock to kill him? Who has the most to gain from the one other heir to the throne’s death?” Cersei demanded, coldly, because truly, it was the only thing that made sense, out of all of this.

Stannis, after all, was more obsessed with fairytales, these days, than ruling the realm, or he would never have abandoned half of his men at the Rock to go North of the Wall, a fool’s errand and a death sentence, never would have dragged Jaime with him rather than killing the man outright.

And the Martells, even with Myrcella in their grasp, another viable heir to the throne, for all that she was a girl, did not have the reach to come this far, to get a man within Casterly Rock, the way the Tyrells could have, with the green cloaks that Jaime had brought to the Rock to fight Stannis, before he had left them here.

Genna shuddered. She looked absolutely horrified by Cersei’s words. “Well,” she whispered hoarsely, “How are we to know, when that Baratheon guard killed the assassin before he could be interrogated?”

“What else was I supposed to do, but let House Tyrell know that they cannot continue taking and taking, until I have nothing left?” Cersei said, and she hadn’t noticed the way that her voice kept raising until she felt those last words leave her in something like a raw scream.

Genna took a half step back from her. “You want a war,” she whispered, the words half breathed, like some terrible prayer.

Yes.

Finally, she understood.

Cersei did not know why her father had ever valued Genna Lannister’s words, at all, up until the moment that she had turned against Cersei and Jaime. The woman had taken far too long to come to the only logical conclusion.

Cersei lifted her chin. “I want to strike first, before they strike out again at us. I want House Tyrell to know that they cannot bully us into submission, or take another son from me, just because it is what they want,” she gritted out.

Genna gritted her teeth. “Cersei, you don’t think it far more reasonable to assume that the Baratheon forces remaining in the Rock had something to do with this, rather than the Tyrells?” Gemma asked, incredulously.

Cersei snorted, wondering when Genna Lannister had lost full leave of her senses.

Yes, of course she had considered that, first and foremost, because that had been her heaviest concern, ever since she had come to the Rock to find that Jaime had abandoned her son with a bunch of men loyal to Stannis Baratheon, who seemed to think nothing of seeing her children dead in order to claim the throne for herself.

But it had been a Baratheon solider who had rescued Tommen, and there were far too many green cloaks in the West, these days, as well.

“Stannis is a man of his word,” Cersei gritted out the words, hating the admission as she made it. “I have seen the Tyrells flit from one loyalty to the next, as has always suited them, since we first formed an alliance with them at all. And now, the Queen is pregnant with Joffrey’s…with his…”

“You do realize,” Genna drawled, the irony of your statement. “If the Queen is, indeed, pregnant with the King’s child, then your crowning Tommen is rather…premature.”

Cersei glowered at her, annoyed. “Of course I do, but what else am I to do to let them know that I am serious? I am doing what I think is best to protect Tommen. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Genna snorted. “You don’t expect me to understand, girl?” She echoed. “I, who have been protecting him ever since your darling, stupid brother left him in my charge? I, who kept him from the hands of the Baratheon soldiers with my own, when they would gladly have killed him in the night and feasted on him the way that they feast at your father’s table each night? Tell me again how I don’t understand, Cersei.”

Cersei looked away.

Genna harrumphed, turning on her heel and stalking towards the door, but Cersei could not let the other woman have the last word, not in something as important as this.

Not when Genna was walking away from this conversation looking assured of her own significance, her own rightness, when Cersei was the one who had won, here. Tommen was the King, now, because she had made him that way, for all that Genna claimed to be protecting him by leaving him vulnerable.

“I have been considering Dorna’s…situation, since that assassin tried to attack Tommen,” Cersei said, and took a quiet pleasure in the way that Genna froze, in the doorway.

She turned back around, slowly, and Cersei relished in the look of panic on the other woman’s face before she buried it. “Cersei…” she began, but Cersei smirked at her, while her eyes dripped with sympathy.

“I know well what it is to lose a child,” she said, softly, and Genna’s eyes hardened.

It took Cersei a moment to understand why; she had been speaking about Willem, of course, dead at the hands of Robb Stark, even if he had not been the one to kill the boy, in his sleep, like an animal.

Genna, of course, was thinking of Lancel, a boy that had ceased to be a member of House Lannister the moment he had turned against them to join the Sparrows.

Cersei pressed her lips together, looking down at the letters on her desk instead of at Genna. “Joffrey’s passing has…made me realize how fragile life really is. That is why I have crowned Tommen as King, before the Tyrells can choke the life from him for standing in their way. And that is why I think that we need to better keep an eye on Martyn and Janei. They are Kevan’s only children left in this world, at all. I know that I would be…absolutely devastated were something to happen to Myrcella, just as Dorna would be if anything happened to either of them. So. I have been thinking. Martyn should serve as a member of Tommen’s Kingsguard. He has experience fighting in battles, after all. And Janei…she should be one of my ladies. I would like to keep her…close, for her own protection.”

The same way that she had made sure to keep Sansa close, though Cersei could freely admit that she had made a mistake, with the other girl, by letting her think that she had the autonomy to side against her, to hate either Cersei or Joffrey.

If she had kept Sansa too close to turn against her, the girl would have one day been forced to love her, rather than hate her. Cersei had no doubt Sansa Stark’s hatred had helped push Tyrion into killing her own son.

She would not make the same mistake with Janei, and she would be sure that Genna and Kevan damn well knew it.

Besides, if she could take the girl and mould her into the sort of girl that Cersei had wanted Sansa to be, she would make a lovely wife for Tommen, one day. Far more easily controlled than one belonging to a separate House.

And putting Martyn in the Kingsguard would force the Tyrells to pick up the scraps of what little left they could find, once Cersei won this war.

Someone would need to inherit the Rock from Cersei, after all, and Joffrey’s son could easily become the Lord of Casterly Rock. The Tyrells would just have to be content with that. And they would, the power hungry, grasping fools, the moment that they realized they would not easily gain the Crown.

She lifted her head then, to meet Genna’s gaze.

Genna swallowed. “Kevan is still in King’s Landing, serving as Hand of the King for the Regent until the child is born,” she gritted out, and yes, that was hatred in her eyes.

Cersei licked her lips. “Yes,” she said, “And he shall always have a place here, at the Rock, should he deem it important enough to return and serve as Hand to the true King of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Genna went very still. “Janei and Martyn are your cousins, Cersei,” she gritted out.

Cersei shrugged. “Tommen is Margaery Tyrell’s goodbrother,” she said, shortly. “That does not seem to have stopped them.”

Genna let out something like a strangled scream, turning back and leaning over the table. Cersei had sat down again, and she didn’t like the power imbalance this left the two of them at, not when Cersei was _winning_.

“I hope you cherish how this feels to you, just now,” Genna whispered, the words breathy, but somehow more threatening than Cersei had expected from the other woman. “For it won’t last.”

Cersei lifted her chin. She no longer felt the power imbalance; Genna was posturing. Terrified.

She smiled. “Genna, I am the Lady of House Lannister, with my father’s death,” she said, coldly. “I know that you wish it were Jaime, so that you might manipulate him to your own pleasure, but that is not the case. I am. And I am doing only what I believe to be best for this House.”

Genna’s lips pulled into a thin line. “Kevan will not appreciate being manipulated any more than you would, dear,” she said, calmly. “Not when you have already taken one of his children from him.”

Cersei didn’t flinch. “Then he’d better hurry home to the rest of them,” she said, calmly, and relished in the way that Genna stormed from the room, no doubt to write directly to Kevan and let him know of Cersei’s threats, the door slamming behind her.

Not that Cersei had any intention of harming Kevan’s children, so long as he did not keep pandering to those who would hurt her son.

There, Cersei thought, a contented sigh leaving her as the door slammed back open, Genna had thrown it so hard.

Her son was the King, as was only right, after his brother’s death. He was a child still, yes, but Joffrey’s child had not even left the womb yet, and Cersei was only doing what she had to do, to protect the children that she had left.

Myrcella was still lost to her, still stuck in Dorne, surrounded by enemies, as was Jaime, to the North, riding alongside Stannis Baratheon, but she would get them back. That was all that remained for her to feel victorious, until she brought the Tyrells down to their knees, reminded them to whom the Crown truly belonged.

She glanced down at the letters in her hands once more.

_The Crown thanks you for your support for King Tommen of House Baratheon, and in exchange for said generous support, offers to you…_

She smiled. Promises, promises.


	6. King's Landing

Elinor swallowed hard, where she stared down at the child in her arms.

It had only been a few days since her baby was born, but it still felt like a dream, something not exactly real that she was never quite going to be able to accept.

And not in a bad way, Elinor thought, a small smile pulling at her lips as she stared down at the child.

Willas.

He was beautiful. Perfect, the masters all said, and Elinor had laughed in relief when the third maester had declared him so.

Perfect, and so small, in her arms, like he didn’t quite belong there. Like she could drop him so easily, or he could disappear when she blinked.

She was trying very hard not to blink.

Willas let out a little cooing sound, squirming in her arms, and Elinor laughed, bearing her breast for the child to suckle.

“You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you?” She asked, as the babe latched onto her breast without a second’s hesitation.

She ran her fingers over the child’s bald little head, and wondered if he would have darker hair, like Willas, or would more like Alyn, when it finally grew in.

She grimaced a little, as her son pulled rather hard on her teat, and then she jumped a little, when she heard a knock at her bedchamber door.

Alyn should not be up yet, and it was not as if Elinor found herself with many other visitors, these days.

Sansa had, in the days after the King’s death, made it clear to the rest of Margaery’s ladies how they were to consider Elinor, and while there were dozens of Tyrells plaguing King’s Landing now, seeking the opportunity to gain favor now that Margaery was the Regent, Elinor’s fall from favor was rather well known, even if most did not know what it was that she had done, exactly.

And then the door opened, and Elinor’s breath caught in her throat as she found Margaery standing before her, looking hesitant and wide eyed.

“I…” she licked her lips. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Can I come in?”

She asked as if she didn’t already know the answer.

Elinor nodded her head. “I…” She thought about getting to her feet and greeting Margaery properly, but she realized she wasn’t quite sure she was able to, with the way that her son was latching onto her.

Margaery looked amused by that, more than annoyed that Elinor had not bothered to greet her properly. She’d never been like that, after all.

“Sorry,” Elinor said, attempting to cover herself up a little more, though she supposed it didn’t matter, not with Margaery. “You don’t mind if I…?”

She gestured from herself to the child clinging to her. The boy was only a few days old, and already, Elinor felt quite used to the child’s demands.

Margaery’s eyes widened slightly, before she shook her head. “No, of course not,” she murmured. “Go ahead.”

She moved closer, and then hesitated, seeming to realize only then that there were no other chairs in the room, save for sitting on the edge of Elinor’s bed.

Elinor smiled; the Margaery she had once known would never have hesitated, or asked for permission. She nodded for her to do so, and Margaery sat down, albeit hesitantly, and on the very edge of the bed.

But then, that Margaery was long gone, Elinor thought, sadly, and wondered if she was the only one of Margaery’s ladies who had come to that conclusion.

This one, this hesitant, quiet woman before her, was someone entirely different, and whenever Elinor was around her, in the few short times that she had been, she felt like she was dealing with broken glass.

Or, perhaps, glass that was about to break. Elinor was never entirely sure, on that.

Not that she had spent much time in Margaery’s presence since the night of Joffrey’s death.

Elinor didn’t blame Margaery for a moment of that, of course. Sansa had made it…very clear, what had happened to her that night, in a fit of rage which she had later apologized for, explaining that the things she had said had bee in the heat of anger, and she never should have said them at all.

And Elinor would not have blamed Margaery even if she hadn’t endured such a thing. Elinor had betrayed her, by turning to Olenna, and she would not have been surprised if Margaery wanted nothing to do with her again.

But surprisingly, unlike the rest of her ladies, Margaery seemed the most willing to embrace Elinor, after the way that she had gone with Olenna’s plans, when Margaery had warned her ladies of the consequences of doing so.

The other ladies saw her actions as a betrayal. Margaery saw it for what it was; there were few who could stand up in the presence of Olenna Tyrell’s considerable brand of stubbornness.

Not that Elinor was still considered one of Margaery’s ladies; she had kept her promise in that regard, at the least, considering the fact that she had not told them about the boy’s planned death a personal betrayal, just as Sansa seemed to believe it so.

Elinor had been allowed to remain in King’s Landing until she gave birth to her child, considering how close she was to childbirth, and her husband’s continued need for healing from the maesters.

Olenna may want her here, but she was uncertain how much longer she would be allowed to remain here, by the Regent.

And at the moment, Margaery was the more powerful of the two of them.

“He’s beautiful,” Margaery whispered, reaching out to gently trail a finger down the baby’s cheek. She glanced up at Elinor. “You must be so happy.”

Elinor beamed, despite herself. “I am,” she admitted, smiling down at her child now, in lieu of Margaery.

For all that she had always been Margaery’s woman, willing to do whatever it took to help her succeed, this was what she had always wanted. A family. A child to call her own.

And she loved Alyn, in her own way.

But this child, in her arms…he was beautiful. Elinor knew already that she would do anything for this child, would do anything to see him happy, in the future.

She glanced up at Margaery, then, and her eyes went soft as she saw the thing that looked something like despair, in Margaery’s own.

She wondered if, when the time came for Margaery to have her own child, she too would want to do anything to make that child happy, as well.

But still, Elinor could not stand the sadness in her eyes, the doubt. She swallowed hard, wanting to do anything to alleviate some of that pain, of the reminder of why that child had been so necessary.

“I…I named him Willas,” Elinor said, and Margaery stilled.

For a moment, Elinor thought it was because she was angry. Then, Margaery looked up at her, and her eyes were shining.

Then, “I know.”

Elinor pressed her lips together. “I know that…that I was supposed to ask for your permission, as the Queen, when he was your brother, but I…”

Margaery’s smile looked forced, but her words were not, when she did speak again. “I don’t mind at all,” she said, gently. “He would have been happy to know that you named your child after him.”

Elinor swallowed. “He was always kind to me,” she allowed.

Margaery hummed. “He was kind to everyone,” she murmured. “He cared for you, though.”

Elinor looked away, nodding. “When we were younger, I wondered what it would be like to marry him,” she admitted, and Margaery’s eyes widened. “Of course, I knew it was never going to happen, because your brother was destined for a wife with higher status than I. But…I imagined it. We would have been sisters, then.”

She smiled a little, at the thought.

When she was younger, before she had realized that her feelings were more for Margaery than they were for her brother, the idea of marrying Willas and becoming Margaery’s sister had been more than appealing, for her.

But Willas, where his sister was wild and impulsive, capable of plotting sedition, had always been sweet to her, always kind.

The first time that Margaery had been married, to Renly, even before Elinor had known the truth about Loras and Renly, she had cried for an entire night in Willas’ arms, and he had never once judged her for it.

Of course, she had made her peace with the fact that, even if she had never fallen for Sansa, Margaery would never have been hers, but Willas’ kindness to Elinor had never gone forgotten, both then and throughout their childhoods, for their particular branches of the family had always been close.

“I would have liked that,” Margaery admitted, her face pulled into a sad smile.

Elinor looked away first. She thought that Margaery might feel more comfortable, that way.

“I…” Elinor waited, waited until she felt that enough time had passed before Margaery looked at her again. “I hope that our children will be siblings, as well.”

Margaery’s head did jerk up, then. Then, she placed an errant hand on her protruding belly. Elinor knew that she had been only a few months behind Elinor, as far as the progression of her pregnancy.

“You are the first person to suggest to me that this child might not be a boy,” Margaery said then, though she didn’t sound surprised.

Elinor stared at her for a moment, before laughing, because she didn’t quite know how to else to cut the sudden tension in the room, and because she thought it was perhaps the only reaction that Margaery might be comfortable with.

“Well, in all likelihood, that stubborn Tyrell blood will win out, and you’ll find yourself with a very stubborn girl,” Elinor said, and then trailed off, and Margaery let out a tired laugh.

“I suppose that is something that I should have foreseen,” she murmured, leaning back against the bedpost with a tired smile.

Elinor grinned for a moment, too, before the smile faded, and she finally thought she recognized what was in Margaery’s eyes.

“Margaery, your child,” Elinor pressed her lips together, forcing a smile when she saw Margaery shift uncomfortably at just those words.

Margaery glanced up at her sharply, looking like something…hunted. Like she wanted nothing more than to turn and run, the moment she had the chance.

She didn’t, for which Elinor was grateful. She didn’t think she would be able to chase the other girl down, so soon after giving birth.

“This child doesn’t have to be Joffrey’s child, Margaery,” she told the other girl, gently, and found no pleasure in the way that Margaery squirmed before her. “You can love him.”

Margaery jumped to her feet, then, as if Elinor’s bed were scalding her, and Elinor pressed her lips together.

“I…” Margaery closed her eyes. Then, “I should go, Elinor. I…thank you, for letting me come to visit you. I know that you’re still recovering.”

Elinor’s heart sank as the other girl skittered away from the bed. Then, “Margaery, wait, please.”

Margaery waited, but her back was still to the other woman.

Elinor took it as a relief that she did not entirely pull away, however. That she didn’t try to leave.

“When I was in Highgarden, with your grandmother whispering in my ear,” she hesitated again, because she knew how special the relationship between Margaery and her grandmother was, even if it was…rather strained, at the moment. “I found that it made things easier, to find some sort of…distraction from everything going on around me.”

Margaery turned her head, eyes flitting back towards Elinor, and then away. “My last distraction became everything going on around me,” she said, and her voice was hard, accompanied with the words she said…

Elinor flinched.

“I thought she was more than just a distraction, that you loved her,” she said, voice lightly accusing, and Margaery’s whole body flinched.

“I…shouldn’t have said that. It’s not…it might have been true, at first, but it’s not true now,” she said, slowly, before turning around to face Elinor. “You’re right. What sort of distraction did you have, in Highgarden?”

She lowered her voice with those last words, as she realized, no doubt, that Alyn was sleeping in the next room over.

Elinor smiled, despite herself. “Religion.”

Margaery stared at her.

Were this any other situation, Elinor might have laughed, at the look on her face. Instead, she just smiled with idle amusement.

“I know,” she said, as her son let out a quiet wine and she gently pulled him away from her breast, tucking him back into his blankets in her arms. “Strange, coming from me.”

Margaery snorted. “Not how I was going to put it,” she said, slowly, but Elinor just laughed, this time.

“It helped,” she admitted. “There weren’t that many other ladies in Highgarden willing to speak with me, at the time, because they knew what I was, at that point.”

They both looked away from each other, then.

Elinor cleared her throat. “But it helped. To just…have something to talk to, something to think about, that wasn’t connected to any of this. That could listen, without providing a judgment.”

Margaery licked her lips. She still hadn’t turned around. “Religion hasn’t done much else for me, save to judge me,” she whispered.

Elinor hummed. “Fanatics did that,” she said. “But the Faith…I don’t think that it is meant to be used, that way.”

Even standing facing away from her, Elinor could see the way that Margaery swallowed, at her words.

And Elinor knew that she wasn’t going to accept what she had just told her, wasn’t going to accept that she was in denial about the love that she would feel for her child one day, but Elinor refused to let that bother her.

“Here,” Elinor said, getting up from her bed and placing her child back in his crib. “Let me walk you to the door.”

Margaery hesitated, looking like she wanted to object that Elinor should have to set her child down, but then she shrugged.

Elinor smiled, moving over to the door with her, out of her own bedchambers and into the small parlor that she shared with her husband.

He would be sleeping just now; the maesters wanted him to sleep as much as possible, these days, so as to help him regain his strength, but Elinor found herself rather relieved that he was forced to rest, so much.

Some part of her wanted to have the child as much to herself as she could, in these early days, as if she sensed that she would not have that luxury quite so much, when he was older.

Her branch of the family was not so distinguished that it might have been strange, for her to keep her son with her rather than fostering him out, when he was older, but a part of Elinor feared it, all the same.

Feared what Olenna might do to punish her, if she failed the woman now, as she had already done more than once.

“Elinor,” Margaery said, turning around and reaching out to grasp Elinor’s hands in hers, before her hands paused, midair, and fell back to her sides.

Elinor felt a distinct pang of loss at the realization.

“You’ve been a good friend to me,” Margaery assured her. “I know that…that the things you did for Olenna, you did them to help me. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t see that, before.”

Elinor pursed her lips. “Margaery…”

She wanted to say a dozen things. Wanted to tell Margaery that it was all right, that of course she had forgiven her, that she still knew Margaery cared for her, as well, in her own way, that pushing Sansa away was the wrong thing do to, here, that it wasn’t Margaery’s fault, this awful thing that had happened to her. It hadn’t happened to her because she had sped things along, because she had defied her grandmother.

She wanted to tell her that it would have happened either way, eventually, with a husband like Joffrey.

She didn’t say any of that.

She didn’t think Margaery was ready to hear it.

Instead, she just smiled, and said a thousand words with that smile, and thought that Margaery understood at least part of it, if the way her eyes widened was any indication.

And then she turned around, and walked away, and Elinor tried not to mourn the loss, a little, as the door shut behind her while she left the parlor that Elinor shared with her husband.

Instead, she sighed, and walked back into her own rooms, intent on taking another long nap before her child started to cry again.

And that was when she saw him, standing in the middle of her chambers, appeared out of thin air.

“Lady Elinor,” Lord Varys said, in his soft, considering voice, and Elinor grimaced, turning around to face the other man, and then her breath caught in her throat.

Lord Varys was standing in front of the small nursery that she’d had created for her son, in the months before his birth once she had decided that she was remaining in King’s Landing, and in his arms, he was holding her son.

Something about the sight sent a thrill of fear through Elinor, and she froze, her lips parting soundlessly.

“L-Lord Varys,” she stammered out, trying to remind herself that, for all of Lord Varys’ tricks, his games with those around him, he would never harm her child.

He would never want to be seen as responsible for such a level of power, that he could get away with killing a noblewoman’s child without a single reprimand for it.

After all, that would give away his game.

But logic hardly made her feel better about the sight of Lord Varys holding her child in his arms.

“I…What are you doing here?” She asked, torn between not showing weakness before this man, letting him know how much he was getting to her, and running forward to pull her baby out of his arms.

“You named him Willas,” Lord Varys said, rather than answering her question, and perhaps she might have been more disturbed by how easily he held a child in his arms, as if he had experience with children, were she not so disturbed by the sight of him here, in her rooms, at all.

“I…Yes, my lord,” she murmured. “I did get permission from Her Grace, the Regent, and before that, in fact, from Lady Olenna, who was more than happy for me to honor her grandson in such a way.”

That had been such a point of controversy, in the last few days, after her child had been born. Margaery had not reacted at all to the news of who she had named her child after, even if, technically, Elinor should have asked her for said permission long before she had held her child in her arms.

But the rest of Margaery’s ladies, all girls whom Elinor had once considered friends, had all had opinions about the name, about the imposition of Elinor not asking for the QUeen’s permission.

Varys did not seem entirely concerned with that. He simply nodded. “He is a beautiful child.”

Elinor’s heart skipped a beat. “He is,” she agreed.

“You are brave indeed, to bring him into this world in King’s Landing, of all places,” Varys went on, and Elinor swallowed, wondering if the words were a warning or a threat.

Varys’ eyes were always unreadable, to her.

“King’s Landing has become…a different place, since King Joffrey’s death,” she said, tartly, as she moved forward and pulled her son out of Varys’ arms while trying not to look as desperate to get her son away as she felt.

Varys let the child go without a protest, watching her with that knowing gaze as she cradled Willas close, checking the child for injuries despite her earlier assurances to herself that he would not hurt her child.

Thank the gods, she thought, the moment she had ascertained that her child was, in fact, safe.

Varys was still watching her as she put some distance between the two of them.

“What are you doing here, Lord Varys?” She demanded.

“I came here to talk about someone we are all three of us concerned with, Lady Elinor. You, myself, Lady Olenna.” Varys told her, eyes glinting, and Elinor’s stomach sank. “I believe the one thing we can all say that we have in common is our mutual concern for the new Regent.”

* * *

“Where are we on the High Septon?” Sansa asked, turning back to face Lord Baelish, and grimaced at the look he sent her.

A look far too full of longing for her comfort, though she had grown rather too familiar with Baelish looking at her like that, of late.

In his defense, he covered it quickly. Baelish seemed more than aware that, for all the kisses that she placated him with, she did not truly love him, not in the way that she loved Margaery, something he found it very difficult to let go, she knew.

And besides, he never let those kisses linger long, when they were dealing with politics. It was distasteful to him, Sansa thought.

He loved this side of Sansa, but wanted the side of her that smiled and kissed him back to be wholly separate from the politics of the land.

Because he wanted her to associate Margaery with those politics, wanted himself to be the reprieve from them.

She could have told him it was the other way around, if she had any sort of pity for him, but she could not forget the heavy price that he had extracted from her, in return for his help with the King’s death.

“The High Septon,” he repeated, nodding. “It took some…cajoling, but the Septons remaining within the Sept of Baelor have finally come to a consensus that the Crown should find…acceptable.”

Sansa pressed her lips together. “They chose the last Septon,” she pointed out.

Baelish’s smile was thin. “This one has deeper pockets, my dear,” he told her, and Sansa bit her lower lip, until she noticed the way that Baelish was staring at the action.

“Do the people know that?” She asked, because, as much as the Crown needed a new High Septon whom they could control far better than the last, if the people believed him to just be a mouthpiece of the Crown, they would likely never follow him, or accept him.

Baelish smiled. “He has been a faithful member of the Sept for many years. Rumor has it this one has never even touched a woman.” A pause. “Only boys, and ones that are not missed by the smallfolk.”

Sansa closed her eyes, feeling sick. “I see,” she said, because she very much did, and yet, this served their purpose well enough, sickening as it was to learn of the man’s weaknesses so…intimately.

“But…” Baelish paused, then, and she turned to face him. “At the moment, the High Septon is not our biggest concern.”

Sansa chewed on the inside of her cheek. “The funeral, I know. Now that there is a High Septon, we can go through with the ceremony without…”

“Sansa,” Baelish interrupted her, and Sansa went still, turning about to face him. She saw the seriousness of his face, then.

Gods, what now?

Baelish seemed to read some of the frustration in her eyes, for he sat down on the corner of the map table with a sigh.

“Cersei has crowned Tommen as King,” Baelish said, and Sansa felt her whole world going still, at those words.

“W…What?” She breathed, because truthfully, at first, the words meant nothing to her, sounding so foreign that she didn’t have a prayer of understanding them.

Baelish gave her a long, knowing look, before sighing again. “She claims that someone, acting on behalf of House Tyrell, snuck into the boy’s chambers in the middle of the day and tried to murder him. That she is crowning him because she believes it to be the only way to protect her son from the Tyrells.”

Sansa’s heart skipped a beat. “She’s courting a war,” she whispered.

Baelish shrugged. “There was always going to be a war, Sansa,” he told her, gently, but firmly. “What did you think was going to happen, when Margaery killed the King?”

Sansa closed her eyes, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. “No,” she breathed. “Not like this. I didn’t…I didn’t think this would happen.”

“Margaery’s child is not yet born, and as long as it is not, Cersei can claim that her own child is the heir,” Baelish continued, mercilessly, and Sansa’s eyes snapped back open. “And even that child had been born when Joffrey had died, she likely would have had her son crowned, anyway.”

Sansa knew that, of course she did, but she had been dreading everything about this, had been hoping that for once in her life, Cersei would stand by and do nothing.

Dear gods, there was going to be a war.

There had to be, with Cersei doing something like this. The Tyrells could not let this stand, for, even if the child in margaery’s womb turned out to be a girl, the very fact that Cersei had crowned Tommen meant that she was openly questioning the legitimacy of the child in Margaery’s womb.

And Margaery’s child, who was not even born into this world yet, and Tommen, who was still a child himself, were about to be dragged into the middle of that war.

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?” Sansa demanded, rounding on Baelish, then. Yesterday, the Small Council had been debating whether they should have Lannister colors at the King’s funeral, when clearly this was the far more important concern.

Baelish met her eyes. “Because I have spies within the Rock, my lady, while no one else does. It has not left the Rock yet, this news that Tommen is their king. The rest of the realm will no doubt find out in the coming days, but I thought that you should know.”

Sansa’s breaths were coming with even more difficulty, now.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought, thinking of Tommen’s sad eyes as he told her how lonely he was within the Keep, because not even his own mother spent much time with him.

His own mother, who was just now using him as a pawn, if indeed the Tyrells had even attacked him in the first place. A stepping stone on her way back to the Iron Throne.

“We have a little time,” Baelish told her, “To decide what we’re going to do about this.”

Sansa scoffed. “What can we do about this?” She whispered. “The Tyrells may be capable of summoning the largest armies in the Seven Kingdoms, but the Lannisters already have that, and what’s worse, Jaime Lannister took Tyrell forces to the Rock, with him.”

A horrible thought struck her.

“Are they still alive?” She glanced up sharply at Baelish.

He looked away.

Shit, she thought harshly.

“Then we’re even more doomed,” she whispered.

Baelish didn’t bother to respond; it was not as if he needed to. They both knew that she was right.

“Does anyone else know?” She said, and didn’t like the way that Baelish was gravitating towards her vulnerability, looking very much like he wanted nothing more in the world than to comfort her.

“Just us, for now,” Baelish told her. “And the Houses of the Westerlands. It will not be long, if they do not already know, before the forces Stannis Baratheon left at the West knows, and at Winterfell.”

Sansa’s heart was hammering in her chest. “And Stannis is not there to tell them to stop her,” she whispered.

Of course he wasn’t. Because somehow, no matter how many times her husband hit her or her son reviled her, Cersei Lannister clawed her way back to the top, every single time.

Sansa shut her eyes tightly, and so she was shocked when Baelish reached out and touched her, her eyes snapping open.

He didn’t pull away, and neither did Sansa.

Even if his very touch so often repulsed her, Sansa found herself leaning into it, needing some sort of comfort in all of this.

Gods, she was so tired.

Petyr reached out, running a hand gently through her hair, and then down her cheek, his fingers trailing slowly, and Sansa closed her eyes, because otherwise she didn’t think she would be able to hide the revulsion in them at his touch.

“Do not worry. I’ll protect you, Sansa,” he vowed to her. “No matter what happens.”

Sansa grimaced.

She didn’t want that, because she knew that that promise did not extend to Margaery, the same way that it extended to her. Baelish could not give less of a damn about Margaery; she was not the reason that he had helped cover up Joffrey’s death.

He had done that because he believed Sansa when she told him that she was…more directly involved in it than she might have been.

But Sansa had to protect Margaery, and that meant keeping Baelish at arm’s length while manipulating him into doing what she willed.

“Is there any way to fix this?” Sansa whispered hoarsely, against his chest.

She could feel Baelish’s smile against her skin. Because of course there was; his mind was always a dozen steps ahead of those around him, even Cersei’s.

She didn’t even know what she was doing, trying to manipulate him like this. She had no doubt that he already knew exactly what she was up to, and had plotted away around it that still ended with her in his arms.

“I will take care of everything, Sansa,” he promised her. “You needn’t worry about that.”

She nodded, shakily. She pulled back, then, forcing a tremulous smile, because two could play this game, and Margaery had taught her to always cake a lie in truth. “I know, Petyr,” she whispered.

She didn’t pull away, this time, when Baelish pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, gentle and somehow possessing, at the same time. His fingers ran through her Tully red hair, and she imagined, for a moment, that instead he was running his fingers through blood.

“I don’t want Tommen hurt, either,” she whispered, because even if Cersei had just made him their greatest enemy, she could not forget the boy’s sad smile as he admitted to her that he knew his own family cared little for him.

Baelish raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want much, do you?” He asked, but he sounded rather amused by her words, rather than annoyed.

She reached out, placing a hand on his arm. “Please, Petyr,” she said, and he eyed her for a moment, before nodding.

“I shall see what I can do,” he told her, which was not exactly an answer, but she supposed she would have to take it, for now.

And then, he was gone, moving out of her rooms, and away.

She remembered how to breathe again only after he was gone.

Fuck, Sansa thought, her heart hammering in her chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She had to find Margaery.

She knew that Margaery wanted her space, knew that she was uncomfortable with the way that Sansa kept reaching out to her, even if Sansa couldn’t help herself in doing so, but this was more important than that.

They had to deal with this, now.

Margaery may not be in the best place to deal with any of this, just now, but Sansa needed her to be. Needed her to be here with Sansa, in this moment, because Sansa had been doing her best to appear strong to everyone around her, since Joffrey had died, but this…this was too much, even for her.

She sucked in a ragged breath, and then another, and left her chambers, latching the door tightly behind her, as she marched back to Margaery’s own chambers, the ones that had belonged to Joffrey, of all people.

Margaery had insisted on moving into them, after his death. Sansa still felt something sick twist in her stomach, every time she came to these rooms, and remembered what had happened in them.

She couldn’t imagine how Margaery could sleep peacefully in these chambers, after that night. Sansa could barely stomach looking at them.

She didn’t know how she could ever make love to Margaery, in these rooms, if that was even something Margaery would ever ask of her again, not after what Joffrey had done to her here.

The Kingsguard outside the door let her pass without a protest; they knew better, by now.

Sansa stepped inside Joffrey’s old chambers, shivering a little, though it was hardly cold, even with Joffrey’s windows thrown open, as they were.

She looked down at the floor, and for a moment, if she stared hard enough, she could still see Joffrey’s blood pooling on that floor. Could still see the outline of the man whom she had killed, beside his body.

She forced herself to look up, look around.

Margaery was not here, she realized a moment later, which, for all that it felt like relief flooding through her at the realization, was a surprise.

Whenever Margaery was not acting as the Regent, she seemed to be hiding in these chambers.

But she wasn’t here, and she had no announcements to make, no meetings of the Small Council to see to.

Sansa felt something like panic bubbling up within her in the next moment, at the thought that Margaery wasn’t where she always was, not when Margaery had been acting so strangely lately, not when they had promised each other that they would never leave one another-

“Sansa?” Alla’s bright voice cut through her panic like a knife, and Sansa spun around, eyes blown wide.

Alla forced a smile. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud, and wrong, in the room, when she spoke again. “Are you all right? I said your name four times.”

Sansa licked her lips. “Where is the Queen?” She demanded, and immediately regretted her shortness with the other girl.

For she had been right; the rooms were empty of anyone save for Alla, for all that there had been Kingsguard standing outside them. Margaery was still gone, and that panic was still welling up inside of Sansa, waiting for its moment to erupt.

Alla wouldn’t meet her eyes. She looked terribly guilty.

Sansa spun on her. “Alla,” she said, some of the panic she felt bleeding into her voice, and making Alla’s eyes widen. “Where is she?”

Alla bit her lip. “She-She went to the Sept of Baelor, to pray.”

Dear gods.

Sansa felt like her entire world was imploding around her.

First, Cersei had crowned Tommen, had doomed him, for all that she had asked Baelish to find a way to spare the boy. She knew, as he did, that she had far too many favors owed to Baelish to ask for him to spare another life alongside Margaery’s.

And now, Margaery had gone to the Sept.

“Was she alone?” Sansa asked, her heart hammering in her chest. Logically, she knew that the Queen would never have been allowed to go to the Sept alone, not after what had happened the last time she had been there, but the fact that Margaery had gone to the Sept at all seemed to defy logic, in this moment.

The Sept of Baelor where, the last time Margaery had been there, Joffrey had slaughtered everyone inside of it.

Alla shook her head.

Sansa felt her insides grow cold, as she stalked towards the door, throwing over her shoulder, “Why the fuck did you let her go?”

* * *

Margaery had never been a particularly religious woman, in the strict sense of the word. Oh, she had understood the use of it, when she was older, and she had believed in the Seven from a young age, taught well by her Septa and by her devout mother, had attended the Sept whenever she felt the need for a guidance that her grandmother could not provide, or to show her devoutness to those around her.

Most commonly, the common people. They tended to trust her charity, she found, more after she had just gone to pray. And her husband had tended to trust that she was truly trying for a child, when she prayed to the gods for one.

Today, she had not come here as a show to the smallfolk, which was something of a strange sensation, for her.

They did not even know she was here, from the way she had snuck here with only Nym for company, not telling a soul within the Keep, save for Alla where she was going, wearing a hood that could have belonged to any rich lady, not just a Regent.

She hoped.

But she was here, now, and they had not encountered any trouble along the way, from the smallfolk whom they had passed, after sneaking out of the Keep through the tunnels that the fanatics were rumored to have used to kill the King, and Margaery had thought she had some purpose, in coming here, all the way until the moment when she stood within a quiet part of the Sept and stared up at the Mother’s fresco, on the wall.

The Septon who had let them in here, and then told them how to lock the door after themselves, had seemed shocked to see her, something she understood.

She had flinched hard, when Nym had locked the door for Margaery on her way out, reminded of all of the times when that damned High Sparrow or that ugly Septa had come into her cell, within the Sept, and demanded her confession, and then locked the door after themselves as they left, heedless of Margaery’s threats or pleading.

She had been nothing more than their hapless prisoner, their victim, and Margaery had vowed that she never wanted to be anyone’s victim again, as she watched Joffrey’s men bathe in their blood.

She let out a dry laugh; more fool, she, for thinking that siding with Joffrey in anything might have saved her from becoming his victim.

She looked up at the Mother, where she hung above her, and thought of the way that blood had felt, as she waded through it that day, at the Slaughter of the Sept, as the smallfolk called it, now.

The feeling of blood, squishing between her toes, was something she would never forget. She could feel it, even now.

Margaery shut her eyes, tightly, suddenly uncertain.

She shouldn’t have come here, she realized, with a sickening sense of clarity. She should not have come back to this place, because even if she could find some comfort from the darkness encircling her mind in the Faith, surely she would not find it here.

The Mother had no mercy for one who had shed blood in the House of the Faith.

If Joffrey’s beheading of Ned Stark was enough to offend the Faith once, surely, what Margaery had induced him to do was far worse.

And yet.

And yet, the child within her belly was still kicking, and Margaery was terrified, and she would take comfort where she would get it, at this point.

She looked up at the Mother, eyes very wide, now.

She did not utter her prayers aloud, because something about that seemed obscene, after the things that she had caused to happen here, once, and because all of the prayers Margaery knew were recited, and none of them seemed to encompass the particular kind of guilt for which she wanted mercy.

And yet, she prayed, her lips moving soundlessly as she begged the Mother for mercy, even wondering whether or not mercy was something that the Seven could offer one such as her, after the things she had done.

Mercy, for her child, she amended, at the very least.

She might have caused the slaughter that had happened here, might have killed her own husband, but her child was an innocent, for all that he was born of wedlock.

 _Mother, please,_ she whispered soundlessly, _grant my child your mercy. Grant him the mercy of being born a son, so that he does not spend his entire life in thrall to those who would hurt him simply for living. Grant him a life unspoiled. I-_

And then the words came, more and more panicked, because the longer she spent kneeling before the Mother, the more her toes dripped of a blood, today unseen.

For a moment, that blood belonged to the dead of the Sept.

In the next moment, it was mixed with the blood that had dripped between her thighs, from where Joffrey had hurt her, over and over again, before she bashed his head in, killing her own husband.

But the words of her prayers poured over themselves in her mind, despite her mind seeming to drip with the blood of those around her. Hers, the smallfolk’s, Joffrey’s.

She had endured Joffrey, in those final moments, in all of the moments before then, so that she could have this child, the one kicking against her womb, reminding her that it had been a grand total of only a few moments since the last time that she had used the privy.

All for this child, and now, the child within her womb was the only thing that could matter, because otherwise, what had it all been for?

And there was no earthly power which could grant her that reassurance, now.

_Grant me your Mercy, Mother, for I have sinned most grievously against you. I do not ask for mercy for myself, but for the child within me. Do not use the sins of the parents against my child, I beg of you-_

“You shouldn’t be here, Your Grace,” a woman’s voice interrupted her, and Margaery closed her eyes, because she may not have recognized the scarred woman, at first, but she recognized that damn voice.

Confess.

She squeezed her eyes tighter, gasping.

Of all of the people to find her here, she supposed she should not be surprised that this one had.

She wondered if this was the Mother’s way of answering her prayers.

Or rather, denying them, for nothing good could come from that woman’s voice, not after the way it had plagued Margaery’s waking hours, while she was kept prisoner here, and her nightmares, after she had escaped this place.

She turned around, and found herself staring into the hardened eyes of the Septa who had once demanded that she confess, over and over and over.

“Get away from her,” Lady Nym snapped, barging into the small prayer room and stepping forward, then, but Margaery lifted a hand, from where she still sat on the floor, on her knees. Nym hesitated, looking bemused.

Margaery didn’t know why she did it. Perhaps out of a desire to keep more blood from being shed within this particular sept. Perhaps because she was curious as to why this particular septa had not hit her over the head, for daring to be here at all.

“It’s fine, Lady Nym,” she told the other woman. “The Septa could not hurt me if she wanted to.”

Margaery wasn’t certain that anything could, anymore. She’d hurt enough for a lifetime.

Nym didn’t move.

The Septa stared at her, clearly surprised that Margaery had stopped her Kingsguard from coming after her.

She was right to wonder; it wasn’t as if Margaery had ever tried to stop such things in the past, after all. She deserved all of the woman’s confusion.

Nym looked confused, glancing sharply between the two of them, not looking like she believed that Margaery would be fine.

Margaery didn’t like that hesitation.

“You may wait out in the hall,” Margaery gritted out, annoyance flooding her. “I’ll…” she shrugged. “I’ll scream, if I need you.”

Nym gave her an unimpressed look, before doing as she had bid, leaving Margaery alone in a room with the septa.

The moment she was gone, Margaery wished that she could summon her back without looking like a cowardly fool.

The Septa stared at her, wide eyed, for a moment, before taking a step closer, and then another. Despite her earlier words, Margaery felt herself tense, where she knelt on the ground, below the other woman.

She felt just as she had in that prison cell, with the septa towering over her as she read prayers.

“If the smallfolk were to find you here…” the septa tsked, like a mother reprimanding an errant child. “I don’t think they could forgive it, given what happened when you were last here.”

Margaery licked her lips, opening her eyes again. She knew that. She did not need this woman, who thought herself so above Margaery for her faith, to remind her of it.

The moment she had the thought, Margaery felt guilt for doing so, because after all, that was why she was here.

Forgiveness.

She reached out, placing a hand on her bulging stomach.

“Do you think forgiveness impossible then, Septa? Or are you here to kill me?”

“Those that kill belong with the Stranger, if they do not kill for the Seven,” the Septa parroted words Margaery had only heard a few times, when this woman had read them to her out of the Seven Pointed Star.

Margaery closed her eyes again. “Do you think that killing me would be righteous, then?” she asked.

When she opened her eyes again, the septa seemed to be hard at work, contemplating the question. “Do you?” She asked.

Margaery stared at her, lips falling open soundlessly.

Because she didn’t have an answer to that question, as she honestly didn’t know what the answer should be.

She had killed her husband. She had willingly let so many people die within this Sept, knowing what her husband was, so that she could protect Sansa.

Nym had suffered at the hands of the one who had murdered her own father, because Margaery had needed a child and had to wait to kill her husband.

Margaery did not know if there was a word for the things she had done, anymore.

Finally, the Septa sighed. “No, Your Grace. I do not.”

Margaery blinked at her, genuinely surprised by the answer.

“What was your name again?” Margaery asked.

The septa smiled at her. “You truly don’t remember.” She truly didn’t sound surprised. Margaery wondered what nobles had hurt her, in a past life, for her to hate them so.

“No,” Margaery said, and there might have been something of an apology, in those words. “I have tried hard to block certain memories from my mind.”

“Traumatic ones, I imagine,” the Septa said.

Margaery pressed her lips together. “You have no idea,” she whispered, and hated herself a little for the way that her voice shook as she said those words. She did not deserve this woman’s pity.

They sat in a silence that almost felt amiable, for some time after that, before Margaery dared to speak again.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Is there...is there any way, do you really think, for one with so much blood on their hands to attain the gods’ forgiveness?”

The Septa stared at her, and then she sank down to her knees beside Margaery, startling the other woman. “Do you think I wished you to confess, so demandingly, for fun, Your Grace? That I took some enjoyment out of your humiliation?”

Margaery eyed her.

 _Yes_.

The word hung in the air, a silent indictment between the two of them.

The Septa was the first to look away, but that did not stop her from saying, “I did it because confession is good for the soul. It is the only way to find true forgiveness, from the Seven, by admitting that you have wronged them, and gaining penance. Washing yourself anew. I did it because I believed in what you could become, if you only set aside your worldly, selfish ways.”

Margaery swallowed, but her throat suddenly felt very dry.

“I...I am haunted,” Margaery admitted, and the words felt like as much of an admittance as she could allow, “by my wrongs. And I...I fear what they will make me become. The things I’ve done...I am afraid that there is no coming back from them. That they’ve turned me into something...Other.”

The Septa, for the first time sine margaery had met her, looked almost sympathetic. “Then you must confess,” she murmured.

Margaery shut her eyes tightly. “The things that I have done…I do not know that penance might forgive them,” she admitted, and the words in and of themselves felt like an indictment.

When she opened her eyes again, the Septa was looking at her with a sympathy she had never possessed, while Margaery was her victim.

“There is never something too evil for the gods to forgive, if you approach with an open heart and a willingness to atone, Your Grace,” she said, and Margaery felt a tear slip down her cheek.

She reached up, wiped at it. The Septa looked disturbed, by the sight of her tears. “I…Do you really think so?”

Septa Unella reached out then, taking her hand in her own and squeezing it. “It will not be easy, Your Grace, but yes, I have to believe that.”

Margaery swallowed hard. Nothing came easily, anymore; she had long ago accepted that.

She felt the septa’s hands on her own, a touch that burned as every touch did, these days, but she did not pull away.

“Is there any way…This time, could you…Would you help me find the true path?” She whispered, and the septa smiled at her.

But Margaery was already shaking her head then, pulling away. “No. I cannot ask that of you. Not after the things that I…What would you have to gain from that?”

The Septa knelt, then, so that they were level with one another. “Your Grace,” she said, very slowly, and Margaery shivered at the reminder of that title, that it belonged to her, still.

And not in a good way.

“I am not sure if you will ever truly wipe away the stain of the Slaughter of the Sept,” the septa told her, coolly, “not in my mind, even if you manage it before the eyes of the Seven. But I am a septa, and it is my duty to guide you, if that is what you wish. Especially when you are the Regent of the Crown, and I see this to be a duty brought before me at the hands of the Seven themselves, seeing you here.”

Margaery licked her lips.

“I do not believe it coincidence, that we found each other today,” Septa Unella continued. “You are the Crown, and if I can bring you back to the Faith, I will have done more than my share of penance.”

Margaery blinked at her. “What do you atone for, Septa Unella?” She asked the other woman.

Septa Unella met her eyes. “I held a dead man’s hand in my own, and felt life return to it before my very eyes,” she murmured. “And then, I let him die again. I think that our sins are near equal, Your Grace.”

Margaery stared at her for a moment, and then nodded, slowly, before turning her gaze back to the Mother.

“If we try hard enough, we might just wipe ourselves clean before the eyes of the Seven,” she whispered.

Margaery could still feel that blood, on her toes.

“It is not us, Your Grace,” the septa told her, softly. “But their power, their mercy, which absolves us, once we show that we have a true heart, before them.”

Margaery licked her lips, turning back to the septa, then. “Then it seems that I have much to learn, much that I did not learn, during my time here. Will…will you help me?”

She still had not received an answer. Septa Unella had told her she believed it to be her calling, but she had not answered.

And then, Septa Unella smiled. It looked strange, on the face of a woman whom Margaery had never seen smile before.

“I will, Your Grace, before the eyes of the Seven.”

And, for the first time since she had bashed in her husband’s brains with a small golden statue, Margaery felt a bit of the burden she carried wane.


	7. King's Landing

_Margaery stood atop the balcony outside Cersei Lannister’s old chambers, staring down at the harbor below, the street below that._

_For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder what it might be like, to simply...step off the edge of the balcony, throw herself down into the streets below._

_It would certainly solve so many of her current problems, Margaery thought, idly._

_It would certainly stop the nightmares._

_She was dreaming of Loras, most nights._

_Every night, the same dreams, over and over. Loras, standing in the corner of her chambers as she slept, pulling her from sleep that wasn’t really sleep._

_Dripping wet, just as he had been in Dorne, as he stared at her with unseeing eyes, and whispered, “Why, Margaery? Why did you let this happen to me, only to let this happen to you?’_

_And he would gesture around to Margaery’s chambers, chambers that she would realize only then were her husband’s bedchambers, the bedchambers that he had raped her in, and Margaery would shudder._

_“I…” of course, she never had a good answer for him. He was right. It was her fault that he was dead now, and her fault that Joffrey had finally seen her for what she truly was, and punished her for it._

_If she’d just been a bit more patient, he might never have known. Might have gone to a peaceful death, poisoned in his sleep, still believing that Margaery loved him, days before her child was to be born, rather than months before._

_But last night, she hadn’t dreamt of Loras’ accusing gaze, of the water dripping from his fingers, his clothes, never-ending throughout every iteration of the dream._

_Instead, she dreamt of the child in her belly, brought into this world in blood, screaming. He was grown into a man within moments, a strong, agile man, standing in the corner of Margaery’s chambers, and she hadn’t needed to guess who he was, just looking at him._

_He was Joffrey’s son, with Joffrey’s piercing green eyes and Joffrey’s cold smile which promised pain._

_It was impossible, of course, because the child in her belly had belonged to Olyvar, but the child standing before her in her dream terrified her because he was, every inch of him, her husband’s son._

_He smiled at her, a smile which didn’t match the tone of his voice as he asked her, where she lay sweating in her bed, “Why did you kill my father?”_

_And she, backing up until her back was against the headboard, “He wasn’t your father.”_

_“Wasn’t he?” the boy with Joffrey’s smile asked, cocking his head at her. “Isn’t that what you’ve told everyone since you bought a whore to make me? So you could sit me on his throne, and rule through me?”_

_Margaery was panting, suddenly, even if a part of her was aware that this was only a dream. “He was, and he wasn’t.”_

_The boy scoffed. “I don’t know what that means.”_

_“Neither do I.” Margaery hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. But they were first thing she’d said to this boy who was impossible that she’d meant._

_Her son stared at her. “You killed him, and then you took everything from him,” he said. “His chance at a true heir, his throne, his belief that you loved him.”_

_Margaery shifted, uncomfortably._

_Suddenly, they were no longer in her bedchambers, but standing before the empty throne._

_Her son moved towards it, reaching out to trace a gentle finger over one arm of the uncomfortable chair. Then, he turned back to her._

_He hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d first opened his mouth._

_“So why can’t I take it from you?” he asked her. “I’ve seen what you’ve done. You don’t deserve this throne. You used me to get it, but you never loved me. So why shouldn’t I take what you love?”_

_Margaery blinked at him. “I…”_

_She didn’t understand what he meant, not until he moved forward and sat down on it._

_And that was when she realized that it was too late. Too late to tell him that she’d never loved this throne, that she hadn’t wanted a child because she loved this throne. It had been because she had thought she needed it, to protect those she did love._

_But then she saw into his eyes, and saw that he already knew all of that._

_“I don’t like you, Mother,” he told her, with the same cruel smile that Joffrey had used when he told her to hit Sansa, that first night, a lifetime ago, when all of this had begun. “What’s to be done about that?”_

_Margaery took a step backward, and found herself tripping down the steps before the Iron Throne, landing in a heap at the bottom of them._

_She looked up at her son, the boy wearing Joffrey’s face and sitting on Joffrey’s throne. He was full on grinning now, leaning forward in that chair as if he couldn’t bear the thought of missing a moment of her suffering._

_“Do you know, that’s what Cersei Lannister’s children have all been to her,” her son continued, still grinning. “Oh, she may have convinced her brother that she loved them for being his, but we both know the truth, don’t we? She wanted the Iron Throne all along, loathed her husband for having it instead of her. Killed him, too. And it was only her child who finally was able to stop her, as I’m going to stop you.”_

_“No,” Margaery said, shaking her head, desperately._

_“He banished her,” the boy continued, “As I could so easily banish you. He loved his father, as you’re going to teach me to love mine, because if you do otherwise, you know you’ll lose the throne. Someone, somewhere along the line will wonder why you taught your son that his father was a monster, that he was born of a monster, if you don’t.”_

_Margaery swallowed hard._

_“And I’ll grow up loving a man that you hated,” her son whispered, and then laughed. “Hells, a man you killed.”_

_Margaery shook her head. “No,” she insisted. “No, that is not the son I will raise.”_

_“But I’m my father’s son, Mother,” he said, smirking. “You just said as much. Or are you going to tell me, one day, that you butchered my father like an animal? Made me complicit by doing it while I was still within your belly?”_

_Margaery flinched. “Forgive me,” she breathed._

_Her son shook his head, laughing. “Why? You didn’t forgive Joffrey, and he was your husband. You’re my mother. You’re sleeping in Cersei Lannister’s chambers, and you’re going the route she did. Fucking someone who isn’t your husband, having a child and passing it off as your husband’s, claiming the Iron Throne for yourself.”_

_Margaery shook her head. “I…” she swallowed. “She was married to Robert Baratheon. I was married to a creature made by the Stranger himself. I was just trying to protect myself. My family.”_

_The boy leaned forward, grinning at her. “You think that isn’t the exact argument she used, when she had her husband killed? And you did worse. You killed him with your own hands. Over-killed him, actually.”_

_Margaery awoke in her bed, sitting upright, gasping, sweat pouring over her._

_She glanced to the corner of her rooms, Cersei’s old rooms, where Loras usually stood dripping saltwater and glowering at her, to see if this was still a dream._

_Her rooms were gloriously empty._

_Margaery threw the bedding off of her, stumbling out of her bed as if it were burning her, and stalking towards the open balcony, finding herself in desperate need of fresh air._

_She wondered how many times Cersei and Jaime Lannister had fucked in the bed she kept having nightmares in. Wondered if the nightmares were a sign from the gods, not only that she had done something wrong, but that she slept in a bed made for the unholy._

_And then she reminded herself that she had sinned quite enough, without having to worry about paying for the sins of others._

_And that was how she found herself climbing up onto the bannister, because just standing on the balcony was still making it difficult to breathe, and she couldn’t breathe, not entirely, until she stood atop that bannister, the fresh air beating against her like the wind._

_The servant found her there, too._

_“Your Grace!” the serving girl called, rushing forward, but Margaery held up a hand, and she instantly stilled. Margaery knew that without even turning around._

_That was what it meant to be the Queen Regent for a child who was not even born yet, after all._

_“I need you to send for Lady Nym,” she ordered, sharply._

_“Your Grace,” the serving girl acknowledged, then, “Perhaps Your Grace would like to get down, before I do so?”_

_Margaery rolled her eyes, and she turned her head, forced herself to look at the girl now, annoyed that she was here and trying to save Margaery now, when she had not been there to do so before._

_She knew that the servant was only asking because she was terrified that Margaery was going to jump, the moment that she left her alone, and Margaery almost told her that she didn’t have to worry about that anymore, that Margaery wasn’t ever going to jump, because she had far too much ambition - and dear gods, that had always been the problem - to lay waste to her own life._

_But then, she had done that, in a way, already, hadn’t she?_

_“No, I don’t think I would,” Margaery said, with a perfect lack of inflection in her tone. “Now are you going to do as told, or do I need to find another maidservant?”_

_The girl bit her lip, clearly hesitant, but then hurried to do as she was bid, the door all but slamming behind her._

_Margaery was just glad that she didn’t call for the Kingsguard outside Cersei’s old chambers to throw open the door and demand that she come back inside._

_It was several minutes longer than Margaery had expected for Lady Nym to appear - a part of her had thought that perhaps Sansa would be the one to come, not Lady Nym, and she couldn’t stand the thought of Sansa, looking at her and seeing again what a mess she was, couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the pain in the other girl’s eyes._

_Lady Nym had never felt sorry for her, not even after the other woman had figured out what had happened to her, and Margaery was grateful for that. It was why she had sent for the other woman, instead of Sansa, when truthfully this was the sort of thing that Sansa would usually handle, these days._

_Considering that Sansa was handling so much, these days, because Margaery was unable to._

_Because, perhaps, she was going mad…_

_“Fucking hell,” Lady Nym breathed, as she stepped into Margaery’s chambers. Well, Cersei’s. Margaery heard the faint sound of the walking stick that Nym was forced to carry with her now scraping against the floor. She turned, shoving the door closed in the face of the serving girl who had frantically been following her. Margaery smiled wanly. “What are you doing?”_

_“I was thinking about the first time we bonded,” Margaery said, not turning around, not bothering to get down from the ledge. “Of that night in Sunspear, when an assassin snuck into my chambers on Arianne’s orders, to scare me into going to the Water Gardens.”_

_Silence. Then, “If you knew it was on Arianne’s orders, why did you go along with her plans?”_

_Margaery hummed. “They were my plans, first of all,” she said. “Secondly, that’s not what I want to talk about.”_

_Another pause._

_“All right,” Lady Nym said, advancing closer, hands raised in the air to show that she wasn’t a threat. Margaery wanted to roll her eyes. “How about you get down from there, and we can talk about whatever you like?”_

_Margaery ignored her. The wind whipped at her nightclothes, and she heard Nym’s sharp intake of breath._

_“He had his hands around my throat, choking the life out of me, and then you were there,” Margaery went on. “You were there, and you saved me, and for the first time, I thought you might be a true ally.”_

_A shifting; no doubt, Nym was sitting to keep herself from running forward and grabbing Margaery down from the bannister. She wasn’t meant to be up and about for too long at a time, after all, these days, still recovering from her injuries._

_Margaery felt another spike of guilt, that she had sent for the woman when she was still injured. Perhaps she really should have sent for Sansa, and simply bore the other girl’s concern in silence._

_“I thought I was a true ally,” she said finally, her voice dangerously closed off._

_Margaery turned her head then, forcing a smile in Nym’s direction. Her foot slipped a little on the bannister, and Nym cried out, jumping to her feet once more._

_She thought of her son, laughing at her from where he sat on the Iron Throne, truly Joffrey’s son, now, as he ordered her head brought to him._

_“You are,” Margaery promised her. “That’s why I’ve sent for you, not anyone else. Because I’ve always thought that we could talk to each other with fair ease.”_

_Nym swallowed hard. “We usually can, Your Grace,” she said. “I find it a bit more difficult when you’re courting death.”_

_Margaery shrugged, sinking down to one knee and then sitting hard on the bannister. Nym didn’t look any more relieved, by the sight, no doubt uneasy at the sight of Margaery’s back to open space, behind her._

_She climbed down from the bannister then, but still leaned hard against it._

_She didn’t know how to explain to Lady Nym that she hadn’t climbed up on the bannister because she was hoping that a good gust of wind would throw her to her death._

_She was just hoping to feel the wind in her hair, against her clothes, and remember that she was still alive. She didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that, after all._

_Sometimes, the rooms that had once belonged to Cersei Lannister felt stifling, like she couldn’t quite catch air into her lungs inside of them, and she didn’t know if it was because she feared who they had once belonged to, or because of the nightmares that she awoke from, every single night since Joff…since the King had died._

_“We’re always courting death, Lady Nym,” she said, softly, hugging herself._

_Nym raised an eyebrow. “And am I courting death, just now?” She asked, sounding more curious than disturbed at the prospect._

_Margaery rolled her eyes. “I’m not mad, Lady Nym. I’m...grieving,” she said, slowly._

_“For a husband you hated,” Nym pointed out, looking skeptical. She sat again, and crossed her legs._

_Margaery shrugged, and admitted, “I think that if you spend enough time with a person, you find that you can’t hate them fully.”_

_Nym scoffed. “I don’t think that’s true,” she argued._

_Margaery shrugged again. “Well, agree to disagree.”_

_They sat in relative silence for the next few moments. Then, quietly, Margaery uttered, “I’ve been having nightmares, in these rooms.”_

_Nym was silent. Then, with a candor that Margaery had not expected from the other woman, “I’ve been having nightmares, too,” she admitted._

_It was the first sign of weakness Nym had ever freely confessed to her, and Margaery forced herself not to react, to treasure it as such._

_“About Ser Robert?” She asked, softly._

_Lady Nym swallowed hard, and nodded. “Yours are about Joffrey?” She asked._

_Margaery shook her head, looking around the chambers again. “Not always,” she whispered, and the words felt like some sort of betrayal, though she could not imagine who she was betraying, by uttering them. Then, “I want to move out of these chambers.”_

_Nym cocked a brow. “The Keep is large, but there are not many suitable chambers left open for the Queen Regent. You gave your old rooms in the Maidenvault to Sansa, if you remember.”_

_Yes, and it would look strange for her to ask for them back especially after that._

_Margaery hummed. “I was thinking,” she said, slowly, because she knew how her words would be received, knew how Lady Nym was going to look at her after she said them, “The King’s chambers.”_

_Nym went very still, at those words, and Margaery shrugged, forcing herself to backtrack, to explain herself._

_“I am the Queen Regent. Or, I will be. It is only fitting, until I have brought my son into this world, that I occupy rooms befitting of my station, and not a Queen Consort’s.”_

_She didn’t know how much Nym knew, about what had happened that night. Nym had been unconscious, after all, and no one dared speak much of those events._

_But she had to have guessed at least a little bit. She was one of the few people Margaery saw outside of the court or the Small Council, these days, so she had to know._

_And besides that, Margaery’s husband had been a madman. It sounded mad that Margaery would want to sleep in his rooms after his death, rather than her own._

_But Nym still stared at her. “I...Don’t know if that’s a good idea, Your Grace,” she said finally, carefully. “Perhaps it’s something you ought to speak with Lady Sansa about, not me.”_

_That was perhaps the one thing Nym could say that would convince Margaery of what she was doing, not bring doubts against it, Margaery thought, but it was not as if the other girl could have known that._

_Margaery hummed. “Neither do I,” she admitted. “But I really am going to go mad if I have to sleep in these rooms for one more night. And Sansa…Sansa will think I am mad, if I take this to her.”_

_Sansa already thought that, Margaery knew. Or, at the very least, she feared an oncoming madness, one that Margaery could not entirely assure her wouldn’t one day arrive. There was no reason to add fuel to the fire._

_Nym hesitated. Then, “Okay. All right, if that’s what you wish, Your Grace.”_

* * *

“This is Septa Unella,” Margaery said, to the ladies whom she had gathered together in her chambers. Joffrey’s chambers. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she had seen all of them together in these chambers. It felt strange, to see all of them here, in Joffrey’s chambers, where none of them should belong. 

Elinor was the only one, save for Septa Nysterica, who was not present, but then, that was to be expected. She had just had a child, after all.

And all of them staring at her. Margaery could feel their eyes on her skin, branding into her skin. And then, staring at Septa Unella, beside her, who looked so terribly out of place in this room, as well, far more, even, than Margaery’s ladies.

“She will be taking Septa Nysterica’s place amongst my companions.”

The words came out a little more hesitant than Margaery had intended them to.

Margaery’s ladies exchanged uneasy glances, looking concerned by the announcement, all of them.

“And will hopefully return us to the path of the Seven,” Margaery continued, swallowing, and wondered how much she herself even believed those words.

Confess, Septa Unella had told her, over and over again.

Confession was the only thing that would cleanse her soul, and the one thing that Margaery felt the most guilty for was the one thing that she knew she could never confess to.

And yet, she had asked for Septa Unella’s help, anyway.

“Are there any questions?” She asked, because she knew that there would be, but her ladies were silent.

Septa Unella, at Margaery’s side, cleared her throat. It was the first time that Margaery had ever seen her uncomfortable, though, to be fair, she had only ever seen the other woman when she was in her element.

Tormenting Margaery in the hopes of a confession.

“You are all faithful ladies of the Queen,” she said, and Margaery stared at her, for she hadn’t expected the other woman to speak, now. “I will show you my unwavering support to the Crown’s return to the Faith, in return.”

Another batch of sideways glances.

Then, “Your Grace,” Megga said, slowly, “Are you sure that this is…wise?” She glanced again at Septa Unella. “Septa Nysterica was sent away because you could not stand the sight of her, for the…issues that happened to you. And this woman…the two of you have a history, I understand.”

Margaery licked her lips, unhappy at the reminder from the other woman. She had enough reminders of that, after all.

Septa Unella, beside her, looked somewhat discomfited, at how obvious Megga’s disapproval had been, despite her supposed faith to her lady.

It wasn’t like that, Margaery could have told her. Her ladies had all once been her friends; their loyalty to her was based off of that, not obedience.

Margaery wanted Septa Unella’s loyalty to her to be based out of something different. A mutual sense that they were doing something that mattered, because Margaery was sick of running around in circles and finding out that nothing she did had ever really mattered at all.

She didn’t want the Septa’s blind obedience; that wasn’t why she had invited her here. She only wanted to know if she could genuinely help, the way that she had promised Margaery she could, in the Sept.

But still, Megga’s questioning rankled at Margaery. She was being questioned at every side, these days, and she was so damned tired of it.

“This is not up for discussion,” Margaery informed her, harshly, and Megga looked like she wanted to argue the point, but didn’t quite think it would be a good idea, otherwise.

Instead, she was silent, as Margaery shot her a hard look, and then turned and walked into her bedchambers, Joffrey’s old bedchambers, shutting the door behind herself because she didn’t want any of her ladies following her.

She reached up, rubbing at her temples as she felt something terribly like a migraine coming on, now that she was finally alone.

And then she heard the sound of the door slamming open behind her.

She already got enough sideways looks from the ladies, about living in Joffrey’s rooms in the first place. She couldn’t imagine how they would look at her in her husband’s old bedchambers.

She was already far too aware of their pity, of the way that they looked at her when they thought that she wasn’t looking, that she somehow couldn’t see how much they pitied her at all times, because of what had been done to her.

Because of what she had done.

Septa Unella did not look at her as if she pitied her. When Margaery had asked the other woman for her help, she knew that Septa Unella had not given it because she felt anything like sympathy for Margaery.

She was doing it for her own, selfish reasons, and that was something that Margaery could understand.

The door banged open behind her, and Margaery started, because she was always a little jumpy, in these rooms particularly, and then her eyes narrowed.

“I thought that I was not to be disturbed in these rooms, unless I had specifically-”

She turned, then, blinking in surprise at Megga, standing before her. Megga, who was looking at her as if she didn’t recognize her at all, now, rather than as if she pitied her.

Margaery found that she didn’t like that look any better than she had the pity.

“Megga,” she breathed. “I…”

She wanted to tell the other girl that she needed to leave, that she needed to leave Margaery alone and stop questioning her every order, but she was so…tired.

Megga was staring at her.

Margaery felt uncomfortable, under that gaze. “I came in here because I wanted to be alone,” she informed the other girl.

Megga snorted. “Most queens don’t end up banishing their ladies from their bedchambers, Margaery,” she said. “In fact, most of the time, their ladies are there more than they are.”

Margaery gritted her teeth. “What do you want, Megga? I am aware that you don’t approve of my new choice of septa, and I thought that I made it aware that I don’t care.”

Megga pursed her lips, stepping further into the room.

“Might I have a word?” Megga asked, stepping into her bedchambers, and Margaery grimaced as she turned around to face the other woman.

She couldn’t remember the last time that she had let anyone besides Sansa into the bedchambers of Joffrey’s rooms, rather than the outside parlor. Sansa, perhaps, but even then, Sansa always acted so uncomfortable, in these rooms.

Not that Margaery could particularly blame her.

She sighed, lifting a hand into the air. “Fine,” she muttered. “What is it.”

She feigned disinterest as she moved over to the divan, sinking down into it and trying not to think about how this very couch was the first place that she and Joffrey had ever bonded, when she had walked into that room with a crossbow pointed at her, and had left it after pointing a crossbow at her husband, in the mirror.

The divan didn’t feel particularly soft, after that realization.

Still, even that was a welcome distraction from Megga, and her piercing gaze, the look she was sending Margaery’s way as she wondered if perhaps she didn’t know this woman well at all.

Perhaps she was right. A part of Margaery would always wonder if she had died that night, in truth, and only thought that she had managed to survive.

“Your Grace. What are you doing?” Megga demanded, staring at her.

Margaery looked away. “Appointing a new septa.” And then, because she was still wondering if the girl who had been Margaery Tyrell had died, she muttered, “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, and got up from the divan, not entirely sure where she was going.

At her back, Megga snapped, “You’re right. I don’t. I know that woman. I know what she did, for the High Sparrow. To you.” Margaery did turn back, then. “I don’t know that she’s your friend, Margaery.”

Margaery forced a smile. “I don’t intend for her to be,” she admitted. “But I’d like to be hers.”

Megga blinked, clearly confused. “I…”

“Megga,” she said, reaching out and taking the other girl’s hands into her own. “The High Sparrow was right about one thing. The Crown and the Faith are the two pillars of our society, and we cannot afford to lose anymore of the Faith than we already have. If the people see their Queen truly taking the Faith seriously, as Joffrey always failed to do, if they see me trying to atone for the things that I have done, I feel certain that we will not lose them.”

Megga dropped her hands, taking a step back. “Margaery,” she said, slowly, “Joffrey did those things, not you.”

Margaery, for all that Megga had been the one to pull away, eyed her own hands as if Megga had bruised them.

“I…” she licked her lips, feeling suddenly exposed in a way that she had never been.

She glanced down at her arms, covered all of the way up to the wrists with black cloth, even though today was a particularly hot day.

She’d gotten rid of all of her old clothes, all of the clothes that had made her still feel like Margaery Tyrell, rather than Margaery, Wife of Joffrey Baratheon, in the first few days after his death.

Margaery Tyrell had been reckless.

Margaery no longer intended to be.

But the clothes itched, the longer Megga spoke, today.

Megga gave her a long look, as if she understood what Margaery was thinking, and Margaery glanced away, uncomfortable at the silence that followed.

After a moment, Margaery turned back towards the door.

“Sansa was looking for you, earlier,” Megga said, and Margaery paused, turning back around. “Alla said she seemed shocked to realize that you had gone to the Sept on your own.” She paused, just long enough, before saying, “After you had told us you had informed her first of all.”

A lie, of course.

Margaery had known damn well that if Sansa knew where she was going, she would have locked her in her chambers, the way she had done for several days after Joffrey’s death, when Margaery had been…near the end of her rope.

Margaery had been furious, at the time, that Sansa had dared, but now, she merely found the other woman’s meddling…strangely sweet, as well as annoying.

But of course, that was also the reason why she hadn’t told her. Because she had known how Sansa would react, even if the alternative, not telling her, would only cause her to worry more.

Still, she had known that her ladies would not let her go at all, if they knew she had not told Sansa.

Sometimes, she wondered which of them was actually Queen Regent, at this point, because most of the time, it certainly didn’t feel like Margaery was.

“Megga,” Margaery said finally, slowly, facing the other girl once more, ignoring the hurt, confused look on the other girl’s face, “I was wrong to tell you to keep an eye on Sansa. She is…she has served me faithfully, in these months after my husband’s death. You are…relieved of that charge.”

Margaery herself did not even know if she believed there to be any truth in her words; she only knew that she did not want to think about Sansa, and feel anything more of the guilt that she already felt when she thought of the other woman.

But Megga was undeterred, of course.

She had faced Cersei and her creatures, and come out stronger, somehow. Changed from the happy girl Margaery had once known, hardened, but knowing what had to be done.

Margaery had faced her demons, and come away empty-handed.

Megga swallowed hard. “I could tell you how many times she has met with Baelish, that snake, since you took the throne. You should know about those meetings. Whatever happened at the last one, she seemed panicked enough to come find you about it.”

Margaery flinched at the gentle accusation in those words, that Margaery was not to be bothered with politics, these days, because she was too busy running away to the Sept.

She closed her eyes.

“I should go and find her,” she admitted, even as everything within her screamed out against the idea.

Because the moment she would find Sansa, she knew, she would see the knowledge of what had happened to her in Sansa’s eyes, the constant reminder that someone else knew of her greatest weakness, even if she trusted that other woman with her life.

That was why she found it so hard to face the other girl, these days, but damned if she didn’t find herself facing that often enough with her ladies, as well, for all that they truly didn’t know the truth of what had hapepned, that night.

Megga gave her a long look. “She’s looking for you,” she agreed, the voice perfectly toneless.

Margaery eyed her. Then, “I’d like you to personally make sure that Septa Unella is comfortable here,” she said, as close to an indictment as she could come, these days. “Do you understand?”

It would have the added benefit of keeping Megga from spying on Sansa, if the other girl decided she was going to continue to do so, against Margaery’s direct orders.

Megga gave her another long look, before dipping her head into a nod. “As you wish, Your Grace,” she agreed.

* * *

“Your Grace,” Lady Rosamund greeted her, her eyes very wide at the sight of the other woman, and Margaery lifted her chin, because she might have fallen from grace rather quickly, in the past few days, but she damn well wasn’t going to be judged for her actions by Rosamund Tyrell.

“Is Lady Sansa within?” She asked, glancing around these rooms that she didn’t particular like, these rooms which had once been hers.

How ironic, that.

Rosamund hesitated, glancing over her shoulder, which was answer enough.

Margaery sighed. “Can you tell her that the Queen wishes to speak with her?” She asked, forcing patience that she didn’t feel into her tone.

By the look Rosamund gave her, she wasn’t entirely certain that she had succeeded.

Rosamund disappeared, for a moment, and Margaery blinked at the realization that the door had just been shut in her face. A year ago, no lady would have dared.

And then, Rosamund was returning, throwing the door open wide and bowing before her. “She’s within, Your Grace,” she said, keeping her head lowered; no doubt, Margaery imagined, so that she did not have to accidentally meet Margaery’s eyes.

Two days after Joffrey’s…Two days after Joffrey, Margaery had sent a note to Sansa, letting her know that if she did not want to keep Rosamund as a serving girl, she didn’t have to.

She herself wasn’t even certain where the sudden burst of clarity had come from, in the midst of the haze that had filled her since she had first lifted that golden statue, but she had known with certainty that she did not want Sansa to have to keep the other girl for a servant, Cersei’s pathetic attempts to spite her, if she didn’t want her.

Margaery was tired of seeing either of them bend for things that other people wanted for them.

She swallowed, reaching up to itch at her thick black sleeves. Sansa’s chambers, over here in the Maidenvault, were rather hot, after all.

And then she was standing in the parlor that had once been hers, Sansa looking up sharply from the table she’d had set up in the middle of the room, for her plotting with Baelish.

Rosamund disappeared, behind them; Margaery wasn’t certain if she had left the room, or if Margaery simply stopped noticing her presence.

And then, she and Sansa were alone.

Margaery gulped, feeling suddenly nervous, like she was wearing too many clothes, and they were exposing her more than any nakedness might have.

She cleared her throat awkwardly.

“Margaery,” Sansa breathed, no doubt shocked when she realized that Margaery had come to find her. She could not remember the last time that Margaery had done so, of her own volition.

Even before Joffrey, they had been steadily pushing one another away, and now, Sansa was generally too frightened to go to her.

But now, Margaery was here, standing before her, and it gave Sansa a wicked thing like hope, Margaery could see it on her face, the idea that perhaps they truly could find their way back to each other, after everything that had happened.

Margaery felt a deep pang of guilt, for that look. For the sight of Sansa looking so damn hopeful at the sight of her, when once, Sansa had learned to take her for granted.

Margaery missed that Sansa, but she had a feeling that she was as lost to Margaery as Margaery was now was to Sansa.

And then Sansa was rushing forward, looking for all the world like she was about to throw her arms around Margaery, before she went very still, her eyes widening, no doubt remembering the way that Margaery had reacted to any and all attempts to touch her in the past.

Her hands lowered to her sides, hanging there awkwardly.

Sansa cleared her throat.

Margaery fixe her eyes on a spot on the wall behind Sansa’s head, rather than meeting her eyes.

“I…I heard that you went to the Sept, today,” Sansa said, and the tension that accompanied the words made it suddenly very difficult for Margaery to breathe.

Her eyes twisted sharply back to Sansa’s.

The other girl was trying, she knew, not to place the blame. She had been doing that since the night The Incident had happened, treating Margaery like she was nothing more than a fragile doll, and like if she actually confronted Margaery about anything, she might break.

She’d done that before the Incident, too, when she’d found out that Margaery was pregnant and thought that it was her duty to protect her from the outside world, because of it.

That was how Margaery recognized the reaction.

“Yes,” Margaery said, tiredly, because she knew that they needed to have this conversation no matter how much she very much didn’t want to. “Someone said that it would…might help, and I thought I’d give it a try.”

“You thought you’d give it a try,” Sansa repeated, her voice dry, like sandpaper.

Margaery looked away again.

“And you only took Lady Nym with you, for protection,” Sansa went on, the frustration bleeding into her voice, now. “What would have happened if anyone had recognized you?”

Margaery thought of what Megga had said, and replied belligerently, feeling far too much like an errant child being taken to task in this moment, “Joffrey was the one who killed all of those people, not me.”

Sansa sent her an exasperated look. She had aged, Margaery realized, what looked like years, in the past few months. “You just had a bunch of religious fanatics executed,” Sansa reminded her. “Yesterday.”

This time, the heat flowing up Margaery’s neck did feel like guilt, and not annoyance. She swallowed hard.

“I had to go,” she whispered, looking down at her shaking hands now, instead of Sansa, because that was easier. It was easier to talk to someone who didn’t have a face, these days.

She thought she saw Sansa’s outline soften, in front of her.

“I don’t...I don’t understand why you would risk your life to go there in the first place, much less bring a woman who helped in your torture back with you,” Sansa said, and Margaery could hear the frustration in her voice, the way it bled out across her face.

Frustration that she could not condone or understand so many of Margaery’s actions of late, frustration that Margaery seemed happy enough not to explain them to her. That she kept having to clean up Margaery’s messes, something Margaery was truly sorry for, in all of this.

She felt a stab of pity for the other girl, and wished she could explain her actions away easily.

She couldn’t.

She barely understood them, herself.

“Septa Unella has only ever wanted me to find peace with the Seven,” Margaery said, shortly, because she had just endured all of this questioning with all of her ladies, and she didn’t want to hear all of the reasons she was being foolish from Sansa, as well.

Sansa pressed her lips together. “She tried to torture you into giving her a confession,” she said.

Margaery shook her head. “It…it wasn’t torture,” she whispered, and tried to pretend like she meant those words.

Sansa let out a long sigh, sitting down on the divan and not offering Margaery the chance to do so, as well.

Margaery felt more comfortable standing, anyway.

“I just…I worry,” Sansa said, running her hands through her hair, and Margaery felt a stab of guilt again, as her eyes lifted to meet Margaery’s.

As she wondered why she had to be like this, every time she was around Sansa, when she could see how much the worry over her was eating away at Sansa.

Margaery licked her lips, wanting to tell the other girl that she didn’t have to worry so much. That things had…improved, a little, since It had happened. That she wasn’t the pathetic thing she had been in the days after her husband’s death, and she was fine, now.

Mostly.

Sansa seemed to read the opposite in her eyes, if her next words were any indication. “I worry that spending so much time around a woman who wishes nothing more than for you to confess your sins to the Seven will…that she will take advantage of your…current state. That you will let something slip that you…don’t mean to.”

She said it like she thought it would be entirely not Margaery’s fault, if she did so.

But Margaery felt the annoyance swelling up in her again, that Sansa thought her so weak she would spill all to the first sympathetic, listening ear that she came across.

And Septa Unella would only be one of those things, after all.

“I’m hardly going to do something as stupid as try to jump out of my window again, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Margaery snapped. “I’ve regained my sanity, after all. I know better than to tell a religious fanatic who would want my head for it that I killed my husband.”

Sansa flinched, and Margaery knew that it had been cruel to bring that incident up at all, especially when that hadn’t been what she was doing at the time, but she couldn’t help it.

She wondered if it was their destiny to just keep hurting each other, over and over again.

“The way things stand with the Faith just now…they are intolerable,” Margaery reminded her, in a gentler voice, this time. “They don’t trust us, and the people don’t trust us because of that. I was just trying to…repair things.”

Sansa sighed. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. “Just…tell me you won’t go again.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I hardly think that I’m going to impress Septa Unella with my devotion if I never go again,” she reminded Sansa, just to see the way Sansa’s features twisted and she closed her eyes again.

“Do you want them to hate you?” Sansa asked, softly. “Does it make you feel better to know that you came so close to being killed, today?”

Margaery went very still, her neck stretching the way she had seen happen to those fanatics. She didn’t answer.

Sansa nodded, looking tired. She stood to her feet, but did not advance. “Don’t tell me that you’re all right if it’s a lie, Margaery.”

Margaery flinched.

And then, the words came pouring out, the moment they left her lips, becoming uncontrollable, because Sansa was right.

She was better than she had been, but Margaery didn’t know if she would ever be all right again.

“I’m afraid,” Margaery whispered, looking down and hugging herself, because she was afraid that if she did not, Sansa would try to hug her herself, and if she did that, Margaery would only flinch away, as she always did when anyone tried to touch her, these days.

Sansa stilled.

“I’m afraid that he’s going to turn out just like Joffrey,” she whispered, saying it to the floor because that was easier than saying it to Sansa. “That when he comes out of me, he’s going to be...he’s going to be Joffrey’s son, not mine. That...that he’ll be like his father, and all of this would have been for nothing, all over again.”

“Margaery…” Sansa’s voice was soft, pained. “Joffrey is dead, and this child? Your child? Joffrey is not even the father.”

Margaery let out a pained sound. Gods, she knew that, but it didn’t matter, not when the dreams came in the middle of the night and awoke her, left her shaking and sweating through the rest of the night.

The only times she didn’t dream about the child in her womb reaching out to choke the life out of her, it was when she was in Joffrey’s bed, and then, that was because she was dreaming that he did so, instead. That he’d made good on the threat he’d made to her that night, and killed her before she could kill him.

_And I only ever wanted you for your crown, my love._

Divine punishment, she thought, these dreams. That was why she had taken up Elinor’s suggestion of going to the Sept in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll never know that,” she whispered. “He’ll grow up believing otherwise. Believing his father was a madman. And if I tell him that he wasn’t Joffrey’s, he’ll grow up knowing he’s nothing more than an imposter.”

Gods, this had all been a terrible idea. She should have just let her grandmother marry her to whomever she willed, next, and let the child die in her womb, after the Mountain had attacked Lady Nym, rather than fighting so hard to hold onto it.

Sansa licked her lips. She looked horrified, as if she knew exactly what Margaery had just thought, and not said aloud.

“Not if you don’t tell him,” she said. “Not if you just tell him that he is your own son, no one else’s.”

Margaery swallowed hard, turning slightly away from Sansa, now. She felt like a small child trying not to be caught, abused again. “I’ve been having these...dreams.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Sansa go still. Then, “What sort of dreams?”

Horrible dreams, Margaery wanted to say. Night after night, such that she only got a few hours of sleep each night, they were so awful, and once she awoke from them, she found that she could not get back to sleep.

Sometimes, she didn’t sleep at all, that entire night, because the thought of being awake but tired was more preferable than succumbing to those nightmares.

“Dreams about...him,” Margaery whispered, and Sansa blinked at her, reached out, hesitated, hand hanging uselessly in the air.

Margaery eyed it like it belonged to a viper.

“Joffrey?” she asked.

Margaery shook her head. “About my son,” she whispered. She looked up at Sansa then, concern bleeding across her features. “He hates me. He knows what I did, that I’m no better than Joffrey, in every single one of them.”

Her voice was wobbling.

Sansa stared at her, and then her face softened.

Margaery let out a strained laugh. “He’s not even born yet, and he already hates me,” she repeated.

“No,” Sansa said, reaching for her, then, pulling Margaery into her arms, despite the way Margaery fought against her, for a moment. “He’s going to be nothing more than a baby, when he’s born,” Sansa assured her, and Margaery clung to her and couldn’t bring herself to speak, to argue, as she knew she must. “Do you remember what you told me, a lifetime ago? You told me that sons listened to their mothers, and that you intended to teach him, not let anyone else influence him.”

Margaery swallowed hard.

She did remember saying that, but that had been so long ago, when she had thought that Joffrey would never leave scars on her.

Sansa reached out, hesitantly, then, lifting Margaery’s chin until she met her eyes. “This child will be good, Margaery. Good, and kind, and I know that because he’s going to be yours. Not Olyvar’s, not Joffrey’s.”

Margaery was shaking.

Sansa forced a smile, placing her hand on Margaery’s protruding stomach. Margaery flinched, but didn’t pull away.

For the first time, Sansa’s hand on her stomach almost felt…comforting. Like it belonged there, reaching through to touch her child’s head, where it dug into Margaery.

Margaery felt something like tears pricking at her eyes.

“Ours,” Sansa corrected herself, gently.

And Margaery...Margaery wished that those words provided her with some sort of comfort, that hearing them made her think that everything was going to be all right, the moment this chid was born, but she couldn’t say that for certain, any more than Sansa could.

Because perhaps she was right, that Joffrey would never hold influence over this child, but he’d had an influence over Margaery.

And Margaery feared how that would translate to her child. Feared fucking him up, the way she had fucked up so many things around herself already.

But Sansa…

That was some relief, to know that Sansa did not see this child as a monster to be, as only Margaery’s child.

Because Sansa was still the girl she’d fallen for, even if her skin had turned hard and leathery, in recent months.

And she thought that if Sansa was by her side, this child might survive.

Still…

“I...I should go,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely. “I...Need to rest, the maesters say.”

Sansa’s face fell. “I…Of course,” she said, a little stiffly, and Margaery felt a pang of guilt, in seeing it. “Do you want me to walk you?”

Margaery bit back a sigh, forcing a smile. “I…that would be nice,” she lied, because these days, nothing was nicer than the silence that came with being alone.

She knew better than to tell Sansa that, however. She knew it would only cause her to see the other woman’s face fall, to see the sadness on her features as she nodded and pretended that she wasn’t hurt by Margaery’s admission.

So she let Sansa walk her back out of the Maidenvault, the Kingsguard she had left outside of Sansa’s rooms following closely in silence behind them, until they made it all of the way back to Joffrey’s rooms.

Margaery may sleep in them, may find the most comfort in them, these days, of any bedchambers in the Keep, but they weren’t her rooms, not really.

Sansa froze, outside of them, looking a bit green, and Margaery pretend not to see it. That seemed to be how their relationship went, these days. The two of reacting, and then pretending not to notice when the other did so.

Margaery grimaced, remembering the way that Ser Meryn had looked, when Sansa had-

“Well, I suppose this is it,” Margaery said, and tried to pretend like it did feel good, to say goodbye to Sansa, even if she knew they were going to see each other on the morrow, anyways.

She turned her back on Sansa, so that this situation couldn’t become even more awkward than it already was, and then hesitated, outside of Joffrey’s rooms.

She did this every time. Her Kingsguard still asked her about it, every time.

“Margaery,” Sansa said gently, and Margaery turned around, then. “Why Joffrey’s rooms?”

Margaery blinked at her. “I already…I’ve already endured the worst, here,” she whispered, hoarsely, and Sansa glanced away, at the rawness in her eyes. “I don’t…I don’t know if I can quite explain it, but that makes me feel safe. Nothing else could hurt me, here.”

Sansa closed her eyes. “Can I…Would you mind if I hugged you?” she asked, very softly.

When she opened her eyes again, Margaery was staring at her.

And then she moved forward, hesitant, and Sansa stood as still as she could possibly do so, Margaery thought, appreciating the gesture even if a part of her felt guilty for making the other woman feel that her touch was so unwelcome.

Touching Sansa, her hands gently pressed to Sansa’s waist, made her feel like a shock had run through her body.

And then it felt…almost nice.

Margaery sucked in a breath, and clung to the other woman. And Sansa…Sansa slowly reached up and held her, gentle enough that Margaery knew she could pull away, if she wished, and it was…nice.

The Kingsguard were silent as they clung to each other. Margaery pretended that it didn’t bother her, to know that they were so close.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. The Kingsguard were loyal to her family, now, Garlan had made sure of that. Margaery had just nodded along and knighted every single soldier that he placed in front of her, pretending that she cared.

None of them were going to make something of this, and if they did, they would keep their damn mouths shut about it.

* * *

 

“Cersei Lannister, with this single act, has declared war upon the Crown,” Mace Tyrell blustered, from his seat on the Small Council, and Sansa bit back a sigh.

Of course she had; that was the point of bringing it up at the Small Council, after all.

Kevan Lannister, where he sat at the head of the table, stiffened a little in his chair. His eyes were dark; Sansa imagined that he must be very tired, lately. That was why he seemed so…behind everyone else, these days.

Either that, or he was up to something, and that meant that she was going to have to keep a closer eye on him.

“I’ve heard…nothing of this,” Kevan said, “From the lords of the Westerlands. Where did you hear this, Lord Baelish?”

Petyr, where he sat beside Sansa, smirked slightly. “One wonders how the only Lannister lord at the table has heard nothing of this,” he said. “When my little creatures were able to find it out so easily.”

Lord Varys cleared his throat, then, clearly realizing that antagonizing Kevan wasn’t going to do them any favors. “It seems that the Queen Mother paid off quite a few of the lords of the Westerlands to keep their mouths shut, if they weren’t going to actively join her cause,” he said, and relief spread through Sansa, that what Petyr had said was happening truly was, in the Westerlands, for Varys to know about it, as well.

She knew that Petyr was going to help her, for the time being, for his own selfish reasons, but she wouldn’t put it past him to make something like this up, to ensure that they went into battle against Cersei in the hopes that Margaery might die.

And none of it would have been his fault.

She scowled at the very thought.

“And…” Varys continued, now looking even more uncomfortable, “It seems that she has…placed your children specifically under her protection, Lord Kevan, to ensure that the Lannisters of Lannisport don’t try to question her decision.”

Sansa grimaced; she didn’t think the man ought to have found out about that this way, even if she was surprised that he hadn’t already found the truth out, on his own.

Kevan went very pale; Sansa remembered only then that Lancel Lannister, who had never been a friend to her but who had, after all, been Kevan’s oldest son, had died because of Cersei.

And now, Cersei was holding the fates of his remaining children in her hands.

She tried not to think about how her own brother had captured his other son, and his bannermen had killed the boy. She hoped that Kevan Lannister wasn’t thinking the same.

Kevan got to his feet then, the chair he was sitting in scraping back loudly, and he turned, marching from the room.

“Well,” Petyr said, the moment he was gone, “Unfortunate that the Hand of the King doesn’t see fit to help us see through this issue, but I believe that it would be a good idea to continue, Your Grace.”

Margaery, where she had been sitting pale and drawn and silent, at the other head of the table, glanced up sharply, at those words.

Sansa…hadn’t had the heart to tell her what she had learned, when she had gone to speak with the other girl, earlier, had worried that in her current state, Margaery hadn’t been able to handle it.

But she wished that Margaery hadn’t been blindsided by the information now, alongside Lord Kevan. They needed to see a way out of this, and once upon a time, Margaery had been a marvelous strategist.

And right now, Sansa needed that Margaery.

“How serious is the threat she poses, Lord Baelish?” Margaery asked, finally, and Sansa realized that the reason she was so pale was fear.

She had moved out of Cersei’s chambers, not so very long ago. Sansa wondered if it was because, while Joffrey was dead, Cersei very much wasn’t.

She hadn’t thought of it that way, when she had first learned that Margaery was moving into the chambers of the man who had raped her on that very bed.

Baelish grimaced, shifting in his chair. “Lord Kevan would be able to answer that question better than I, Your Grace, but I would say that the threat is at the very least…significant enough to pay attention to. The armies of the Lannisters are quite strong, still, and since they declared a truce with Stannis, the usurper, untested, in recent weeks. But the men provided to us by the Reach are strong, and will provide a serious enough threat, I believe.”

Margaery’s brows furrowed. “You said that she has bribed these lords,” she said, slowly, and Baelish nodded, “I thought the Lannister mines were almost dried up.”

Varys cleared his throat. “She may have resorted to other methods than money, Your Grace. One of my little birds heard a man in a tavern in Lannisport bragging that one day soon, he would be Lord of the Golden Tooth.”

Sansa grimaced. The Golden Tooth belonged to House Lefford, who had thrown in with Stannis when he had attacked the Westerlands because of what Joffrey had done to Leona. Of course Cersei would feel free to offer someone loyal to her that seat.

Margaery let out a long sigh.

“The Crown needs to deal with this with a heavy hand,” Mace blustered, then, leaning forward in his chair. “If we do not, what’s to stop the Greyjoys, and then the Martells from rising up against us when they see that others can do so with impunity?”

Sansa’s heart beat a little faster, in her chest. She glanced sharply at Baelish, who merely shrugged.

Tommen. They were talking about declaring war on Tommen and his mother, evil woman though Cersei might be, to protect a claim to the throne that they weren’t even certain had substance yet, with Margaery’s child not yet born.

And while Cersei had done this because she craved power, Sansa knew, Tommen was just a child, dragged into this by a mother who had neglected him for so much of his life.

She didn’t like the idea of declaring war on him.

“Surely there is some other way to handle this,” Sansa spoke up then, wilting a little under all of the gazes that abruptly turned her way. “Without resorting to bloodshed, just yet. Perhaps Cersei did this because she thinks she can gain back her influence from us, by pressuring us.”

She knew, with the looks they were all sending her, that they were about to write her off as nothing more than a woman, going weak at the thought of war.

She wanted to snort. Cersei was a woman, after all, and she had just declared war on them. Idiots.

“My brother was quite successful in his campaign against the Crown until the Freys executed him,” she said, watching as the men around the table shifted uncomfortably and hating herself a little for sounding so callous when she spoke of her brother, “And to send the Crown into a costly war against kin at a time when we are most vulnerable, when the Crown was at the peak of its power then, seems to me…a bad idea.”

She could see the way their faces changed, as her words went on; could see that they were actually listening to her, now, which was rare enough, for all the time she had been on the Small Council.

And she did have the advantage of believing what she said. Her brother had managed to fight Tywin Lannister for quite some time, winning every battle he fought until Tywin sliced his throat at the Red Wedding, or at least, until his orders had done so.

Cersei may be spiraling for whatever control she could manage, but she had the ability to drag this war on for a long time, and it was a war that Sansa was not entirely certain House Tyrell could win, with such equal numbers, and such a weak claim.

And then, Randyl Tarly spoke again. “If the exiled Lady Cersei thinks that she can bully the Crown into submission with such an act, surely, we ought to let her know that just because our Regent is young, and a woman, we will not be pressured into giving into her demands, just as her son was not.” His gaze turned to Margaery, then. “House Tarly pledges our swords to the Regent, to do with as she commands."

Margaery stared between Randyl and Sansa, and then sent the man a demur smile.

“The Queen Mother, for all of her faults, is my goodmother,” she reminded the man. “And Tommen, dear boy, is just a pawn in all of this, I am certain of it, and also my goodbrother. I find myself…not wanting to declare war on them for what amounts to, I’m sure, a misunderstanding. Cersei no longer knows her place in the Seven Kingdoms, after Joffrey exiled her, and, may my husband rest in peace, after his death. She is…lashing out, the only way she knows how.”

Randyl cleared his throat. “Your Grace is merciful, as always, but as you just pointed out, your husband, may he rest in peace, exiled Cersei for a reason. And she has, lest we forget, declared war on the Crown. We cannot overlook that. It is treason, and very much a punishable offense, family or no.”

Sansa remembered that Lord Randyl had sent his own son to the Wall because he wasn’t the first born son he’d always wanted, and her jaw ticked in irritation.

Margaery sighed, reaching up to brush at the some of the hair tied up atop her head. “I…You raise a good point, Lord Randyl,” she told him, and then glanced around the table. “Does everyone else feel the same?”

They stared at her, unused to a monarch asking them to put something to a vote, Sansa thought idly, even if she felt almost proud of Margaery for doing so.

The men, slowly, all nodded. Sansa shot Baelish an annoyed glance when he, too, nodded along with them.

Margaery sighed again. “Very well,” she said. “Then I propose a truce, of differing viewpoints.” She glanced sideways at Sansa. “I see the merit in both arguments, so I will send delegates to invite Cersei to her son’s funeral, here in King’s Landing, where we might discuss this treason she has declared. If she is serious in her treason, we will go to war, but I will not throw the Seven Kingdoms into another war until I am certain that there is no other option. Is that understood?”

They all stared at her, even Sansa, because while Sansa felt proud that the Margaery Tyrell she had fallen in love with seemed to have returned, at least for this moment, she was terrified at the thought of Cersei Lannister returning to King’s Landing.

Of Margaery having to face Cersei, in her current state, after killing her son.

Varys cleared his throat. “I need not remind Your Grace that one of the King’s last actions was to exile his mother,” he pointed out. “Do you think it a good idea, to invite her to his funeral?”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I am the Regent, now, or I will be, when my son is born,” she reminded him. “And I will not be known as a cruel tyrant, Lord Varys. Cersei Lannister is my goodmother, and, regardless of her faults and the fallout of her relationship with my husband in his later days, they were devoted to one another. I would have invited her to the funeral even if we didn’t need desperately to speak with her.”

Sansa swallowed hard, closing her eyes.

And then the Grandmaester was speaking, and her eyes snapped open again. “That is all well, Your Grace, but there is something else that I think it prudent for the Crown to consider,” he said, nodding toward Kevan’s empty seat. “Do you think that the Hand can still be trusted, with his children under the Queen Mother’s protection? I would not put it past her to try and control him, with such an action.”

Baelish sneered at him. “Interesting that one who used to lick at the teat of the Lannisters might point out such a thing,” he muttered.

The Grandmaester blustered, his face turning very red.

Sansa knew that Olenna had come to some sort of agreement with him, while Joffrey still lived, to make the man change his mind about the family that he served, even if it was rumored that he had once been a Lannister himself. What bothered her was that she didn’t know what it was he had been offered to change his mind so fully, but the Tyrell loyalists around the table didn’t seem bothered at all by the man, these days.

Mace raised a hand. “The Grandmaester is right,” he said, and Pycelle sat up a little in his chair, nodding at the other man. “Lord Kevan has been a valuable tool to the Crown since my goodson’s death, but if Cersei is keeping his family captive, we cannot trust his actions, these days.”

Sansa closed her eyes, wondering if Mace was saying this because he thought it to be the truth, or because he wanted so badly to be named Hand of the King.

They had decided, with input from Baelish, to leave Kevan as Hand of the King to better keep an eye on the Lannisters, in anticipation of this very day, or to keep the Lannisters from declaring war on them altogether, in the hopes that seeing him stand so strongly beside the Crown would divide them, at the least.

But it seemed that, perhaps, Lord Kevan had outlived his usefulness.

Margaery lifted her chin. “Perhaps the idea has some merit,” she said, and then glanced at Baelish. “See to it that Lord Kevan’s letters to the Westerlands are monitored, Lord Baelish,” she said, and Sansa did not bother pointing out that such was something Lord Varys would usually handle. “And, if he starts acting suspiciously, confine him to the Tower.”

Baelish dipped his head. “As Your Grace commands,” he agreed.

And then they were all dismissed, and Sansa did not fail to notice the way that Trystane sagged in obvious relief when he was told that he could leave.

She forced herself not to roll her eyes. He was only a boy, after all, and seemed to realize that his place on the Small Council was not to speak, but to be seen.

Still, she had Lady Nym monitoring the letters that he was sending back home, all of them to Myrcella, and none of them to Princess Arianne, or to his father, these days, an interesting development.

And then they were alone, just she and Margaery, standing in the middle of the Small Council chambers with the rest of the lords gone, and Sansa glanced over at the other woman, feeling the sudden need to be impulsive, after the way that Margaery had taken charge of the meeting for the first time that Sansa had seen with obvious skill, even if it was buried deep, these days.

Sansa rushed forward, pushing Margaery up against the wall and kissing her, ignoring the way the other girl stiffened under her touch, for a moment, before melting into her touch.

“What was that for?” Margaery finally, asked, breathless, when Sansa pulled away.

Sansa smiled at her, licking her lips. “I’m proud of you,” she said. “What you did in there. It was good.”

Margaery stared at her for a moment, and then smirked, and for a moment, Sansa could pretend that the last few months hadn’t happened at all.

It was hard, with Margaery’s very pregnant belly sitting between them, but for a moment, she seemed like the old Margaery.

“Well,” she said, “I got a compromise, which was as much as I could give you, after your impassioned plea to keep from war,” she shrugged, “Which I don’t want, either.”

Sansa smiled at her, moving forward again, but this time, Margaery pulled back.

“Let’s just hope that it was the right decision,” Margaery said. “I don’t much fancy the idea of being faced with Cersei Lannister again, any time soon.”

Sansa hummed. “It was,” she promised the other girl, thinking of Tommen, sitting alone in his rooms in the Keep. “It was.”


	8. Lys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will contain spoilers for "The Mummer's Tale," unfortunately, but here we are. Also, I am incredibly drunk, so any mistakes are my own.

_Tyrion awoke with a splitting headache that, for once, was not brought on by drink, but instead by the blunt end of Brienne of Tarth’s sword._

_He wondered if she’d ever hit Jaime like that. He wondered if he’d liked it._

_And then he grimaced, because that was not a thought he wanted to have, at the moment, and besides, he had far more pressing concerns, as the circumstances as that hit him._

_He groaned, reaching up to rub at the goose egg on the back of his head, still feeling slightly drunk. Or perhaps that was the feeling of the small dinghy he was in rocking back and forth on the waves._

_He cracked his eyes open, peering around suspiciously, and found himself staring into the eyes of Bronn. The other man was rowing silently, but he smirked when he noticed that Tyrion was awake, now, lying on the hard wooden floor of the dinghy without so much as a blanket beneath his head._

_Tyrion imagined that Bronn hadn’t given it a thought._

_He groaned again, sitting up and eying Bronn, and then glancing over his shoulder. Over his shoulder, at the endless horizon behind him, at the sea that stretched on as far as the eye could see, King’s Landing nowhere to be found in that horizon._

_He cursed, rapidly and softly, under his breath, before swinging back to face Bronn. By then, the other man was holding out a water jug, and Tyrion considered his options before gulping it down greedily._

_“What…” he said finally, when he could speak again, his lips not quite so parched. “What the fuck was that?”_

_Bronn grimaced, the only sign that he was uncomfortable with the little treachery he had just committed against Tyrion without a second thought. “That,” he said, coolly, and Tyrion was reminded of the way that they had parted, last, “was me saving your ungrateful life, along with your wife.”_

_Tyrion blinked at him, lost._

_The sun was shining down too brightly, it’s sharp heat making him sweat already. He took another sip from the water jug._

_Bronn looked suddenly quite tired. “Mind you, she lied about her intentions, when she sent me that letter I had to get a whore to read to me to understand.”_

_Tyrion rolled his eyes, feeling a migraine that had nothing to do with being hungover hitting him, then._

_“What are you talking about?” he demanded, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose to alleviate the migraine, and finding that it did absolutely nothing._

_Bronn smirked at him, but the smirk quickly faded, the awkwardness of their last conversation hanging between them, once more._

_“Joffrey is dead,” he said, finally, spitting into the water over his shoulder. “By now, anyway.”_

_And Tyrion…_

_Tyrion had always considered himself a master of the game. One of the smartest people in the room._

_But this...Bronn had said that Sansa had done this, and that made sense, when Brienne had been the one to bring him out to the harbor, claiming that Jaime was in trouble and needed him, because of course that was the one thing they all knew he would come for. But this had nothing to do with Jaime._

_Sansa had done this. Sansa had sent him away from King’s Landing when she knew that Joffrey was going to die, and knew what it would look like if he fled in the dead of night, at the same time._

_It seemed that he had badly misjudged his little wife. Somehow, during all of this time when he had seen her close off, as Joffrey took more and more interest in her, as she plotted something but surely not that, Sansa had been plotting the death of a king, something that Tyrion had never thought her capable of._

_He let out a harsh laugh, the news that his nephew was dead feeling terribly secondary in comparison to how badly he’d fucked up this situation, in not seeing what was right in front of him. Perhaps his hubris had finally fucked him._

_Joffrey, the little shit, had been courting death for a long time, Tyrion knew that, and he could barely summon up much remorse that Sansa had managed the feat, even if the boy was his brother’s son._

_Perhaps he felt more remorse at the thought that, in killing Joffrey, Sansa had damned her own husband, because he had fled that same night, and the moment Cersei learned that, she would surely see it as a sign of her brother’s guilt._

_After all, she’d had him locked up after their father’s death on far more circumstantial evidence._

_He grimaced, closing his eyes._

_Well, fuck._

_And Jaime...Jaime might not love their son the way that Cersei had, might have seen him for the monster that he truly was, but if he learned that Tyrion had killed the boy, Tyrion knew that Jaime would never forgive him, even if he had left Cersei for good._

_And with Cersei returned to the Rock where Jaime was now, he had no doubt that she would be able to wrap her claws around him once more, and again turn him against Tyrion._

_He felt far more regret for that thought than at the thought of Joffrey’s death._

_He swallowed hard, a part of him annoyed that Sansa hadn’t even bothered to share her plans with him, before she enacted them. Yes, he understood that she had never quite trusted him, because he was a Lannister, and her whole plan must have consisted of murdering a Lannister, but surely if she had asked for his help, he wouldn’t be quite this fucked, and he could have helped her._

_Even if a part of him wasn’t certain that he would have._

_He took another sip of the jug of water in his hands, wishing that it was something stronger. But it didn’t look like Bronn had brought much with them at all._

_Which begged the question…_

_“Where are you taking me?” Tyrion asked, dully._

_Bronn squinted at him, seeming surprised by the way that Tyrion had reacted to this news. Perhaps he had thought that Tyrion might cheer his nephew’s death. Or that he might actually feel bad about it._

_A part of him wanted to ask Bronn if, instead of going wherever it was that they were going, he might instead take him to the Westerlands. He might as well face Jaime and Cersei’s retribution now._

_After all, there was nothing for Tyrion to the East, not anymore, not after what had happened to Shae, and he hated the thought of remembering her with every step he took in a life spent fleeing as a fugitive._

_He grimaced. That was what he was now, a fugitive, because his little wife had framed him for kingslaying and kinslaying, all at once. Next time he saw her, he’d have to let her know what he thought of her machinations._

_Not that he imagined they were all hers. After all, his little wife had never been the scheming little bitch that she’d become, in doing this, until she had been dragged into bed with Margaery Tyrell. He had no doubt that this had been a Tyrell plot as much as it had been Sansa’s, after the way that Joffrey had continued to treat his wife even when she was pregnant with his child._

_Not that he could entirely blame Margaery for wanting her mad husband gone. He could almost forgive her more for that than he could Sansa; after all, Margaery Tyrell owed him nothing._

_But Sansa had been his wife. Had been someone that he cared for, greatly, partially because Shae had cared for her so much, and this was how she had treated that affection._

_He grimaced, disgusted with himself for not keeping her further at arm’s length from the beginning. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t feel so shocked by this betrayal, after so many betrayals from so many fucking women throughout his life, he shouldn’t be so surprised by yet another one._

_But he knew that if he did go to the Rock now, Cersei wouldn’t give him the time to make excuses, not that he knew that he would even sell out Sansa in this way, if he did. She would kill him, and she would make sure that his death was painful for killing her own son._

_No, he could not go to the Rock._

_He wondered how Sansa had killed Joffrey. Wondered if it had been painful._

_He wondered if she knew just how much she had fucked him over, with this. If she had known how Cersei would react, when she sent him away from King’s Landing on the night of her son’s death, or if she had merely done this to throw off suspicion on her. If she knew that Cersei would never stop until she knew that the one who had killed her son had paid dearly for it. If Sansa was content to send him to his death, for her own gains._

_Yes, he had misjudged her._

_“Your little lady wife wanted me to take you to Braavos,” Bronn said, and Tyrion flinched. Bronn looked away. “Paid me a pretty penny for it, too. But I’m not going to do that.”_

_Tyrion’s head jerked up. He stared up at the other man. Bronn looked strangely uncomfortable._

_“I’ll take you wherever you like, so long as it’s not in Westeros, so I can keep my damn castle,” Bronn offered, and Tyrion let out a dry chuckle, not feeling terribly amused._

_He appreciated the gesture, but didn’t know where it was that he wanted to go. Braavos seemed as good a place as any, even with all of the bridges that he had burned there. After all, they had fairly good ale, and fairly good brothels._

_At the moment, that was all that Tyrion was particularly interested in._

_He shrugged, and Bronn eyed him for several more moments, before letting out a sigh._

_“Tyrion…” he began, but didn’t seem to know what to say._

_Tyrion understood that sentiment rather too well, after the way the two of them had parted. After Shae._

_He grimaced, even thinking about it. He was embarrassed, now, with the way that he had reacted to Shae’s death, old wounds ripped open both by the terrible secrets that she had told him the night before she had died, and furious with what Arya Stark had done to the one woman he thought he might be able to love._

_And he had lashed out because of it, at everyone else around him, and at Shae herself. He regretted that. He regretted telling Bronn that he was returning to King’s Landing to kill his sister, after the Sealord had admitted to him that she had been in contact with him, that she had planned Shae’s death herself._

_He didn’t regret killing Shae’s father after he found her body in the same tavern the bastard was also sleeping in, though, the one thing that he knew Bronn could not forgive him for, besides his cruel words as Shae’s body was buried, after she and her father had...finally spoken to one another again._

_Tyrion could not quite say that they had made up, nor that he would have wanted them to, if Shae had asked him, though she had not._

_He wiped at his face, feeling suddenly very drained._

_“Just take me to Essos,” he said, tiredly. “I’ll figure it out from there.”_

_I, not we, because Tyrion didn’t think he could stand the thought of Bronn watching him drink himself to death, as he very much planned to do at the moment._

_Bronn looked pained, at the words, but didn’t protest them, for which Tyrion was glad._

_He knew that the other man had been trying to be sympathetic, by saying he wouldn’t take him back to the place that haunted him so much, but Shae deserved better than the funeral that Tyrion had given her, he thought._

_His words at her final resting place had been cruel, and he intended to say goodbye to her in a way that truly honored what they had had together, now, before he threw himself into a bottle._

_She deserved at least that much, after all._

* * *

“I’m looking for the blond one, weird scar on his face,” Bronn told the girl standing at the front of the pillow house, as the Lyseni referred to them, and she blinked at him, her eyes scanning down his figure slowly, before twirling a finger through her hair.

This was one of the shittier of the pillow houses, as they were called, and Bronn could smell the stench of piss and sex in the air, though the young woman before him more than made up for it.

This was the third pleasure house he had visited today, looking for Tyrion, because he could admit that he had no idea what sort of places Tyrion frequented.

If he couldn’t find him after this one, Bronn was strongly considering giving up, but for now, he might as well enjoy the view.

The darkly lit room only seemed to accentuate her curves, as she leaned forward across the table to refill his mug of ale with her other hand.

Bronn smirked. Then, he tried to remind himself that historically, he did not have the best record with the women of Lys.

She smirked, too. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, honey. We’ve had a…lot of men through here, tonight. Of course, if you’re looking for a woman…”

Bronn squinted at her. “The imp,” he told her finally, sighing. “I know that he’s here; this is the brothel he’s been using, lately.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then straightened up. “Oh,” she said, and the flirtatious tone she had been using a moment before was gone, now. “Him.”

Bronn frowned at her. That was not usually the response that he got from girls who had accepted the Imp’s advances. “I take it you’ve seen him?”

She rolled her eyes, turning and jutting a finger behind her back. “He’s over there, first room on the left. With the dark girl.”

Bronn raised an eyebrow, slamming back the rest of the ale in his mug and following where she had pointed.

Gods, he wished she’d taken a bit longer, let him down a bit more alcohol before he had to do this. He didn’t really feel up to having this particular conversation with Tyrion, after they had spent so long living in the same city and steadfastly avoiding one another, without a few more mugs of ale inside of him.

The last time that they had spoken to each other had been months ago, Bronn thought, and he didn’t relish the thought of rehashing that particular conversation.

He grimaced, walking to the room the girl had pointed out to him, and giving the door exactly one knock before he shoved it open with his shoulder.

There was the sound of a scream, and the girl that Tyrion was fucking, standing over her where she knelt on the straw mattress, pulled up abruptly, her eyes very wide.

Tyrion swore under his breath. “I paid for this fucking room, you-” he began, and then he turned around, pulling his trousers back up, and his eyes went wide as they met Bronn’s, where he stood in the doorway.

Then he swore again.

Bronn rolled his eyes, eyes sweeping the room again, and he grimaced again, at the state of the place.

This was hardly one of Lys’ finer pleasure houses, after all.

The girl pulled a shock of red hair up into a tight bun and reached for her dress, throwing it on as quickly as she could.

Bronn’s eyes narrowed.

The girl didn’t look much older than Sansa, and it made something in Bronn’s insides go cold, an uncomfortable sensation rushing through him.

“If you’ll excuse us, sweetheart, we need the room,” Bronn told the girl pleasantly, and she blinked up at him, wiping at her eyes before she pulled on the threadbare gown the rest of the way and all but ran from the room.

Bronn glanced over at Tyrion; he didn’t think he’d ever seen the man make a whore cry before, but then, it had been some time since they had seen each other.

Months, in fact, though they lived only a few blocks away from one another.

Tyrion glared at him, as he reached down to adjust himself in his trousers. “What could possibly be so important that you had to interrupt me?” He asked, reaching up to wipe at his hair in the next moment.

Bronn gritted his teeth. “It didn’t look very pleasurable for either of you, so I don’t think I was interrupting much,” he said, and Tyrion sighed, standing now.

“What is it, Bronn?” He asked, and there was a bone deep exhaustion in his voice that had never been there before Shae’s death, not even when he had first told Bronn and Shae what had happened to Tysha.

Bronn almost felt guilty with what he was bringing to the other man, but then, this was the one thing that they had agreed they would reunite for, if it came to it.

And Bronn might not be a proper knight, but he still gave half of a fuck about what happened to Westeros.

He waited until Tyrion was fully dressed and reaching for the half empty bottle of wine that the whore had left behind her.

“Jon Connington and the Golden Company have set sail for the Seven Kingdoms,” Bronn informed him. “You were right about that. They follow someone they call Aegon Targaryen.”

“The Conqueror,” Tyrion murmured.

Bronn shrugged. “They have the entire Golden Company, Tyrion,” he told the other man, “and, rumor has it, the support of Dorne.”

Tyrion squinted at him. “Dorne?” He repeated. “No, you must have that wrong.”

Bronn shook his head. “I don’t,” he said, which was the truth.

He’d spent these last few months gathering as much information as a sellsword who had never been trained as a spy and was not a very good one possibly could, about the world around him, and that was one of the things he was certain of.

Doran Martell had pledged allegiance to the boy claiming to be his sister-son, and that was the push that Jon Connington had needed, to convince the Golden Company to follow the boy he claimed was the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms.

Gods, Bronn hated politics. And he especially hated the look on Tyrion’s face right now, as if Bronn was more interested in politics than he was.

“Did you know that after she fled the Seven Kingdoms because she didn’t want to be a septa, Princess Saera Targaryen owned one of the most famous pleasure gardens here,” Tyrion said the words almost idly, taking another long gulp of his wine. “Obviously not this one.”

He spat to the side.

Bronn’s jaw clenched. “I couldn’t give two shits what some dead Targaryen did centuries ago,” he informed Tyrion. “I’m more concerned with the living ones.”

Tyrion let out a harsh laugh. “And that’s the difference between the two of us, my friend,” he informed him.

Bronn squinted at him. “This was the charge you gave me,” he said, because it made him distinctly uncomfortable, this feeling that he was being the responsible one of the two of them.

Tyrion eyed him, then lifted his wine bottle like a king might when bestowing a title on a knight. “And I now take it away, my friend. I was wrong to give it to you in the first place.”

Bronn rolled his eyes.

“Besides, I hear that you got a job as one of the sell swords protecting this city,” Tyrion drawled, finally, which was not at all what Bronn had thought he might say.

“I…yes,” he said, because such jobs were aplenty, in a city which depended on the protection of sell swords and high walls, filled with too many poets and merchants who had never touched a sword in their lives, nor directed a man to use one.

He liked this Lys; it was beautiful, and the climate agreed with him more than the stench of King’s Landing ever had, but they were certainly chancing an attack at any moment, he couldn't help but think.

“So,” Tyrion drawled, “Why the fuck are you worrying about King’s Landing?”

Bronn cocked his head at the other man. “How many bottles of that shit have you had?” He demanded, finally.

Tyrion squinted at him, and then held up three fingers as he answered, “Probably four.”

Bronn rolled his eyes, moving forward then and grabbing Tyrion by his armpits, lifting the other man to his feet.

“No,” Tyrion muttered, fighting against him as Bronn dragged him towards the doorway the girl had just escaped through. “No, I’ve…I’ve paid for this room, and we’re not leaving while I’ve paid for this room.”

Bronn rolled his eyes. “I’ll pay you back in drinks,” he muttered, and Tyrion, the jackass, perked up immediately.

“Well, you should have said,” he muttered, and then swaggered to his feet, just barely managing to speak coherently despite the fact that he was walking just fine.

Bronn rolled his eyes again, and followed the other man out of the room, ignoring the looks that the whores were sending them as they left the fine establishment.

Bronn slapped down some coins on his way out.

He reached out a hand when Tyrion wobbled, and then grimaced and let go of him again, feeling strangely uncomfortable to touch the other man.

Tyrion wobbled back onto his feet again, and started walking again.

Bronn rolled his eyes, pushing his shoulders in the other direction.

“ _That_ way,” he muttered, and Tyrion grunted and kept walking through the busy streets, Tyrion squinting in the harsh sunlight.

“Where exactly are we going?” Tyrion muttered tiredly, after they had been walking for some minutes.

Bronn hummed, thinking about it. He supposed that there wasn’t any harm in saying it. “My place.”

They came to a stop not long after; the sell swords of Lys made quite a bit more money than they did in Westeros, so he did quite well for himself, but he wasn’t as far away from the worse brothels of the place as he might like.

After all, there was nothing quite like the pleasure houses of Lys, and once he’d been to one, he found that brothels just weren’t quite the same.

“This is where you live?” Tyrion asked, raising an eyebrow when Bronn finally pulled him to a stop in front of one of the smaller buildings on the street. Then, “You’re doing nice for yourself, as a sell sword.”

Bronn shrugged, because he was right; the pay in Lys for sell swords was nice, compared to what it had been in the Seven Kingdoms. He ought to have come here years ago, when he didn’t give such a fuck about King’s Landing, and the rest of it.

He’d been to Tyrion’s house, as well, earlier today, as he had started his search for the other man. He’d been informed - none too kindly - by the serving woman cleaning it that the master hardly ever slept there, frequenting pleasure houses that he inevitably passed out drunk at, and a part of Bronn had felt guilty for actually leaving the man, even if it had been what Tyrion had demanded.

But Bronn ignored the thought as he grabbed Tyrion by the scruff of the neck, like a mother with her kittens, and doused him in the nearby bucket of now cold water that he had been intending to wash in, this morning, before one of his little spies had brought the news.

Street urchins were useful, in that they never slept, and their ears were large.

Tyrion sputtered as Bronn held him under the water for a few seconds too long, and then allowed him to come back up again, feeling vindictively pleased with himself as Tyrion choked and spit out the stuff, and then shot him a glare.

Bronn didn’t give him the chance to speak, though, before pushing his head under the water of the bucket again, and watching him struggle for air.

When he came up again, his eyes looked slightly more sober.

He was squinting at Bronn like he was imagining how he wanted to kill him.

And, because perhaps he was hoping for a confrontation and because he didn’t know how to deal with this side of Tyrion, Bronn blurted out, “This isn’t what Shae would have wanted, you know.”

Tyrion’s face darkened. “Don’t you fucking talk about her,” he snapped, his hair still dripping from the water, and Bronn raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, is that how you feel, now?” He asked. “Months ago, she was nothing more than a dead whore who deceived you, and now, no one can speak her name. Is that because you love her, or because you’re ashamed that you loved her?”

Tyrion slammed his fist down on the wine table.

Bronn didn’t flinch.

“She was right, you know,” he told Tyrion, mercilessly, because Tyrion may have vowed never to speak of Shae again, but she had been his friend, too.

In a way, he though they had known each other better than Tyrion could ever know her, for all that he loved her, because he was a noble and she was a servant, like Bronn.

He gritted his teeth. “To do what she did. She felt that it was the right thing to do, and you should never have berated her for it.”

Tyrion snorted. “Which part? The abortion or killing my father?”

Bronn went very still, turning back around to face him. “W…What?” He asked, blinking at the other man.

Tyrion smirked. “Oh, she didn’t tell you that part, too?” He asked, and took a step forward.

And Bronn, for all that he had spent his life as a sell sword who gave no fucks about anything, took a half step back at the sight of the fury on Tyrion’s features.

He looked like a different man than the one Bronn had always known, and he suddenly felt strange, about inviting him into his home.

“She killed him,” Tyrion said, and then let out a tired laugh. “Well, she was one of the people who killed him. And then she let Sansa stand trial for his murder, for all the times she acted like she cared for that girl, because she didn’t want to get in trouble for doing it, herself. I still haven’t ruled out the Tyrells, or Oberyn Martell, as the others, but then, I suppose, it could have been all three of them. After all, he was riddled with poison.”

Bronn gulped. “I…”

“She didn’t tell you,” Tyrion murmured, a cold smile wrapping over his lips. “Well, I suppose that’s one thing too intimate to share with someone else, besides me.”

Bronn opened and closed his mouth. “That’s why you’re angry with her,” he said, slowly. “Because she didn’t tell you that she killed your father.”

Tyrion slammed his hand down on the bucket of water, and some of it sloshed out of the bucket and onto the floor. Bronn grimaced.

“I’m angry with her because she killed my father, and then had the audacity to keep it from me for so long,” he gritted out. “Had the audacity to let me rot in the Black Cells for a murder that I didn’t commit, against my own father, no less, and then let Sansa do so, when the Small Council could see that I wasn’t stupid enough to kill my father.”

Bronn squinted at him, reeling from this new revelation because…dear gods, it put things into perspective.

Tyrion’s fury, after he had awoken to find his dead lover beside him, rather than the sorrow that Bronn might have expected. The way that he had blown up, while her body burned before them, about how she was nothing more than a whore in the end, making Pod cry.

“She killed him,” Bronn repeated.

He had to admit, it made a strange amount of sense. Shae had started to distance herself, from the rest of them, after Joffrey’s wedding, spending more and more time “out,” as she had told Bronn, whenever he had asked her about it, and attaching herself to Sansa like a limpet, looking fearful whenever anyone told her the other girl was alone.

Which Bronn had thought was…strange, then, but then, if Tywin Lannister had known the truth about Tyrion’s marriage, or lack of one, no doubt she had thought that Sansa was in some sort of danger, herself.

She’d been going off to meet Tywin, Bronn thought, the idea clicking into place and then refusing to leave. To spy for him, or whatever it was that she was doing.

And then, she’d killed him.

 _Fuck me_ , he thought. He’d read that situation wrong.

Tyrion rolled his eyes, wiping at his dripping face. “Yes, I believe I mentioned that.”

“Little Shae,” Bronn repeated, and Tyrion snorted.

“Surprise to you too, huh?”

And now…

Bronn thought about what Tyrion had just said, that she had let him rot in prison, had let Sansa rot in the Black Cells, so that she would not be caught for her own crimes. How she had pretended to care about Sansa, and only let her be imprisoned because of it.

“And now you don’t know if she ever really loved you,” Bronn breathed, a dull sense of horror rushing through him, and Tyrion clenched his eyes shut tightly.

Bronn had never loved anyone. He found life easier that way, because he’d seen enough fools torn apart by their love for a woman, and he’d never wanted that, even if he did enjoy a good fuck.

But Shae and Tyrion…they had been something different. Something real, that Bronn, after years of believing Shae would be better off on her own, had actually started to believe in, towards the end.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Tyrion muttered.

“Idiot,” Bronn said, real anger rushing through him in that moment, because dear gods, Shae didn’t deserve to be remembered like this, and Tyrion’s eyes snapped open. “Of course she fucking loved you. Why the fuck do you think she would have killed your father, if not for you?”

Tyrion gave an incredulous laugh, at the words. “You think she killed my father and allowed me to investigated for my own father’s murder because…she loved me?” He echoed.

And yes, it was a working theory, Bronn thought with some irritation, but it made sense.

Tyrion was already shaking his head. “She killed my father because he knew about the two of us, and she panicked,” he said. “She’d been working for him for months, did you know that? He wanted her to bring him information about me, and she did it, so that he wouldn't hurt her for loving me. She wasn’t doing it to protect me from my wicked father, so get that thought out of your mind.”

Bronn squinted at him, and wondered how long the shorter man was going to keep his head up his now arse.

“And,” Tyrion went on, because it seemed that Bronn had opened a dam, now, “She did it because he had found out about my darling little wife and her…wife, the Queen. He would never have let that humiliation stand, and so Shae killed him because she was tired of being his spy, and she didn’t want him to act against Sansa. It had nothing to do with me.”

He sounded almost jealous, by the end of that spiel, and so Bronn didn’t feel a bit of guilt when he slapped the man across the face.

Tyrion jerked back, staring up at him in shock.

“I’ve been patient,” Bronn snapped out. “I kept my distance, like you asked me to, so that you could find a new life here, a life where you wouldn’t be judged by your last name, and I wouldn’t be a reminder of it. But I’m sick of standing by and watching you kill yourself out self-pity.”

Tyrion blinked at him. “I didn’t ask for your help, Bronn. In fact, I thought I was pretty clear when I told you to go fuck yourself,” he breathed out.

Bronn shook his head. “Shae’s dead, Tyrion. She’s dead, and you loved her, and you want to be angry with her for killing your shit stain of a father? Fine. Don’t forget that you killed hers, when you found him.”

Tyrion closed his eyes.

Bronn wondered if he was remembering the stench of the other man’s house, when they had walked into it, after Shae’s funeral, and Tyrion had slit the drunk man’s throat. Wondered if he realized that it had smelled much like Tyrion did, now.

Rotting.

“I…” Tyrion looked tired now, as he sank down onto the bed beside the bucket, and Bronn tried not to grimace as he thought about how long it was going to take to wash the stench from those sheets. He scrubbed at his face. “Fuck.”

Bronn eyed him warily.

“You say the Golden Company is following a boy claiming to be a Targaryen,” he echoed, and Bronn felt relief spread through him, as he nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m not sure how much King’s Landing knows about him, but he has an army of ten thousand strong, and they’ve never lost a battle.”

Tyrion raised a brow. “I don’t care about King’s Landing, anymore,’ he said, and Bronn flinched a little, as the heat returned to the other mans’ voice. “What about the Rock?”

Bronn blinked at him. “You haven’t heard?” He asked, and Tyrion sighed, impatient.

“I was trying rather hard not to hear anything about the Seven Kingdoms,” he admitted.

Bronn eyed him a moment longer, before shrugging. “Stannis and your brother made some sort of deal,” he told the smaller man. “To keep either of them from the Rock. They fucked off to who the fuck knows where, and your dear sister and Selyse Baratheon are the Ladies of the Rock, at the moment.”

Tyrion’s jaw fell open. “My sister hasn’t killed her, yet?” He asked, sounding genuinely surprised, but Bronn was not in the mood for jokes.

Not after what he had just heard.

“Wait, Jaime’s left the Rock with Stannis Baratheon?” Something like fear flashed across the other man’s face.

There.

Bronn had him, now.

Bronn nodded. “No one know where there fuck they all went, but Stannis and your fool of a brother took half their armies and disappeared into the snow,” he informed Tyrion. “Those that remained thought they were mad, and didn’t put up much of a fight when Cersei showed up and took back the Rock for herself. Well, half of the right to it.”

Tyrion closed his eyes, reaching up to pinch at his nose. “Fuck,” he breathed, sounding very tired.

Bronn eyed him carefully.

“He just…left?” Tyrion repeated. “No, that…that doesn’t sound like Jaime.”

Bronn shrugged. In his experience, much as he’d ended up liking the other man, Jaime had been nothing if not an impulsive asshole. It sounded rather much like Jaime, to him.

“And Tommen?”

Bronn shrugged. “I don’t get everything, this far East,” he informed the other man, and Tyrion sighed.

He knew that would be enough, that Tyrion, for all that he may profess to hate his family at the moment, would never leave Tommen to his sister’s clutches, alone in the world now that Jaime was gone.

And he knew that, even if Tyrion seemed content to let the world, and his sister, think that he had killed her son, he wouldn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of the other two, who had been, all in all, sweet kids.

Jaime would never forgive him, after all.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “What was he thinking?”

Bronn didn’t bother to respond to that at all.

He knew that he had the other man, that Tyrion was going to have to return to the Seven Kingdoms now, driven by his need to help what remained of his family, cunts though half of them were.

Which suited Bronn just fine.

Lys was…fine, but he was paid handsomely in gold to be something that the Lyseni never needed.

He yearned for a fight, and it sounded damn well like one was coming to Westeros.

Tyrion blinked at Bronn. “Cersei will never forgive me for what she believes was my murder of her son.” He let out a dry laugh. “Funny that, how I’m always being accused of killing family members I hated but never touched.” He sighed.

Bronn waited.

“Take me to Dorne,” he said, finally.

Bronn smirked; it felt flat. He didn’t quite understand what he had said to change Tyrion’s mind, nor why Tyrion had ultimately decided to go to Dorne, rather than the Rock, after asking so many questions about it.

But in this moment, he didn’t give a single fuck.

“Glad to be of service, my lord,” he said, and Tyrion did his level best to ignore the man.

“Seriously though,” Bronn said, as they started walking out of the house and into the busy streets of Lys, “Your tiny little wife really was fucking the Queen?”

Tyrion shot him an unimpressed look, and Bronn smirked.

“Damn.”


	9. The Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is called 'The Rock' but I'm pretty sure it's all Cersei...

“Janei,” Cersei said, calmly, from where she lay in the bath in her chambers, “Will you grab my dress for me?”

Janei grimaced, and then forced it into a smile rather well, Cersei thought idly, as she marched over to the chair beside Cersei’s bath and then marched it back to her, holding it out.

Cersei stood up in the bath, and waited.

Janei stared at her.

Cersei rolled her eyes.

Gods, she didn’t have time for this.

She had to deal with her son, who still acted as if he couldn’t fit a crown on his small head, Stannis Baratheon’s soldiers, who would be happy to kick her and her son out of the Rock, out of her own home, if she didn’t do something about them, and soon, as well, and with Genna, who was being even more of a cunt than usual, seeming to forget that she still sucked from the teat of House Lannister, for all that she professed to be more in charge of it than Cersei was.

The girl was going to have to learn, Cersei thought, as Janei helped her into the robe and she stepped out of the bath, to hide her feelings better, if she was going to survive as Cersei’s ladies maid. Cersei could read almost every expression on the girl’s face, and it was infuriating.

After all, she was here to serve Cersei, not to burden Cersei with her own feelings.

“You know, I remember a time, not so long ago, when you asked me if you might serve as my lady, in King’s Landing, or perhaps as a lady to the Queen, rather than marrying here,” Cersei said, idly, as the girl helped her slip the robe on. “You should realize that this is the sort of thing you would be doing for me.”

Janei sniffed, and Cersei rolled her eyes as she readjusted her robe. “You should be honored, to serve me now, as my son’s Regent.”

Janei swallowed hard. “Yes, Your Grace,” she whispered, eyes downcast, and Cersei struggled not to roll her own, again.

She would learn, Cersei thought, as she marched away from the other girl, tying her robe and slipping on a pair of shoes, though it might take some time, and Cersei would be lying if she said she didn’t know what the cause of Janei’s distress was, at the moment.

Her mother, the irritating woman, had spent the last week or so since Cersei had crowned Tommen, and then taken Janei and Martyn into her service, roaming the halls and weeping. Every time that Cersei had passed her, the other woman had fallen to her knees and begged for Cersei to be merciful to her children.

It had gotten to the point where Cersei had decided she would be better off at the Crag, where she could spend some time in solitude, and, perhaps, away from her children, who she clearly had an unhealthy level of attachment to.

Besides, Cersei didn’t need the woman turning Janei and Martyn against her, when she had such plans for them.

As if Cersei had any intentions of seeing her uncle’s remaining two children killed.

There were few enough Lannisters left in the world these days, as there was, and Janei and Martyn were nothing like their traitorous brother, who had seen fit to turn himself into a barefoot, fanatic peasant rather than uphold the family.

Janei and Martyn, for all Janei’s frowns, knew what it meant to do their duty towards their family, Cersei could tell that as much, and she had not received a single complaint from either of them, since they had entered their service to the Crown.

In fact, Cersei thought, eying the young girl as she stood in the corner, head lowered, perhaps Janei was cut out for a future better than that.

The last time she had married off one of her sons for the good of the realm, it had gone disastrously, in the form of Margaery Tyrell, who had been happy to poison Joffrey against his own family.

For that reason, Cersei thought it would be a good idea to keep Tommen’s marriage, when it did happen, though she would not allow it to happen for some years, even when Janei might be a better wife to him than anyone outside of their family.

Leona had been a good enough wife for Joffrey, if only he hadn’t thought her better dead, and her own family hadn’t turned traitor.

But Janei was a Lannister, and that meant, Cersei knew, that she could be trusted. Eventually.

The thought of Tommen marrying anyone, at the moment, was abhorrent to her. It would be some time before he was old enough to be wed, anyway, but if she had to choose a bride, she supposed that Janei would do better than a girl from another family.

Cersei pressed her lips together.

In that spirit, there was still much for Janei to learn.

And, speaking of that, Cersei thought she might have just thought up the solution to at least two of her problems.

“I need you to make sure that these rooms are spotless for me, by the time that I return,” she said, calmly. “And, Janei?”

Janei lifted her head, still looking fearful, and Cersei gritted her teeth, doing her best to look motherly rather than annoyed with the girl.

She’d gotten enough practice with Sansa; it seemed like this should have been easier, she thought.

“There is something else that I need you to do for me, as well.” Cersei moved forward, then, placing a hand under Janei’s chin and lifting it. “If you wish to see your mother again, soon.”

Janei gulped.

* * *

Cersei hadn’t seen her son since the day before, and she knew that she needed to spend some time with the boy so that he didn’t feel lonely.

It could be incredibly lonely, being king, after all. She was convinced, now, that she hadn’t been there enough for Joffrey, and that was the reason Margaery was able to manipulate him so easily.

If she had just had a stronger relationship with him, he would never have sent her away, and she would never have allowed her own brother to kill him.

She glanced at Janei, where she stood in the corner; she hadn’t spoken since Cersei’s ultimatum, earlier, and Cersei hadn’t failed to notice the way the girl was shaking.

And then she glanced back down at the letters in her hands.

She knew what Stannis’ men whispered about her, in the night, while they drank her family’s wine and ate her family’s food. That their lord should have had his war, should have taken Casterly Rock rather than bending down for something as trivial as a truce with a family who never kept their promises. An ironic thing, when Stannis had once sworn his loyalty to Robert, and Cersei never had.

Her servants told her other things, as well, about what the Baratheon men thought about her, without her ever having to leave her rooms at night.

That she was a cunt, a bitch who had scratched her way to the Iron Throne the same way that she had done, here, by persuading Stannis to let her stay.

She would have laughed at the thought, if they ever dared say it to her face; if Cersei had known that Stannis was here, when she had departed from King’s Landing, she would have arrived here with an army.

Jaime had been the one to convince Stannis not to go into the war that the remainder of the Baratheon soldiers seemed to want so desperately, not that men ever seemed to remember that, when there was a woman they could blame for their problems, instead.

She grimaced, finishing off the final touches on the letters she was working on.

The next time she saw Jaime, she’d be sure to thank him for being stupid enough to leave half of a Baratheon army with his child, here.

She figured that they would be just about even, then. That he would damn well owe her, actually, for endangering both of their sons. Leaving Joffrey open to their brother, even if Cersei knew that Jaime would never have believed anything against Tyrion before it was too late, and then leaving Tommen with Stannis’ men.

But there was nothing that she could do about that, now. She was just going to have to figure out how to clean up Jaime’s mess, and hope that it was enough.

And if the Baratheon men thought of her as nothing more than a cunt who didn’t believe that a man’s word was his bond, then that was exactly what Cersei was going to give them.

All of them, if she damn well had to.

Her scratchings became a bit more serious, as she continued. Janei looked a little disturbed, in the corner, but she didn’t dare speak up, not until Cersei was done finishing off the letters and sealing them.

“I need you to deliver these letters,” Cersei informed her, holding them out, already sealed. “If you try to unseal them and read them, I’ll have you horsewhipped, you understand.”

Janei swallowed. “Of course,” she whispered, lowering her gaze again.

Cersei smiled at her. “Good girl. Now, run along. If anyone needs me, I plan to be eating the noon meal with my son.”

She’d already had the servants prepare them something and find her son; she had no doubt that Tommen was hiding away in Jaime’s old rooms again, because the boy was frightfully shy, something else that she was going to have to sort out, if he was ever going to make a decent king.

And Cersei didn’t want to lose her boy the way that she had lost Joffrey, to the crown, but she needed to protect him, as well.

And part of that meant that he needed to learn how to protect himself, as well.

She sighed, reaching up to press a hand against her forehead.

Gods, she was so tired.

But it was a good sort of tired; before she had crowned Tommen herself, because no one else would help her, Cersei hadn’t been able to sleep because her mind was too preoccupied with what might happen to him, at any moment, because he was nothing more than a target.

She had been terrified at the prospect of, for once, being the only one able to protect her son.

And what she had feared had happened; she had nearly lost her son, because she had stood by for too long and done nothing, and Cersei was not going to make the same mistake again.

Now, when she fell into bed at night, she fell into exhausted sleep, contented that she had done everything she fucking could to keep the remainder of her family safe, even if Jaime had not, and no one else would.

That was how it had always been, after all.

Her father hadn’t lifted a finger to help her keep her children safe, before she’d made sure that Robert Baratheon never would.

She took a deep breath, and got to her feet, walking out the door and down the hall, because the thought of her son in any more danger at the moment made her want to do nothing more than see him, to make sure that he was all right.

But the moment she shut the door behind her, as she walked out into the hall, she went still, blinking at the sight of Selyse Baratheon, standing before her.

“Cersei,” Selyse said, and Cersei ground her teeth together. This was the last woman she wanted to deal with today.

Selyse, who was wandering the halls like a ghost, these days, at least not weeping, the way that Dorna had been, but she was still an eyesore, and one that Cersei was going to make sure that she dealt with, as well.

So long as she remained such an important figure here, a reminder to the Baratheon men of who their king was, Cersei would never be able to keep her son safe.

And it should have been ‘Your Grace,’ but Cersei knew this to be Selyse’s quiet way of mocking her, even if it was an unspoken truce that they had both agreed upon, to not use titles with one another when neither of them could agree on the proper titles, for all that she had always thought the woman nothing more than a timid flower, in the past.

It had come as no surprise to her when Cersei had found out Stannis was sleeping with some red priestess, rather than his own wife.

But then again, Selyse was holding up fairly well, after Cersei’s most recent betrayal, and the sight of the other woman, seemingly fine after many of her own men had seen the sense in declaring for Tommen rather than her husband, grated on Cersei’s nerves, for she herself didn’t feel like she was holding up well at all.

“I heard about the attempt on your son,” Selyse said, and for once, she actually sounded sympathetic. “I am glad that he is all right. It is a terrible thing, to lose a child.”

Cersei remembered being told by one of the Lannister soldiers that Stannis had been a hair’s breadth away from burning his own daughter at the stake, before he’d abandoned the girl with his smuggling knight in Winterfell.

But she had not lost her child, while Cersei had lost Joffrey. She knew nothing of the pain of losing a child, even if Shireen still resided in Winterfell and she could not leave the Rock anymore than Cersei could, at the moment.

She thought that this was Selyse’s way of punishing her, for what she had done, in crowning the boy, by reminding her of how she had almost lost him.

Cersei lifted her chin. “Well,” she said, coldly, “That was some time ago. And he is fine, I assure you. If I were you, I would be far more worried for my own daughter.”

Selyse stared at her, looking slightly paler. It was hard to tell; Cersei wondered when the last time the woman had left these halls had been.

But she wasn’t lying; if she were Selyse, she would be horrified for the fate of her own daughter, stuck away in Winterfell, surrounded by Stannis’ men, and very much alone without her mother there to guide her.

Stannis had left her there, Cersei understood, just in case he didn’t manage to take the Rock for himself, and it didn’t sound as if his sudden journey Beyond the Wall had been planned; no doubt, he’d forgotten about the little chit when he’d decided to go North with barely half of his own army, the half who still believed in him blindly.

And Jaime, of course.

But the fact remained that Shireen was still in Winterfell, and she doubted that Selyse was comfortable with the fact. But nor had the other woman declared that Shireen should be brought here.

Cersei allowed herself a moment to consider the thought.

Like Janei, Shireen could become her ward, forced to remain by her side at all times, so that she couldn’t plot against her, the way that Sansa Stark eventually had learned how to do.

She was near Tommen’s own age, Cersei thought, and the boy was so shy that most likely, he would prefer to make friends with another girl, even if the thought of him spending much time around a creature touched by grayscale repulsed her.

And keeping her close was a good idea, now that Stannis had no doubt gone off and gotten himself killed in the snow.

“I fear that she shares a similar worry as your own daughter, Cersei,” Selyse said, eyes hard and not a bit of sympathy in her voice, despite her words, “Surrounded by snakes, in Dorne.”

Cersei felt her face grow hot.

Not for long, if Cersei could help it.

No, Myrcella would not remain in Dorne, where she was nothing more than the manipulated puppet of those whorish Martells, she was certain, who had so easily managed to turn Myrcella against her with a few pretty words, for long, if Cersei could help it.

She already had something of a plan in motion, to see Myrcella returned to her side, and the moment that happened, she would send a letter to Jaime again, would appeal to his manhood by begging him to return to their little family, happy and perfect now that Joffrey was not there to cause such a divide between them.

It was perhaps the one good thing to come of Joffrey’s death, she thought, idly, that it meant that they could come together as a family, once more, and she could purge Myrcella and Jaime of the lies that they had started to believe about her, for whatever reason.

“Yes, I suppose that must be amusing for you,” Cersei muttered, “to know that I feel some of the pain you wish I did.”

Selyse’s brows furrowed. “Cersei…”

“It’s ‘Your Grace,’” Cersei corrected her, coldly. “As you well know.”

Selyse lifted her chin, gaining back something more of a spine, which Cersei couldn’t help but be annoyed with, even if the woman’s earlier attitude had been worse.

“No, I don’t know,” she said, and her eyes no longer held the sympathy they had before. Cersei was almost glad for that; it felt more honest. “Because my king is Stannis Baratheon, my husband, not your bastard son.”

Cersei slapped her.

The sound reverberated through the hallway, and Cersei took a step back, then, strangely startled by the sound.

Selyse stared at her.

Cersei stiffened a little. “Lady Selyse,” she said, calmly, “Your husband disappeared Beyond the Wall, a place where no one comes back from, on a whim with my brother. You are a guest in this place, even if you don’t see yourself as such, and I don’t think you want to put that to the test, considering how many Lannister soldiers there are here, compared to how many of your husband’s soldiers are.”

Selyse grimaced, but she did stand down, Cersei noticed, with a little thrill, confirming a theory she’d already had.

“Now,” Cersei said, calmly, “If you’ll excuse me…”

She walked around the woman and kept walking, ignoring the little grunt of annoyance that Selyse made, after she was gone.

She found her son in the dining room that they had planned to eat in…with Genna.

Cersei bit back a groan. Gods, what was it with today?

Something about the sight of Genna, sitting so close and whispering in Tommen’s ear, after she had just left Selyse and her poisonous words, made Cersei’s blood feel like it was on fire.

“If you will excuse us, dear aunt, my son and I need to speak,” Cersei said, loudly, and Genna lifted her eyes to Cersei, looked supremely annoyed.

Cersei felt rather gratified, at the sight.

“We need to speak, actually,” Genna said, harshly, and Cersei closed her eyes, breathing in deeply before letting it out in a sigh, and gesturing for Genna to lead the way out into the hallway.

Genna slapped her, the moment the door shut behind them and blocked them off from Tommen, and Cersei reeled back, shocked at the other woman’s behavior.

“What are you doing to your queen?” Cersei demanded, the moment that she had gotten control of herself once more.

Genna snorted. “Get a hold of yourself, Cersei,” she muttered. “You’re hardly a queen just because you decide to name yourself so.”

Cersei’s eyes narrowed at her. “That child in Margaery’s belly isn’t even born yet,” she said, “And my son is. He has a better claim right now than an unborn babe.”

Genna stared at her. Then, “Your son is terrified, Cersei, terrified that he’s going to be killed just like his brother was, and you did that to him by naming him king, when no one else was thinking about it. You could have waited, seen if the child was a girl, and done this right, and instead, you’ve painted a target on his back, or have you forgotten that we’re surrounded by Baratheons?”

Cersei lifted her chin. “Tommen is a Baratheon,” she reminded the other woman, and Genna raised her hand as if to slap her again.

And then, slowly, surprisingly, she lowered it.

Cersei stared.

“Why did you send Dorna away?” She demanded.

Cersei crossed her arms over her chest. “She was always weeping,” she said, not feeling a bit of guilt over it. “It was grating on my nerves. I thought she might be happier with her own family.”

“Her family is here,” Genna reminded her, looking exasperated, and Cersei hated that, just because she was Cersei’s aunt, she thought that she could get away with lecturing her like a child, “And you’re keeping them captive. No wonder she was weeping.”

Cersei shifted, feeling strangely uncomfortable. “Well, perhaps I’ll send Selyse to keep her company. That woman is just as irritating, and far more of a threat to Tommen.”

Genna threw her hands up in the air. “Does everything I say just go in one ear and out the other, with you?” She asked, looking annoyed. “For fuck’s sake, Cersei. There are almost as many Baratheon soldiers here as there are Lannisters, and Stannis’ men are fanatical towards him.”

Cersei cocked her head, considering the other woman’s words.

Almost as many…

She bit back a smile. “Then why didn’t they follow him, when he called for his men to set aside,” she thought for a moment, trying to remember how it had first been explained to her, when she arrived at the Rock and found Jaime gone, “Petty grievances over a throne that won’t matter to fight fairy tales? The way you told me the story, it sounded as if the men that stayed behind were the ones who had lost their faith in Stannis, and believed he’d finally gone mad. And you’re right; there are quite a few of them, here. Waiting for someone to come along and offer them something better.”

Genna stared at her, looking disgusted, but she didn’t dare refute the words, Cersei knew, because she knew them to be the truth.

That was why the Baratheon soldiers standing throughout the Keep had remained silent, in the days after Cersei had crowned her son as the rightful king; that was why they seemed to respect Selyse as a lady, but not as their Queen.

And Cersei knew damn well how to manipulate men who needed something to fight for.

In that way, all men were the same, after all.

No, she wasn’t as worried about this as Genna seemed to think she should be.

“You can’t have everything, Cersei,” Genna warned her, after a few beats of silence, and Cersei lifted her chin.

“Watch me,” she said, and then turned, starting to go back to her son.

Genna called after her, “You’re going to get that boy killed, you know, trying to ‘protect’ him. And if you’re not careful, you’re going to get the rest of us killed, as well.”

Cersei spun back around, eyes narrowing. “I want Myrcella back from Dorne,” she said, and ignored Genna’s scoff. “The Martells have made it clear that they have no intention of honoring any sort of alliance with us, and the way that they took Myrcella back to Dorne was nothing short of an abduction.” She eyed Genna, saw the way the other woman’s expression softened.

There. She had her.

“I know that we’ve had our differences,” Cersei continued, voice soft, “But I…” she reached up, running a hand through her blonde hair, trying to figure out how she was going to play this.

After all, there was only so much that Genna would believe, from her.

“I need our family back together,” Cersei whispered, hoarsely. “I need…I know that you think I’m endangering Tommen, but the moment Tommen was nearly killed, this was what I had to do. If I hadn’t done something, perhaps they would have tried again.”

She sucked in a harsh breath, and then another, eying Genna carefully out of the corner of her eyes.

Genna seemed to be eying her just as warily.

Cersei swallowed; she had to sell this better, she knew.

“I panicked with Tommen, I know that,” Cersei went on. “I saw him there, nearly killed by some unknown assassin, and I didn’t know what else to do. But this situation, here, with all of these soldiers there…something was going to happen, either way. And I don’t want something to happen in Dorne, where Myrcella is surrounded by so many snakes. The only reason that Joffrey didn’t send for her to come back was because he…because he was angry with me.”

Genna blinked, and then her eyes softened.

“And if something were to happen to her because of me…” Cersei sighed, trailing off, knowing that she wouldn’t have to say anything more, now.

Genna let out a long sigh. “I happen to agree with you, about Myrcella,” she said, sounding somewhat defeated, and Cersei’s head shot up. “I don’t think that Myrcella is safe, with the Lannisters. But I’m not sure what we can do about it, from here.”

Cersei swallowed. “I…” she took a deep breath. “I think there might be something we can do.”

Genna pursed her lips. “All right,” she said, finally. “I will help you, with this. But Cersei, you have to stop. You have to stop acting on your own, without consulting me, doing mad things that you’ve only half thought through.”

Cersei closed her eyes, shoving down her humiliation. “I…will consult you,” Cersei said, slowly. “With as much as I can.”

Genna gave her a long look. “Not good enough. I need more than that.”

Cersei sighed. “I’ll tell you, if I’m planning anything else.”

Genna crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you planning anything else?”

Cersei tossed her hair and walked into the dining room to have a meal with her son, one which Genna had not been invited to.

The boy was sitting at the table, bent over, looking rather dejected, and not at all like the king he would one day be, Cersei thought, annoyance filling her a little.

He was just a boy now, but one day, he was going to be the leader of the Seven Kingdoms, and it wouldn’t do for the rest of Westeros to see him as one of the kittens he was so enamored with.

Cersei forced her thoughts about Genna, about her attempts to manipulate the other woman and whether or not Genna had believed her, from her mind, for the moment.

For now, she didn’t want to think about the fate of the Seven Kingdoms, of House Lannister. She just wanted to have a nice meal with her son.

Her son was still sitting at the table, idly drumming his fingers on the surface of it, when Cersei entered. He looked up, eyes wide, and Cersei forced a smile.

“How are you feeling?” Cersei asked, as she sat down on the edge of the table Tommen was sitting at.

She gestured for the two servants in the corner of the room to bring forward their meal, and they disappeared, leaving the two of them alone for a few moments.

The boy blinked up at her, wide eyed, once they were alone. “I…” he swallowed hard. “Do you think…Do you think Joffrey enjoyed it?” He asked, very quietly, and she blinked at him. “Do you think he liked being King?”

Cersei paused, the question surprising her.

She knew the answer immediately, of course.

Joffrey had loved being King, had enjoyed the power it had given him, to hold the lives of his victims in his hands, and have a choice over their life and death. Had enjoyed being able to give orders and have them be followed without a second thought, after the way he had been ignored for so long by his father, and by everyone else around him.

Tommen wouldn’t be like that. He wouldn’t enjoy the power that came with being king, he wouldn’t enjoy having the power of life and death over others, he wouldn’t like having to make the hard decisions.

In a way, Cersei’s decision that she would be his regent for as long as she needed to was something of a gift, for him, she supposed.

She would be protecting his heart along with his life, and she intended to do her best, with that.

“I don’t like it,” Tommen admitted, quietly, and Cersei blinked at him. “Being king,” he went on, when she was silent. “Everyone wants me to…Well, everyone expects something of me.” He lowered his gaze. “No one expected anything of me when I was just Joffrey’s brother.”

Cersei felt annoyance bubbling up inside of her, at the boy’s words. She leaned forward, placing her hands on Tommen’s shoulders, and the boy stared up at her.

“You are my son,” Cersei told him, calmly, and Tommen’s eyes widened a little more, “And this is your birthright.”

Tommen blinked at her. “It was Joffrey’s birthright,” he whispered, and Cersei’s fingers tightened on his shoulders before she let go of him.

“And now, it is yours,” she said. “You are just as much your father’s son as Joffrey ever was. I…I understand that this might be difficult for you, Tommen, but you are the King now. I need you to step up and be a king.”

Tommen swallowed. “But I don’t understand why I have to be the king,” he said, shrugging his thin shoulders. “Margaery already is going to have a baby, and it could be a boy, and I think that she wants it-”

Cersei stared at him, aghast, not even comprehending the rest of his words as he went on.

The slap that she had delivered, the first time she’d told him that he was to be the king, should have sent the message, she thought. He ought to have understood that he was going to be king, whether Margaery Tyrell wanted it or not.

She didn’t understand why he was fighting this so hard.

And she didn’t understand why the servants were taking so long to deliver the damn food, she thought, something like irritation filling him.

Tommen seemed to sense her ire, for he swallowed hard. “Not that…I don’t, that is,” he was all but tripping over his words, clearly nervous, and Cersei closed her eyes as she thought about how this would sound to his Small Council, once it was finished being created, to hear their king stutter his way through his words, “I just…I don’t want anyone to die over me, like this. I don’t think there should be a war, not if Margaery thinks that my…my nephew has a better claim to the throne.”

Cersei finally managed to find her words again. “Tommen,” she said, slowly, “I don’t think you understand…”

“Mother,” Tommen interrupted her, and Cersei blinked at him, “I think…I think we made a mistake.”

Cersei looked at him.

For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine a life where no one would want to kill him, where the Tyrells would stand down so long as she promised to accept Margaery’s child as the future king or queen, regardless of its gender.

Tommen would be a happy child, growing up somewhere far from court, where he would be protected and wouldn’t have to worry about making another decision in his life. He would have his cats, and he would live his quiet life, and Cersei wouldn’t have to lose him.

And Cersei would live with him, would be able to raise him as her son, without the worry of the throne, without the power that accompanied it.

Perhaps then, Jaime would even agree to come back to them without a fight. Perhaps, too, Myrcella…

No.

No, all of that was a dream, a dream that she would never have.

If she had stood by, declared for House Tyrell, the way that they wanted, the Martells would crown Myrcella, eventually. Their loyalty was to no one but themselves.

And even if she had agreed to the Tyrells, they would make sure that she never raised her son, would declare her unfit as a mother, would have her live a thousand leagues away from wherever they eventually placed Tommen, surrounded by Tyrell guards. Would make sure that he grew up never once wanting to lift a finger against House Tyrell, that he never wanted for anything.

That he never had a choice in anything, because the moment they saw him as a threat, they’d be rid of him, and even if he learned to love his captors, he would know that, somewhere deep inside.

Eventually, they might marry him off to some pretty, lower class girl who would ensure he never had a chance of becoming king, or, he would die of some inane sickness, while Cersei never got the chance to hold him in her arms again.

Just as she had never gotten to hold Joffrey in her arms again, before he’d died.

And that was something else the Tyrells had caused, when they allowed Margaery Tyrell to get her claws into them, proving they were fully capable of everything that Cersei feared they might do to Tommen.

She closed her eyes, and shuddered.

When she opened them again, looking at her son, her beautiful boy, Cersei knew that she had made the right choice. The only choice that she could have made.

For the only son she had left.

Cersei pursed her lips. “I think that you spend too much time with those cats, Tommen,” she told him, coldly. “It isn’t good for you. You need to spend more time around your subjects, to better understand them.”

Tommen swallowed, opening his mouth, but Cersei cut him off.

“So,” she said, reaching out to run a hand through his hair, and pretending that she didn’t notice the way he flinched away, “I’ll just have Janei taking care of the cats for you, until you can become the king I know you are.”

Tommen’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t dare object.

Cersei bit the inside of her cheek. “Understood?”

He nodded, after another moment’s hesitation, but the sight was wholly unsatisfying, Cersei thought.

“Good,” she said, finally. “Well, I think you should get back to studying about the realm. Another good way for you to understand your people.”

And something that she had neglected, with Joffrey, who had been far more interested in learning about the long gone Targaryens, Cersei thought, more annoyance bubbling up as Tommen left without a word, then.

When he was gone, she leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh.

She knew what she had to do, now. It was something that she’d been hoping to avoid, something that she didn’t quite want to commit to, but Lannisters could be stubborn, and she couldn’t do this if she had to fight Tommen’s passivity, all the while.

So, she was just going to have to convince him that his becoming King was in everyone’s best interest.

She would make him the good, unchallenged king that Joffrey had never become.

Even if it meant fucking them all just a little more.

After all, they already had Stannis’ army here. It wasn’t as if things could get much worse.

* * *

“His Grace the King Tommen has declared that, as his first act as King, all those who wear Stannis Baratheon’s colors and bend the knee to him have this chance to bend the knee to the true King, Tommen of House Baratheon,” Cersei said, loudly, her words echoing throughout the courtyard.

She had summoned the leaders of Stannis’ army here, or as many of them as she could, along with many of the Lannister lords and knights. She wanted to make sure as many people as possible heard her offer, wanted to make sure that it was well known.

It needed to make its way back to Tommen, after all, without the boy being here himself, when she thought it was too dangerous for him to be here, if things did go wrong.

But she was doing this for Tommen, all of it.

The men in the courtyard shifted in shock, at her words, and she bit back a smile; oh yes, Cersei Lannister, the woman who never kept her promises, who didn’t believe that a man’s word was his bond.

Who had fucked her own brother and had his children.

Cersei folded her hands together, trying to meet as many eyes as she could. Her gown grated around her neck, where she wore the neckline high.

She wouldn’t want to give these men the wrong impression, today, about the Queen she was about to ask them to follow.

No, that was Margaery’s job, she thought, a flash of memory, of Margaery fucking her son in front of her, rushing through her mind.

“Those who do will be pardoned for their treason, and offered positions that bring great prestige, within the King’s armies. They have until the end of the day, and if they do not, they will be met with the King’s wrath, rather than his mercy.”

Silence met her words.

Of course, Cersei had not expected the men to jump forward at the opportunity; after all, these were all the sort of men content with the thought of seeing her own children dead for Stannis Baratheon to climb over their cold corpses on the way to the throne.

Still, it was a bit disheartening, that no one was reacting at all.

She had known this would be a long shot, of course, that it would be difficult to convince any of them to follow her, considering who she was, but she had hoped for a little more…encouragement.

She glanced at Genna, where the woman stood in the crowd, and bit back a sigh, just then remembering that she had promised the other woman she would run anything else by her.

Ah, well.

That was a long shot, anyway.

Cersei would just have to find another way to get Myrcella back, and perhaps Genna could join Dorna and Selyse, in the Crag.

They could have a little gathering, of women whom Cersei loathed for living in this place, and all of whom loathed her.

And then she could send someone to make sure that they didn’t threaten her again.

Or perhaps she’d send Genna back to her fucking disgrace of a husband, make him actually put a leash on his wife, this time.

Her eyes left her aunt, and scanned the crowd. “And do not doubt that the King’s wrath will be great, for those who have been sampling his wine, and his women, for the past few months, and without even a lord to guide them.”

Genna stalked forward, then, and Cersei resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing that this would come, but still annoyed that the other woman would dare it, in front of so many.

She should have at least had the sense to do this behind closed doors, after all, when this little demonstration was over.

“Your Grace,” Genna said, and her voice was cold, “Perhaps you haven’t thought this through.”

Cersei narrowed her eyes at the other woman. “Are you questioning the King’s own command?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Genna lifted her chin. “I am wondering if the King is the one who gave it,” she muttered, knowingly.

Cersei shrugged, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. “My son is not yet of age,” she reminded Genna, “And as he as yet has no Hand, I act as his Regent.”

Even when he did get a Hand; when Kevan returned, bowing and scraping before the throne, having learned his lesson for underestimating Cersei, she would remain as Tommen’s Regent, she didn’t bother to say, but she thought she could see the truth in Genna’s eyes, all the same.

She was the one who had propped him up, when no one else seemed to believe in him; it was only fair.

Genna pressed her lips together for a moment longer, glaring at Cersei, but she stayed silent, this time, finally seeming to realize that there was little that she could do, in order to stop this from happening.

Cersei sent her a smirk, and then turned back to the crowd of men, shifting uncomfortably, now.

“I’m sure that you think that my son’s wrath cannot be great,” she continued. “He is just a child, and he is not his brother, Joffrey, who would have seen you all pay for what you have done. You must especially have doubts because he has offered you this chance at mercy. Perhaps you think that exposes a weakness.”

The men shifted again.

Cersei lifted her chin, raised her voice. “But let me remind you that my son is a Lannister, or so your king says. And whether you believe that or you simply prefer my goodbrother, let me remind you that my son is the grandson of Tywin Lannister, the man who destroyed the Reynes for their treason, the man who destroyed the Starks for theirs. The man who humiliated your king at the Battle of Blackwater. And I am his daughter.”

She glanced over at Genna; the other woman shook her head, and then turned, walking from the courtyard in silence, her ladies accompanying her.

Cersei bit back a grimace; the other woman would pay for showing such dissension among their ranks, before all of these people, she would see to that.

“And if you wish to risk our wrath, then I welcome it,” Cersei said, and her own men started to shift, reaching for their weapons.

The Baratheon knights reached for theirs.

Cersei lifted her hands. “Please, sers,” she said. “This need not come to bloodshed. Your lord has abandoned you here to fight fairytales in the North, and at a moment when he could have turned around and won this war for you. Instead, he left you here, surrounded by Lannister soldiers, in the Westerlands.”

She could see the conflict on their faces now, and she remembered what she had nearly forgotten before; the soldiers who had remained behind here, at the Rock, were the ones who had refused to go North with Stannis and Jaime.

For too long, Cersei had been thinking of them as the enemy, as the people darkening her door, ready to kill her at any moment. Who would come into her rooms in the middle of the night and rape the Lannister whore, and then kill her son in front of her.

She had been thinking about this whole situation wrong. Thinking of them as the monsters.

But what she had just said? That was the truth.

She could live out her life in fear, could have her son stolen away from her and raised to think that he didn’t deserve to be king, just because Margaery Tyrell wanted it more.

Or, she could do something about it. She could become the thing that those around her feared, instead.

That…meant something, that seed of doubt.

Cersei intended to ensure that it did.

“So you can keep pledging your loyalty to a man who may never return to the Seven Kingdoms, or who might, if he’s a very fortunate man indeed, who return from that journey, only for you to have lost your chance at taking back what belongs to you, what you’ve fought for so long.”

The soldiers shifted again.

Cersei lifted her hands. “Or, you can choose a new king. A king who is still alive, who will give you what you wanted so desperately when you chose who you thought the winning king would be. You can choose my son.”

Silence.

And then, one of the Baratheon soldiers moved forward, and the soldiers around him started to murmur amongst themselves.

He reached up, ripping off his cloak, and Cersei smirked.

“You fucking traitor!” One of the men from the crowd shouted, and Cersei supposed that he had good reason for that.

After all, she had told the truth. Stannis had been winning this war. And if, in some small chance in the hells that he did return, with her brother in tow, he probably would continue to win this war.

But that was as unlikely as Jaime returning, she could admit that, now.

And they needed to, too.

The soldier who had torn off his cloak glared at the others. “The bitch is right,” he snapped, and she might have something to say about them referring to her as a bitch, but she supposed it was progress, nonetheless.

It was better than the Lannister Whore, after all.

“Stannis isn’t coming back, and we all knew that, when we refused to go North with him. This truce is only standing because the Lannisters have agreed to uphold it. We’re living on borrowed time, and for what? Months ago, we took Winterfell. We had victory in our hands.”

He held his hand out into a fist, with those words.

Cersei grimaced as one of the Baratheon soldiers walked forward.

“And we’d be better off throwing our lot in with the Tyrells, not with…” he eyed Cersei, “Her.”

Cersei tried not to be offended.

After all, she was desperate. If she had any other options, she would have made sure that they all paid, for ever endangering her child by siding with Stannis Baratheon, in the first place.

The first soldier shook his head. “I’m taking the best offer in front of me,” he muttered, and Cersei smirked again. How like a man. “And right now? The Tyrells aren’t offering.”

The second man reached for his sword, then, and the Lannister soldiers did, as well.

But they didn’t quite make it quick enough, not before this man who clearly wasn’t happy to die for Stannis North of the Wall decided he could still die for him, here.

He didn’t, though.

Not before he cut down the first man to contemplate turning traitor, who cut him cleanly through, like butter. Or something just a little stiffer than butter, perhaps.

Cersei flinched, taking a step back so that the spray of blood wouldn’t reach her.

The soldier turned back to face her, then, sword raised, and her own men stepped forward. They may not love her, of course, but they would defend their lady to the end, if they had to.

And when the blood cleared, Cersei was still standing.

And so were half a dozen of the Baratheon knights whom she had summoned here.

The rest lay at her feet, where they belonged, she thought. A sacrifice, to appease her anger at these men for ever turning to Stannis Baratheon over her son.

If they hadn’t betrayed their king for a usurper, Joffrey might still be alive, and the rest of these men, and the thousands following them…

She just had to be content with their bending the knee in the hopes of glory.

“Now,” Cersei said, coldly, as she crossed her arms over her chest, “For my first act as your Regent, I don’t think my orders will be that difficult for you. Deploy a group to go to Winterfell, and bring Shireen Baratheon here to the Rock at once, that she might be kept safe under the protection of the Crown, before she, too, is used by these grasping Tyrells.”

Selyse, where she stood in the crowd, silent until this moment, for all that she was watching her own men turn against her, shifted on her feet, looking suddenly more pale faced and horrified by the words, far more so than she had seemed at the sight of the majority of her men deserting her.

Cersei bit back a smirk; of course she did. She was a Florent, after all, and basically a Tyrell, so she would believe that even if Cersei turned Stannis’ men against him, she would be safe from Cersei’s wrath.

No doubt she thought that she would be traded to the Reach.

Cersei’s eyes narrowed in her direction, and then moved away.

Perhaps she might trade Selyse to the Tyrells, eventually, Cersei thought, suddenly finding the notion amusing.

But she would be keeping Shireen, the moment she got her hands on the girl. It might just be the thing that turned the tide of the war in her favor.


	10. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these chapters are longer, but I'd love to hear your thoughts!

_“Tell me exactly what you saw,” Kevan told the boy, again, emotions warring between shock and annoyance, that the boy was such a blubbering mess._

_The boy licked his lips, staring up at Kevan with wide eyes. He was a small thing, capable of fitting into nicks and crannies, which made him a convenient little spy, Kevan supposed, though he had never had much use for spies, himself._

_But Varys’ little birds were famous, throughout the city. Little creatures, most of whom could not speak because Varys had their tongues ripped out, the cruel spymaster, so that they answered only to him, in their own ways._

_But this one, it seemed, he had been content to leave alone, so that the boy could share his story._

_Kevan didn’t know whether to be grateful for the boy, or disgusted on behalf of the dozens of other children whom Varys used for his own purposes._

_“I…” the boy licked his lips, looking nervously at Varys._

_Varys lifted his chin. “Tell him what you told me,” he told the boy, in those whispery, nonthreatening tones that he always used, and this was the first time that Kevan had found them disturbing._

_The boy swallowed hard, still looking nervous, and Kevan sighed._

_“Take your time, boy,” he said, calmly. “You have nothing to fear, here.”_

_The boy shook his head, took a deep breath, and then another. “I saw Lady Sansa, m’lord, goin’ into the King’s chambers, after he and Queen Margaery went in there, together. And I saw Ser Meryn go in with her. He didn’t go in, before that,” he said, eyes downcast. “And then she sent a serving boy off to do something, and Lord Baelish came by, not long after.” He looked uncomfortable, and Kevan wondered if it was because he was worried about what he was about to say, or about crossing Baelish._

_Kevan supposed it was a legitimate worry. The man seemed to have amassed quite a bit of power over the course of a single evening, and that was why Kevan was inclined to hear the boy’s tale, in the first place._

_He wondered what it was, then, that Varys had over his little birds, to keep them so in line, that they feared him more than they did a man like Baelish._

_“The Lady Sansa and the Queen left, not that long after that,” the boy said. “And Lord Baelish, he…” the boy paused again. “Uh…”_

_He glanced at Varys again._

_Kevan sighed, kneeling down in front of the boy and tilting his chin up. “Look at me, boy, not him.”_

_Not the least because he didn’t want to think that Vary was telling the boy what to say, not if what he thought the boy was about to say was the case._

_Kevan grimaced._

_The boy stared at him for a moment, and then glanced up at Varys, and then back at him. His lower lip wobbled._

_He reminded Kevan a little of Tommen._

_“He had a little, golden statue in his hands,” the boy continued. “And…and, it was covered in blood.”_

_Kevan closed his eyes._

_It didn’t confirm everything, of course; if he confronted them, he was sure they could find some way around this, could claim that they had found Margaery and Joffrey like that, could talk their way out of this because they were surrounded by Tyrells who would believe them, but Kevan didn’t need more confirmation than that._

_Well, not from a boy who worked for the Spider._

_He got to his feet, and the boy all but vanished by the time that he had blinked again, not that Kevan was surprised._

_He turned back to the Spider, pressing his lips together as the door shut behind the vanishing boy._

_“Do you believe me, now?” Varys asked, and Kevan closed his eyes._

_Fuck._

_“Cersei will tear the Tyrells down to the ground, if she ever finds out about this,” Kevan warned the other man, and Varys stared at him for a moment longer, before a slow smile pulled over his lips._

_Fuck._

_Margaery Tyrell was out there sitting on the Iron Throne, something she was not meant to do, as only the Regent, and claiming that his favorite nephew had been the one to let those men into the Keep, to kill her dear, beloved, monster of a husband._

_But she had chosen well, in the one she had decided to pin her husband’s murder on._

_She was out there claiming that if she ever saw Tyrion again, she would have his head, and she was doing it because she wanted to sic Cersei on him._

_She wanted to keep the blame from ever falling on herself, by coming down hard on a convenient scapegoat._

_Because, at the moment, Tyrion was a convenient scapegoat. Kevan’d had his men searching for the other man all morning, and hadn’t been able to find him, and he didn’t know if it was because Tyrion had known what was going to happen, somehow, or because he was off fucking some whore, and was about to return to the Keep for the surprise of his life._

_The not knowing, in all of this, was almost as bad the knowing._

_It was making his hair turn grey, he thought, grimacing._

_“If?” Varys echoed, raising a single eyebrow._

_Kevan nodded, feeling tired._

_He had felt tired ever since he had learned what Cersei had allowed to happen to his oldest son, his Lancel, just because she was angry that the boy had found religion at the expense of his family._

_And yes, what Lancel had done was stupid, and cruel, and if Kevan had gotten his hands on the boy he might have given him a good thrashing for forgetting who his family truly was._

_But he would never forgive Cersei for allowing the boy to die, an afterthought in her vengeance against the High Sparrow._

_She hadn’t even cared if Lancel lived or died; Kevan had seen that in her eyes, when he had confronted her over it, and that had been the last straw, for Kevan._

_Kinslayer._

_The title his niece had taken on might have felt obscene, if he didn’t daily have the thought of wrapping his hands around her throat and choking the life from her, himself._

_No._

_He could not forgive her for what she had done to Lancel, what she would likely happily do to Tyrion, without stopping for a moment to listen to him, the moment she found him._

_And…worse than that, he could not even blame Margaery Tyrell for killing her tyrant of a husband, even if she had blamed it on Tyrion. He loathed her for it, but he couldn’t blame her for it, not the way that he had blamed Cersei for killing Lancel, and, dear gods, before that, for killing her own husband, who had hardly been as horrible a king, and perhaps even husband, as Joffrey had been._

_He was not a fool._

_Especially after learning this, he knew that the Tyrells had only kept him as Hand of the King because they wanted to keep a Lannister close, because they thought that if they had his endorsement, they could avoid a war._

_A war that would most certainly come, if Cersei ever learned that the new Regent of a child yet to be born had killed her beloved firstborn son._

_Kevan opened his eyes, meeting the other man’s gaze. “I am not blind to my niece’s faults, Lord Varys,” he said. “But neither am I blind to the fact that you are hardly loyal to House Lannister alone, and you brought this to me for a reason. What is it?”_

_Varys’ smile was thin. “I needed to know where you might stand,” he said. “Believe it or not, there are many rather invested in the answer.”_

_Kevan closed his eyes again._

_Gods, he was tired of all of this._

_“The Tyrells won’t see trouble for me so long as they leave Tyrion alone, wherever it is he might have gone,” Kevan said finally, opening his eyes. “Clear enough?”_

_Varys smiled._

_Kevan wondered what it was the Tyrells offered, that he seemed so invested in their future on the Iron Throne. He had never seen the man much invested in anyone’s future on the Iron Throne, Kevan thought._

_And he didn’t think that Varys had much interest in the Tyrells, over all._

_Perhaps just in their queen, which was confusing enough, since Varys had never, to the best of Kevan’s knowledge, shown interest in a single cunt before._

_“You must have loved your boy very much,” Varys said, into the silence, and Kevan turned and glared at the other man._

_“How dare you bring him up,” he gritted out, because Lancel might have run off with a bunch of fanatics, but the memory of him still stung, and Varys was hardly one of the people whom Kevan wished to have bring up the boy’s name at all, but Varys merely shrugged._

_“It makes one wonder,” Varys continued, sounding equal parts amused and truly curious, and Kevan loathed him for it, “Exactly what you might do avenge him.”_

_Kevan swallowed. “I already told you, they’ll have my silence in exchange for Tyrion’s life.”_

_“And if Cersei finds Tyrion before the Tyrells do?” Varys asked, amused._

_Kevan glowered at him. “Then I’ll have one more reason to hate my niece, I suppose. That ought to make you all happy. Now leave in peace, by the gods.”_

* * *

“You’re here to depose me of my title as Hand of the King,” Kevan supposed, sitting in the middle of the room on the divan with a bottle of wine in his hands, pouring himself out a glass, and then two more, for the two of them, the moment Sansa and Baelish walked into the outer parlor of the Tower, a place which Sansa had once known well.

Very little about Lord Kevan reminded Sansa of her husband; this did, however, and she felt another small ache of guilt, especially considering what they were coming here to do.

These chambers didn’t look any different, under Lord Kevan’s stewardship. She found herself wondering if that was because he knew that he would not be holding onto it for much longer, the moment he had taken the position.

She grimaced, glancing sideways at Baelish.

Baelish crossed his arms over his chest. “Surely you understand why,” he said. “While the Crown sympathizes with what you have suffered at the hands of that madwoman, we can no longer trust you to…remain objective, about all of this.”

Kevan took another sip of his wine. “Because my niece is holding my children hostage,” he surmised.

He said it the way that one might comment on the weather.

Baelish nodded. “A misfortune, of course, but as I said…”

“You can’t trust me to remain objective,” Kevin continued for him, and Baelish, playing the penitent fool, Sansa thought, nodded gratefully.

She shifted on her feet, the tension in the room not leaving, with Kevan’s words.

She eyed him again, eyed the two glasses that he had poured for them, and rather wished that Baelish would sit so that she could as well, and have an excuse for taking a sip.

She had a feeling that she was about to need the fortification.

Kevan eyed them both a moment longer. “Exactly how long do you think that will work for you?” He asked them both, and Sansa felt her heart thump in her chest, because the way he’d said that, it sounded very much as if he…

Dear gods, he knew.

She could see it in his eyes, now.

And suddenly, things made a bit more sense. The passive way that he seemed to accept the Tyrells taking more and more control of the Crown, the way that he didn’t object when their words became increasingly more scornful of the Westerlands.

Because he had the best chip in this game, by far, just by knowing and being able to hold it against them, for a rainy day.

Fuck.

A day just like today.

Baelish seemed to read the answer on him, as well, taking a seat at the divan Kevan had pointed out earlier, and Sansa, after a moment’s hesitation, followed suit.

She glanced at Petyr, desperation swirling inside of her.

He seemed to see just what she did, however, if the way he moved forward, taking a half step protectively in front of her, as if he were shielding her from Kevan.

“I’m afraid we don’t know what you mean,” He said, and though his voice was calm, there was a certain level of danger in it.

Kevan glanced between the two of them, and then snorted. “Oh?” He asked. “Funny; I was speaking about the way you covered up the murder of my nephew, the King, but if there’s something else that you’ve done recently…”

Sansa sucked in a breath, and then closed her eyes, biting back a curse.

For all she knew, he’d just been bluffing, and now, he damn well knew the truth.

Baelish reached out, placing a hand on her wrist. “That’s a serious accusation for someone who is only just bringing it to us now…” he said, slowly.

Kevan lifted his head. “Do you want to know why I didn’t say anything earlier? Because the other option here is to let my niece become the Regent for the Seven Kingdoms, whether for her own son or Margaery Tyrell’s,” he said, and Sansa bit back another sigh.

“And my niece is many things, but competent is not one of them.”

If the situation weren’t so horrifying, Sansa might have laughed, at the words. At the simple way that Kevan Lannister admitted them.

Because dear gods, this was impossible. Kevan Lannister knew that they had covered up the truth about Joffrey’s death, and he…wasn’t doing anything, because he thought that Margaery would make a better regent than Cersei.

Baelish hummed. “The Regency would be open to yourself, as well, if you reached out and took it,” he pointed out. “I find it difficult to believe that a Lannister would sit back and let a girl take it over, in that case.”

Kevan grimaced. “My brother was one of the most powerful people to ever live in the Seven Kingdoms,” he said, and Baelish let out a quiet snort, “And it was because he could see the bigger picture. That is something that Cersei has always lacked, as she’s proven, with this most recent fiasco.” His eyes darkened. “I would like to avoid a war as much as you do.”

Baelish raised an eyebrow. “I find that even more difficult to believe.”

“How’d you find out?” Sansa interrupted, and flushed a little when the two men turned to look at her. It was all but an admission, after all, but she thought they were rather past that, by now.

Kevan eyed her. “Do you do it because you hate the Lannisters so much?” He asked her. “Otherwise, I can’t imagine why you’ve moved so far up in the world, lately.”

Sansa forced a smile. Now that the truth was out, she didn’t see the reason to pretend to remain civil.

She reached out, taking a sip of the wine Kevan had offered, earlier.

He smirked.

Sansa reached up, brushing a hand through her hair. “After you left the Small Council meeting the other day, I was the only who suggested that declaring immediate war on your niece and her son wasn’t a wonderful idea. I am the reason Cersei is being invited to her own son’s funeral at all.”

This time, Kevan leaned forward, jabbing a finger at her. “And that is why I said nothing, about what I saw. But I did not remain on your Small Council, at great risk to my own family, to follow an incompetent girl who seems more interested in spilling her secrets to peasant septas and running these kingdoms into the ground as badly as my niece would have done, than ruling.”

Baelish grimaced, eying Sansa. “We’re dealing with that,” he promised, and Kevan snorted.

“That’s not what I’ve seen,” he said, still looking at Sansa.

Sansa set down the glass of wine and crossed her arms over her chest.

Baelish cleared his throat. “And if we can…guarantee that the Regent will be…brought under control, in a way that will satisfy House Tyrell and House Lannister?”

Kevan raised an eyebrow. “Instead of just killing me?”

“I think there’s been rather enough deaths, of late,” Baelish said, calmly, and Sansa felt like she was watching some sort of game, looking between the two of them.

It wasn’t necessarily the promises that they were making, lies that she knew neither of them would plan to uphold, the moment the conversation was over.

No, what was fascinating to her was the absolute look of shock that had crossed Baelish’s features, the moment Kevan insinuated that they had covered up the death of the King, until he buried it deep.

It was one of the only times that Sansa had ever seen the man flinch, and she was determined to study every moment of it.

Even if the impending doom of knowing that a Lannister somehow fucking knew about what they had done, when they had thought they’d almost gotten away with it, was still bubbling up inside of her.

Gods, she wished it was acceptable to down the rest of that glass of wine, and then finish off Kevan’s and the one he had poured for Baelish.

Because…fuck.

It was impossible. There had been no one around that night, and yes, there were some flaws to the things they had done since that night to keep Joffrey’s death covered up, but Sansa had thought that they were doing a pretty good job of it.

After all, that was the whole reason she had gone to Petyr Fucking Baelish in the first place. The reason she had entrusted him with information it had felt like she was killing Margaery to admit, the reason she had agreed to-

“I want more than just your promise that a war will not happen, if I agree to help you keep this from Cersei, now,” Kevan said. “My niece is insane and would drive these kingdoms into the ground if she were the Regent, but my brother always saw the Tyrells as grasping opportunists, and given where we are, I’d say he was right.”

Sansa snorted despite herself. She wondered if it was because of the hysteria curdling her stomach. “The Tyrells fought alongside the Mad King, during the war. The Lannisters didn’t even choose a side until you knew Cersei would be able to marry Robert.”

Kevan eyed her. “I find that rather ironic coming from-”

“Your children will be protected, if the Tyrells manage to subdue Cersei,” Baelish interrupted, coolly. “Tyrion will not face…retribution, from House Tyrell, assuming that he is ever found. And you will remain as the Hand of the King, ensuring that House Lannister…remains at the top, something more than generous, I’m sure the Queen would agree.” He eyed Sansa. “And, we will see to it that the septa is gone from the Keep, within the week.”

Kevan took a sip of his wine. “Then we have a deal,” he told them, and it was the only time that Kevan Lannister had reminded Sansa of his brother.

She swallowed, and wondered how long she’d been underestimating Lord Kevan.

They walked out into the hallway, and Sansa opened her mouth, only for Baelish to give her a long look and motion for her to walk ahead of him.

She didn’t like the thought of him walking along behind her; it made her feel uneasy, but she didn’t allow herself to tun around and look at him, as they walked back to her chambers in the Maidenvault.

“How the fuck did he find out?” Sansa snapped, the moment they were alone in her rooms once more.

Baelish gritted his teeth as she threw her hands up in the air.

“I’ll handle it,” Baelish promised her. “You won’t have to worry about him for much longer.”

Sansa scoffed, reaching up and running a hand through her hair. “Oh, sure,” she muttered. “Everything will just be fine if I trust you. That’s what you’ve been saying all of this time, isn’t it?”

Baelish pulled back from her, looking perturbed at the accusation, and Sansa scoffed again, relishing in this simple chance to tell him how she really felt about their…relationship without looking like she was reneging on their deal for doing so.

“You told me that when the King died, and somehow, half of King’s Landing knows about it!” She hissed at him, and Baelish sighed, reaching forward and placing his hands on her shoulder.

“Breathe, Sansa,” he told her, and she wanted to spit at him, wanted to let him know exactly how she felt about him, that his comfort didn’t mean a damn thing to him, but she couldn’t.

Because then, the game would be up.

Angry and frightened as she felt, in this moment, she couldn’t afford to lose him, just yet.

“This is something, I confess, I didn’t foresee,” Baelish told her, gently, and Sansa blew out her breath slowly, swallowing hard, “But I promise you, I will make sure that Kevan Lannister does not become a threat.”

Sansa licked her lips, sniffing. “All right,” she said, pulling back from him. Then, again, “All right. Thank you.”

He bent down, kissing her forehead, and Sansa bit back a grimace.

“I will always protect you, Sansa,” he told her. “You know that.”

She swallowed hard.

She had to find Garlan, _now_.

But she took a deep breath. “I…” a grimace. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

He was a Lannister, so she knew that at least part of it had to be a lie, because there was no way that he would so calmly accept the death of his nephew, even if it had been Joffrey.

“I could deal with him, of course. But this is better than I was expecting,” Baelish admitted. “Cersei was a fool to threaten his niece and nephew. But…” he closed his eyes, let out a breath slowly.

Sansa bit her lip, not liking the look on his face at all.

She pressed her lips together. ”How did he find out?”

Baelish glanced down at her. Grimaced. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m going to find out, and make sure that he didn’t happen to mention it to anyone else.”

Sansa reminded herself to breathe again.

“But he did raise a good point,” Baelish pointed out, rubbing a finger over his lower lip. “Something needs to be done about that septa.”

Sansa sighed. “I know.”

* * *

“We pray to the Mother, to grant us Mercy, and to the Father, to grant us Wisdom…” Septa Unella said, her eyes closed, hands clasped together tightly in supplication, and Margaery cleared her throat when her ladies did not follow suit.

Alla and Alysanne exchanged glances, and then grimaced, doing as they were bid, and Margaery released a breath that she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, closing her eyes once more.

They were meant to be kneeling on the floor, technically, but Margaery had only been able to do so for a few moments before her knees began to ache, the child within her crying out in supreme displeasure at being abused in such a way, and Margaery would have been amused at what a tyrant her unborn child turned out to be if she weren’t already terrified of that very possibility, and so they were sitting on the divans in her husband’s parlor, something the Septa clearly already disapproved of.

But Margaery was a slave, these days, to her child’s whims, and he was not even born yet. She couldn’t sit on the floor, nor could she sit for long periods of time before the child protested, nor could she stand for very long before exhaustion filled her.

Her ankles swelled up every night, and she was forced to ask Alla to rub them, outside of her husband’s chambers because she didn’t like bringing any of the girls in there.

Her breasts ached, all the time, regardless of whether she was lying down and staring at the giant bump in her stomach and wondering whether it would be the son she needed or not, and she had found herself, to the horror of all of her ladies, pouring salt into her water, the other day.

It had been the only thing she wanted to drink, besides wine, which the maesters told her she couldn’t have at all, now.

The morning sickness, thank the gods, had finally passed, but the maesters said it had been later than usual in a pregnant woman, and Margaery wanted everything about this pregnancy to be absolutely normal.

She was pinning her life on it, after all.

She was pinning a lot of lives on it, now that Cersei had crowned Tommen as King.

Margaery bit back a sigh; she knew that the septa would disapprove if she sounded the least bit bored, and the other woman would be able to tell if she was or not, after all of the…quality time the two of them had spent together, in the Sept.

Septa Unella’s calm words continued regardless of the little scene going on around her, and Margaery wondered if it was because she was blind to it, or because she was trying to set a good example.

It was impossible to tell, with that woman.

She had these sorts of…tests, Margaery supposed they could be called, to ensure that Margaery was actually on the path of the righteous. Margaery knew that she did not entirely believe in Margaery’s wish to change, no matter how much Margaery tried to convince her, after all.

And Margaery was doing just about everything that she could, to convince the other woman. She had even suggested that they all go to the Sept to pray, to remind the people that their Queen truly did follow the Seven, and it had surprised her when Septa Unella had been the one to refuse the idea, telling her that it was too dangerous and that, in special cases, the Faith did allow for prayer in the home, if it was done in the appropriate manner.

Margaery had given serious thought to having a sept built, within the Keep, for the Crown’s private use, but she thought that would look even worse, to the smallfolk.

She hadn’t shared the idea with Septa Unella because she wasn’t certain that the other woman would tell her not to do it.

Wasn’t certain that Septa Unella had her best interests at heart, as everyone, from Megga to Lady Nym, had tried to warn her.

Oh, she trusted her to some extent, to the extent that she believed what the other woman told her, but she had lived at court long enough to realize

“Margaery,” Megga said, staring, and Margaery hadn’t realized that her eyes were open again until that moment, when she found herself blinking up at Megga, where the other girl stood in the doorway.

Margaery felt suddenly naked under the other girl’s gaze, and she lowered her head, pretending that she din’t notice the relieved looks of Alysanne and Alla, where they sat with heads bowed beside Margaery.

“Sit, Megga,” she said, though clenched teeth, “We’re in prayers, and it’s rude to interrupt.”

Beside her, Septa Unella grunted, clearly noting that Margaery was interrupting, as well, but Margaery ignored the woman.

Megga let out a long sigh, and took a seat with the other girls in Joffrey’s parlor, looking uncomfortable, and Margaery didn’t know if it was because of the venue or because of Septa Unella.

She had told Margaery that she recognized the septa, from her time with the fanatics when Tyrion had, for some inexplicable reason, sent her to become a Silent Sister, that she had been one of the most fanatical of all of them, and Margaery knew that Megga was…disappointed, to say the least, with Margaery’s lack of a reaction, but Margaery had already known that.

Had known that the moment this woman had walked into her cell, in the Sept, and not looked at all disturbed about the thought of preaching to the Queen, demanding a confession from her.

And she had brought Septa Unella back to the Keep, anyway.

She knew that she had not been…acting entirely herself, lately, but she wished that her ladies could just trust her about this one thing.

“We come before you to ask for your guidance,” the septa finished the prayer, “for the Queen Regent, as she prepares to bring what we pray will be her husband’s son into this world…”

Unfortunate phrasing, Margaery thought, struggling not to flinch because she had her eyes open and therefore didn’t know who didn’t, when she had brought the septa here so that she could atone for some her sins.

Now, she felt like she was lying to the gods, as well, and that hardly made her feel like she was atoning for anything that she had done, of late.

Margaery kept her eyes closed, though. Told herself that it didn’t matter; Septa Unella was not one of the Seven, after all, for all that she worshipped them so strongly, and it was not to the Septa that Margaery owed her confessions, if she decided that she owed them to anyone at all.

She still could not bring herself to even think the words again, since that one day in the Sept when she had gone and whispered her fevered prayers to the Mother, in blind hopes for forgiveness.

Had found them rattling around inside of her head ever since, taunting her, and a part of her did want to go back to the Sept despite everyone’s warnings to the contrary, in the blind hope that she might be able to give life to those words, there.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do that, either, because while she had been at the Sept, she had felt terribly selfish, kneeling there praying for her prayers to be met, for her child to be a son, on a floor that wasn’t still stained with the blood of those Joffrey had had slaughtered that day, only on account of it being on the other side of the Sept.

She was squeezing her hands together so tightly that they were starting to ache, and Margaery’s eyes opened just as Septa Unella was finishing the last heartfelt prayer.

It was the only reason she managed to force on a smile bright enough to fool the other woman, remembering that she had never smiled over prayers the other woman had uttered in the Sept, after all.

“Thank you, Septa Unella,” she said, softly. Then, to her ladies as they stood, “On that note, the septa and I have been discussing a great deal, and we feel that it would be…prudent, to make a few changes.”

The girls looked suddenly more green than they had when Margaery had suggested prayers.

She bit back a sigh, glancing at Septa Unella, who nodded for her to go on, for the first time looking almost…pleased.

“I have neglected, during my time as Regent, may my husband rest in peace, the smallfolk,” Margaery continued. “The septa and I think that it would be prudent to return out among them, and remind them that the Crown values them, and the Faith, despite my late husband’s actions.”

Her ladies exchanged rather nervous glances, and Margaery sighed.

“Adding to that,” she said, “Septa Unella has devised something of a…code, for all of the ladies serving me.”

Their heads jerked up, at those words.

“She believes that our true hears will seem more clear to the smallfolk if we are seen to act and live according to the tenants of the Faith,” Margaery continued, fully aware of how her ladies would feel about this as she continued, “And as such, she has much to discuss with you.” She folded her hands together. “So I shall leave you now.”

She didn’t miss the way her ladies glared after her, as she took her leave of them. She knew that Septa Unella was leading them out of her chambers, though, much to her relief, as she disappeared into her own bedchambers.

Well, almost all of them.

Margaery startled a little as she turned around and found herself staring at Megga, who had somehow managed so silently to find her way into Margaery’s bedchambers, as well.

“You’re giving her power over your ladies?” Megga asked, as the door shut behind her.

Margaery lifted her chin. “I am not,” she argued. “I’m just trying to find some common ground with the Faith.”

Megga scoffed. “The Faith which imprisoned and abused you? Is that the Faith you’re speaking of?”

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek. “If you’re just going to sit here and argue with me, Megga, I’ve heard enough,” she said, gesturing towards the door.

And she had. She didn’t know where she was going with this, entirely, didn’t know if she would even find the peace that she sought in the Faith, nor the peace that she sought with the smallfolk in Septa Unella, but she was determined to try, at the very least, for a little longer than this. And Megga’s constant doubts were annoying her; worse than that, eating away at her.

Megga crossed her arms over her chest, eying Margaery speculatively for several moments before she spoke again, and Margaery very much did not like that wary look.

“We can bring back Septa Nysterica, if you…” Megga pressed her lips together, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of what she was about to suggest, “Really feel that you…need it, just now.”

Margaery swallowed, rubbing at her arms. “I…”

Something about the idea just…didn’t appeal to her, even if she knew that it should have. Nysterica had been her friend, after all, and a septa, though she hadn’t been a very good one, Margaery would admit.

Had only been a septa in the first place because she was a second daughter, and not a very pretty one, according to her own father. She hadn’t cared overmuch for the rules that came along with being a septa, anymore than Margaery had for the rules of the Faith, at the time.

And, like her or not, Septa Unella did care, very much so.

“I don’t think that would help,” Margaery admitted, taking a step back from Megga.

Megga blinked at her. “Is this some sort of punishment?” She asked, and Margaery flinched a little. “Bringing her here, into your life. A punishment for yourself?”

Margaery licked her lips; they felt suddenly dry. “Megga, please,” she said. “I just want to be alone, now. And why is it so hard for you to understand that I might find solace, in the Faith, now, after everything that’s happened?”

Megga’s eyes slid over to the bed, and Margaery felt distinctly uncomfortable at the pity in those eyes, when they finally returned to Margaery again.

“All right,” she said, finally, and Margaery’s head jerked up. “I don’t understand it, really, but I’ll stop fighting you on it, if it means so much to you. Because you’re my friend, and it hurts, seeing you like this all of the time. So if you think there really is a chance that this will help…”

Margaery swallowed hard, biting back a smile. “Thank you,” she said, knowing full well that the other girls followed Megga’s lead now, without Elinor around to be the one to lead them.

Megga lifted her chin. “But this septa can go fuck herself if she thinks I’m going to stop stringing along my lovers, around here,” she said, and Margery let out a startled laugh at the words, even as she struggled not to point out that she didn’t think Megga had had any lovers, since…

Since Cersei had thrown her in the Black Cells.

Megga had emerged differently, from there, but perhaps there was still enough of the old Megga left to surprise even margaery.

“As long as you’re discreet about it,” she said, and Megga snorted, before turning and shutting the door behind her.

Margaery took a deep breath, secretly relieved and a little surprised that it had been that easy to get Megga to stop hounding her about this, and moved over to the bed, laying herself down on it.

It still felt strange, laying in this bed, after what had happened here, and yet, the bed was much more comfortable than Cersei’s had ever been. Nor than the one she had slept in, in the Maidenvault, Margaery mused, laying back and closing her eyes.

She hated it.

Hated how comfortable the bed was, hated how comfortable she felt, lying in it, hated that the nightmares she had in this bed were more comforting to her than the ones she had in Cersei’s.

She wondered when the prayers would make some of those nightmares recede, or if that was not the point of the Faith, at all.

If she would just come to terms with what she had done, but the nightmares would never leave her.

The thought was a strangely unbearable one.

Her child kicked against her stomach, letting her know that he didn’t appreciate the way that she was lying, even if she had taken great care to get comfortable, and Margaery groaned.

She opened her eyes, beginning to shift, and then froze, at the sight of a shadow in the corner of the room.

Her breath left her in a quiet gasp, and she reached up above her head for the golden statue that she had once seen there, that she had once used to bash Joffrey’s brains in, only to remember that it wasn’t there, because it would look rather suspicious, for the thing to remain there, covered in her husband’s blood.

No, not again. She wasn’t going to suffer another attack in this bed, Margaery thought, shivering a little.

She gulped.

And then the man in the shadows stepped into the light, hands up in the air, placating, and Margaery recognized him.

Olyvar.

Margaery stared.

“We need to talk,” he said, and Margaery felt her stomach drop out, underneath her, which was quite a feat indeed, considering how heavy her child felt, most days.

* * *

The letter, written in simple scrawl embossed on a large, thorny rose, read simply:

Get your House in order.

Sansa closed her eyes, folding up the letter again and tucking it into one of the pockets of her gown, fully intent on burning it the moment she got the chance, later.

“Has the Queen seen this?” She asked numbly, because really, that was the only thing she could ask, at this point.

There was no doubt about who had sent the letter, after all, and that the letter was, annoyingly, right.

She glanced towards the door to her bedchambers, where Megga stood in the doorway, lips pressed together, leaning against it.

The other girl looked a bit pale, but she had remained strong when Sansa had asked her where the letter had come from, who had brought it into King’s Landing, refusing to tell her.

Not that it mattered; Sansa knew the letter was from Elinor. There was no one else it could be from, after all.

Mace liked the power he had at court too much, these days, to sacrifice it by openly standing beside the mother his daughter had banished from court, and even if he hadn’t, he would not have brought this letter to Sansa. Perhaps to Garlan, and then to Margaery, but not Sansa.

She didn’t think he even knew how far she had moved up in the world, since Joffrey’s death, beyond that Margaery had placed her on the Small Council because the two of them were friends.

And Garlan would have told Sansa before Megga had, if he had been the one to get this letter first.

It was irritating, because right now, she should be dealing with Garlan, should be telling him about Kevan, and instead, she was stuck here, dealing with a letter that Olenna was still using to mess with her life, even from as far away as the Reach.

So, it had to be Elinor, and Sansa found herself once again annoyed by the other girl’s meddling. By the fanatical way that she had stitched herself to Olenna’s side, even when they had given her the chance to change her mind, about that.

But Sansa was still glad that Megga had brought it to her, rather than Margaery, so she didn’t call the other girl out on her silence.

Megga eyed her. “No,” she said, and didn’t elaborate. Sansa squinted at her. Megga shrugged. “I don’t know that I trust her not to do something colossally stupid, if she knows her dear Grandmama is angry with her. Again.”

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, annoyed. Because she knew that the other girl was right; if this did make it into Margaery’s hands, it would only give Sansa even more cause to worry.

But she didn’t like the thought that she herself wasn’t the only one worried about Margaery doing something foolish, these days. It was hardly reassuring.

And then Sansa found herself wondering, as she read over the simple message again, whether Olenna had intended this letter be delivered to Margaery at all.

She wasn’t privy to everything going on in King’s Landing; that was the trouble, with not being here herself, but she had to know that Margaery was not handling things well, to send this letter, and if she knew that, then perhaps she knew who was trying to handle Margaery, these days.

It said ‘get your house in order,’ and she and Margaery were of the same House, but if she had meant for this letter to reach Sansa, then that meant that she knew far more than she should, about Margaery’s current state of mind, to think that it ever would.

Sansa gave it only a moment’s thought more, and was rather certain that she knew why.

Megga sighed. “She’s my dear friend,” she elaborated, “but I’m worried about her. I’m worried about this septa who’s convinced her that the only way she can repent for the things she’s done is to eventually confess her sins, who’s got us ladies wearing gowns that cover us up to the neck and not even letting boys kiss our hands, with Margaery’s approval.”

Sansa sniffed.

She was worried about Margaery, too.

“But I was worried about her before that,” Megga admitted.

Sansa knew she was. Megga had been all but spying on Margaery for Sansa, these past few months, for which she was rather grateful, knowing that it was only due to Megga’s worry for Margaery and not something more sinister.

If she hadn’t had Megga so closely in her corner, these past few months, she might not have been able to handle Margaery at all, these days, with the way that the other girl seemed to avoid her like the plague.

And things had gotten a little better, recently, but there was still a good deal of improvement that could stand to be made, Sansa reflected. There was still a good deal she wouldn't know about the way that Margaery was feeling, was reacting to everything going on around her, if it weren’t for Megga.

She reached up, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Fine,” she agreed, trying not to react to the way that Megga’s face fell, a bit, with her lack of a response. “Make sure that she doesn’t find out about it from anyone else. I think you’re right about that. And Megga?”

Megga waited.

“This…Septa she has with her now…” Sansa bit her lower lip, not quite sure how she wanted to phrase this.

Megga had been the one to reach out to her, after all; Sansa wanted the other girl to know that she appreciated it, that she was glad that Megga had thought to come to her, instead of continuing to try to talk to Margaery, even if it was disheartening to know that someone else no longer trusted Margaery’s ability to make decisions. She certainly didn’t want Megga to change her mind about seeing Sansa as an ally.

But she supposed, in a way, she had already answered her own question.

Megga pursed her lips. “Septa Unella was…one of the strongest of the Sparrow’s fanatics, Sansa,” she warned the other girl. “She stayed by his body, night and day, after it was thought that he…after he…”

She paused, clearly uncertain how to put the man’s seemingly impossible resurrection into words.

Sansa could sympathize.

Megga cleared her throat. “I woudln’t trust her at all.”

Sansa nodded. “I need you to find out everything you can about her,” she informed the other woman. “Where she came from, before she started serving the High Sparrow, who her family is, why she’s so…bent on getting Margaery to confess, without her noticing. Yes? We are…not the only ones, concerned about her sudden influence over Margaery.”

Megga hesitated, and then nodded.

Sansa licked her lips. “All right,” she said, slowly. “All right.” She reached up, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. “And if Margaery…if we got her away from the septa’s influence, how do you think she would react?”

Megga blinked at her. “You mean kill her?” She asked, and her eyes had darkened a little.

Sansa grimaced. She didn’t want to kill the other woman, of course, knew that Margaery woudln’t forgive her for it, but she knew that if Margaery did end up confessing, to the other woman, then she would only use it to her own advantage, just as she had used the fanatics to her own advantage, to move up in the world.

No doubt, she’d enjoyed trying to convince a queen to confess, just as she was trying to do, now.

Sansa pressed her lips together.

She knew that was to be avoided at all costs, of course.

Ser Meryn was the last person that she wanted to be responsible for killing, Sansa thought.

“No,” she said, finally. “Just…keep an eye on her, let me know what you find?”

Megga eyed her, and then smiled. “All right,” she said, and Sansa walked to the door, stepped around her to get to it, then. Megga blinked. “Where are you going?”

Sansa didn’t meet her eyes. “There’s someone I need to talk to.”

* * *

“Elinor,” Sansa said, stepping into the other woman’s chambers.

Elinor glanced up sharply, and her eyes widened, at the sight of Sansa, standing there before her.

Sansa could well imagine why. After all, they had not exactly parted on the best of terms, the last time they had spoken, and when they had done so, it had seemed rather…final.

But it unsettled her, seeing Elinor looking at her like that, even with all that they had been through. It made her feel like the one in the wrong, here, and she didn’t like that anymore, either.

Elinor cleared her throat, getting to her feet from where she had sat on the divan, reading some sort of book that looked rather…colorful.

“Do you…” she eyed Sansa, clearly trying to figure out what Sansa was doing here. “Do you want to sit down?”

Sansa licked her lips, taking a seat on the couch across from her. “Uhm, thanks,” she said, and Elinor nodded, not meeting her eyes as she sat down again, as well.

“How are you…” Sansa began, “after the child?”

Elinor let out a little laugh, leaning back in her chair. “It’s…I thought I’d be a little more comfortable in my body, after the baby was born, but it doesn’t quite feel like I’m there yet, I have to say.”

Sansa grimaced. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Elinor shrugged. “The maesters say its normal,” she said, never one to complain, and Sansa bit the inside of her cheek, because she hated that about Elinor.

Hated how she never fought back, hated how calm and accepting she was, about the things that Olenna had done to punish her, about the things that Sansa had done to punish her, first for sleeping with Margaery, and then for the boy.

“Why didn’t you leave, after the King died?” Sansa asked, harshly, into the silence that followed, and Elinor’s eyes shot up.

She knew she should be asking about the letter, knew that, in part, was the answer for the fact that she was still here at all, but it annoyed her, all the same.

“We were hardly welcoming to you, at the time, and you and your husband could have made pretty happy lives for yourselves, back in Highgarden, as opposed to here.”

Sansa did not point out that she herself had been instrumental in the fact that Elinor’s life here had been less than ideal. She wouldn’t deny it, if Elinor pointed it out, but the other woman had had ample opportunities to go back to Highgarden, and she’d stayed here.

And Sansa had punished her for it, because Elinor had almost been the reason that Sansa had killed a young boy, a boy who had just wanted to escape an abusive master, and she hadn’t even bothered to tell Sansa that she would be doing it.

She had just…run off to a husband whom she had claimed had been sick, but who had seemed fine, the next morning, when he came to the throne room to hear Margaery announce that her own husband was dead.

And Sansa…could not forgive her for that, even if the boy had ended up dead, either way.

So really, there was only one reason that Elinor would have remained, after Sansa had all but cut her off from her former friends, and given her chambers at the other end of the Keep, where very few would venture to go on their own.

Elinor lifted her chin, meeting Sansa’s eyes. “Why didn’t you?”

Sansa stared at her. “W-what?” She asked, flustered by the question.

Elinor pressed her lips together, and then asked it again. “You’ve only been in King’s Landing this long because you were a prisoner of the Lannisters, Sansa, not because you liked it here,” she reminded her, as if Sansa needed any reminder of that, she thought, annoyance filling her at the other girl’s condescending tone. “The moment Joffrey was dead, there were no Lannisters to keep you here. Do you fear Kevan Lannister so much? You could have left, and no one would have stopped you. So why didn’t you?”

Sansa stared at her.

She could have left, after Joffrey’s death, but she hadn’t.

And the simple truth to Elinor’s question was that she hadn’t even thought about leaving, after Joffrey had died. The only thing she had been capable of thinking of was helping Margaery cover up what had happened.

And since then, that seemed like all that Sansa had been doing. Covering up what had happened that night, no matter how convoluted the lie seemed to become, the more time passed.

And she had never once thought about the fact that she could probably walk out of those doors and go home, if she so wanted.

Because…she hadn’t wanted to.

She wondered whether that said more about her, or Elinor, that Elinor would compare her own situation to Sansa’s in such a way.

Sansa lifted an eyebrow. “And, what, you’re saying that you remained here because you do feel like a prisoner?” She asked, not bothering to answer the other girl’s question, because she didn’t think that it deserved an answer, really.

Elinor licked her lips, looking away.

“Are you still in contact with Olenna?” Sansa asked, quietly, because she had to know, once and for all.

Sansa had thought she knew the answer to that; she had Rosamund scouring every letter that Elinor sent out of this place, and she hadn’t seen a single one addressed to Olenna, since that fateful day.

So either Rosamund was lying to her, for what purpose, after the Tyrells had betrayed her, and specifically Olenna had done so, Sansa couldn’t say, or…

Or someone was helping Elinor smuggle letters out of the city, a thought which made Sansa’s heart beat faster.

She did not think of Olenna as an enemy, of course. On the contrary, the other woman had been so helpful, in everything that she had done before Margaery had sent her away for keeping secrets from her, and Sansa regretted the distance that had followed.

But she didn’t know where Olenna stood, anymore, and she had far too many “allies” around her, whose truly loyalties she didn’t know with absolute certainty.

Kevan Lannister was just another example of that.

Elinor lifted her chin. “You know I’m not going to answer that, Sansa,” she said, coolly, which was answer enough, Sansa thought, “Just like you know that, no matter how angry you might be with me, Margaery is never going to send me back to Highgarden like she did her grandmother. She feels that she’s lost far too many people, lately, to lose another friend, and she isn’t angry with me, as you are.”

Sansa hummed. “She would be, if I told her why I was angry with you,” she whispered, and Elinor harrumphed.

“Would she?” She asked. “I didn’t notice that boy walking around serving anyone else, after Joffrey died.”

Sansa flinched, and Elinor let out a scoff.

“Oh, so you’re angry with me for nearly killing him, when he died anyway?”

Sansa closed her eyes, letting out a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, they were hard. “You didn’t nearly kill him, Elinor,” she gritted out. “You lied to me about it, lied to him about it, not to mention Margaery, so that we would go along with Olenna’s plan, and then, at the last moment, you told me you couldn’t do it, and were content to let me go forward with that child’s blood on my hands, unknowingly!”

Elinor flinched. Her mouth opened and closed. “I…”

“Is that what you want to talk about?” Sansa asked. “Come on. Why’d you do it, if you didn’t feel guilty?”

Elinor pressed her lips together.

The sound of a child’s cry, in the room over, interrupted them.

Sansa grimaced, reaching up to rub at her temples. “I know you’re still here for Olenna,” she said, quietly.

Elinor glowered at her, getting up and walking out of the room. Sansa bit back a sigh, wondering if she had just been dismissed, but moments later, Elinor returned, the child in her arms.

Sansa swallowed. She’d heard from Megga that Elinor had named the child after Willas.

“Yes,” Elinor said, into the silence, as she gently shushed the child in her arms. “Because she told me not to come back if I wasn’t going to make myself useful. And I have a husband and a child to take care of, now.”

Sansa sighed. She understood that, understood the pull that Olenna had over those it felt like she could control, those who she helped but demanded much of, at the same time.

“What does she want you to do, here?” She asked.

Elinor gave her a startled look, and Sansa lifted a hand.

“I need to know. I’m trying to protect Margaery here, and I need to be able to do that,” she muttered. “Please.”

Willas let out a little cry, and Elinor hushed him again, rocking him back and forth.

“She wants a lot of things,” Elinor muttered, sounding slightly bitter. “But mostly, she wants Margaery to get married again. To strengthen their hold on the throne. And she’s not going to stop pushing until she gets what she wants.”

* * *

Margaery gritted her teeth, reaching out to grab Olyvar by his collar and drag him up against the wall of her bedchambers, reflecting that this would hardly help, if anyone ever found out the truth about the two of them, about what they had done.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” She demanded, the moment the door slammed behind the two of them, and she shoved him away from herself.

Olyvar looked rather the worse for wear, she noticed, since she had last seen him, as he reached up and rearranged his collar, sweeping a hand through his already messy hair. She had not been responsible for that, but she was still going to make him take the servants’ exit, out of here.

He was pale, in a way that he had never been before, because he was, after all, a rather sought out whore, she had learned, and thinner than she remembered, thinner than she thought…the lords of King’s Landing could possibly find appealing, if they went in for that sort of thing.

There were dark circles under his eyes, as well. So dark they looked like bruises.

That should have been her first clue.

“I told you, Olyvar, you will get everything that you told me you wanted, if you just give me a little more time,” Margaery said, trying to quell the rising panic within her, suddenly wishing that she and Sansa had been spending more time together lately, so that it would have been more likely that the other girl would be here, when Olyvar ambushed her like this.

He lifted his chin. “You promised me a great deal, Your Grace, and you’ve yet to deliver. I’ve had to spend the last few months walking around Baelish, praying that he didn’t know something more than I thought, and now, I have to wonder why he doesn’t act to be rid of me,” he said, and Margaery thought she might be sweating, but wasn’t certain.

She reached out, placing a hand on her stomach. “Because I still need Baelish-”

“And that’s what concerns me,” he interrupted her, and Margaery stared at him, annoyed by his impudence.

She was fully aware of the risk that he had taken, in sleeping with her, and while she also knew that he had no interest in women, she had also offered him something that few whores got the chance to say; that they had slept with a queen.

And, more than that, she’d offered him a great deal to keep his mouth shut about it.

And here he was, acting as if she had slighted him, in some way. As if she hadn’t given him a piece of paper that proved everything she had promised him, everything they had done together, in case he wanted to use it for insurance against her, something that she would never have offered anyone else.

But her stupid brother had loved this boy, and so she had.

And here he was, questioning her over it.

He sighed, reaching up to run a hand over his face, half turning away from her, and the annoyance bled away to be replaced by…

By an unsettling feeling, spreading over Margaery, making her feel that the child within her was pushing up against her stomach, forcing its contents up her throat, because Olyvar looked far too distressed to be upset that he had yet to get his trinkets and his title.

“He knows,” Olyvar said, finally, and Margaery forgot how to breathe, for several long, horrifying moments.

And then she slapped him.

He didn’t move, let her hit him without protest, his head swinging back in a way that was supremely unsatisfying, Margaery thought, as she took a step back from him, reaching up to clutch at her throat, because dear gods, she still couldn’t breathe-

“Your Grace?” He sounded worried now, and Margaery closed her eyes and waved him off, because this was everything that she had hoped to avoid, if she had a prayer of avoiding one thing-

Queens who killed their husbands, historically, didn’t last long, but queens who passed their sons off as their husband’s and then got caught lasted even shorter amounts of time, and Margaery knew that if He knew, they were fucked.

She, Olyvar, Sa…

“You told him?” She demanded, and she hated the tears pricking at her eyes, told herself they were just the emotions that came along with bearing a child. “How…how could you do that?”

The child within her was kicking on her bladder, now, and Margaery began to pace, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

She knew that Baelish had some sort of…some sort of inhuman control over his whores, but this…She had thought tat at the very least, Olyvar’s self-preservation would win out over whatever fear he had of Baelish, because he had to know, he had to, that Baelish did not have their best interests at heart.

He didn’t have anyone’s best interests at heart.

The only reason she wasn’t currently dead for treason was because she’d agreed to hand Sansa over to him, like some piece of meat-

“Of course not,” Olyvar snapped, looking angry now, himself.

But Margaery didn’t quite care, because…Margaery was furious.

“How long has he known?” She said, spinning back to face him again, and Olyvar flinched. Her eyes narrowed. “How long?”

“How long has it been since you wrote me that agreement?” Olyvar asked her, and Margaery stared at him.

The agreement that they had made, when she had first summoned him to her and he had agreed to have her child. The agreement that she’d written down, like a damned fool, and then handed over to him for safekeeping, knowing full well the danger that courted, because she needed to gain his trust, and soon, because otherwise she might as well have never returned to King’s Landing, and-

“W-What?” She breathed, and let out a breathy laugh of relief, the child sitting so hard on her bladder no longer feeling quite so unbearable, now. “Is that all?”

He stared at her.

But Margaery had to be sure, because the panic she’d felt moments ago, there was no easily getting over it. “He didn’t approach you about it? You didn’t tell him, yourself?”

Olyvar stared at her. Then, he shifted on his feet. “You…What does the letter actually say?” he asked, finally.

Dear gods.

Dear gods, she’d been terrified, for a moment there, that Baelish had somehow forced the information out of Olyvar, that he’d gotten to the bottom of it and had known, all of this time, while she’d been fucking herself by giving him more and more power, in King’s Landing-

Margaery lifted her chin, not feeling a shred of guilt after the way he had just scared her.

“It thanks you for services to the Queen, in that you warned me ahead of time of the dangers of traveling on board that ship to Dorne, and I, fully knowing the risks, paid you for it and went ahead anyway. My brother and I were…” her voice choked up. “Confident that we could escape, and pay off the rest of the crew, if we knew ahead of time, so that the boat never…blew up.”

He stared at her as if he were looking at some new, horrible being. Something worse than Baelish.

She crossed her arms over her chest, not much liking the comparison.

Yes, it had been rather a cruel thing to do, but Margaery would have done it again in a heartbeat. Her brother had trusted this man, and it had gotten him killed. She wasn’t fool enough to make the same mistake, not totally, not when Baelish financed Olyvar’s home and had every motivation to see her ruined.

Olyvar pressed his lips together. “How could you…How could even write that?” He asked her. “What if Baelish ever did ask you about it? You’d be admitting that you let…that…”

Margaery shrugged her shoulders, weakly. “It was a risk I had to take,” she said. “I didn’t know how many words you might be able to parse out on your own, after all, besides the names. And if anyone ever did find it, they could hardly accuse me of doing the wrong thing, could they? My brother and I were determined to go to our family, thought we could survive the encounter, and didn’t want to turn a son against his own mother. In the end, Joffrey’s falling out with his mother had nothing to do with me.” She leaned forward, then. “And of the two of us, I was not at fault for what happened to my brother.”

Olyvar flinched. “I…I…”

She lifted her nose. “Besides, you still get everything I promised you, in the note,” she said. “The Tyrells are famous for their generosity, so how could I not reward you? The only question is why you haven’t received your reward yet, which I’m sure Baelish is wondering just now. But I’m sure that can be explained away by the fact that my brother still…”

She couldn’t quite finish the thought, as relieved as she currently felt.

It was cruel, what she had decided to write down, both to Olyvar and to herself, but she’d not had other ideas, at the time, and she’d been looking at Olyvar, as she wrote it.

Had been looking at him, and thinking about her brother, who might have been alive if he knew how to strike better deals with a whore.

And she didn’t blame Olyvar for that, not really; she was smart enough to know at whose feet to lay that blame, but it had made her feel cautious, all the same.

Well, as cautious as a woman fucking a whore so that she could pass his child off as her husband’s could really be.

He stared at her, dully. “And what if I’d gone to someone who could actually read, and asked them what it said?”

Margaery smiled at him, sadly. “You have just as much skin in this game as I do,” she told him. “You would never have done that. You needed it to be real as much as I did, for a little bit. We couldn’t afford to lie to each other, so you didn’t question me.”

For what it was worth, she regretted that. Regretted that he was involved in this, regretted that she had needed a man to put a child in her that she could easily pass off as her husband’s, but it was done, now.

She had her child, and soon enough, he would have his riches and titles.

He just needed to be patient for a little while longer.

Until Baelish was dealt with.

And then, she rather hoped he enjoyed taking on at least some of Baelish’s responsibilities, alongside the riches that came with them.

He swallowed, still looking annoyed, which she supposed she couldn’t blame him for. Quite frankly, she was surprised that he had bothered to come and warn her at all, before he skipped town while he still had the chance.

She had heard what Baelish had done to the last whore who’d betrayed him out of this one’s lips, after all. She wouldn’t have even wanted to blame him for it, though doubtless, she still would have.

“And I suppose you’re rather pleased with yourself,” he muttered.

She shook her head, licking her lips. “A moment ago, I was planning how to escape King’s Landing by nightfall with my…With Sansa,” she said. “Because I shudder to think what Baelish would do with this information, especially with his interest in her.”

Olyvar shook his head, and then bit back a smile that didn’t look at all amused. “So you just…let me carry that letter around with me all these months, terrified that he was going to find it, especially after you turned to him for help in killing the King?”

She glared at him, and he subsided.

“I knew that you’d do a good job of hiding it,” she told him, coldly. “And I knew that Baelish had to suspect…something, with the number of times that you came to see me.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you still angry with me? I won’t write you another letter, but I could make you a page boy to some wealthy lord, if that will make you feel better. There are quite a few of them now, in King’s Landing.”

He lifted his chin. “And I still get…everything you offered me?”

Margaery smiled. “Eventually,” she promised. “And more, if I can make it happen. But you have to be patient.”

He licked his lips. “I want to be your brother’s pageboy,” he said, and Margaery scoffed. “He’s practically Lord Commander, now, even though he’s not in the Kingsguard, since Jaime Lannister hasn’t bothered to come back and no one in the Kingsguard will challenge your family on anything, anymore, because they’re all Roses.”

Margaery pressed her lips together. “I’m not making you my brother’s pageboy,” she told him, coldly. “It would…dredge up some unpleasant memories for me, and I doubt my brother would go along with it without an explanation.”

An explanation that she wasn’t going to give him, by the gods, because that would be a…disturbing conversation.

Olyvar stared at her. “Is that all you think of me as, Your Grace?” He asked her, and Margaery started. “The upstart whore who just looks out for himself?”

She bit the inside of her cheek, subsiding.

No.

No, it wasn’t all she thought of him. She’d actually been rather impressed that he had managed to capture her brother’s heart, even if it was some sort of game, after Renly, because her brother had been a mess after her first husband had died, and when he was with Olyvar, he was a little bit less of one, even if Olyvar hadn’t loved him in quite the same way.

She’d been more impressed when Olyvar told her that he would give her the child that she wanted, because of whatever guilt he felt over what had happened to Loras. That…that had meant something, to her.

It was the reason she had promised him as much as she had, after all.

Olyvar swallowed. “I want to be your brother’s pageboy because I hear things, in my job,” he said. “I hear that Garlan Tyrell is more powerful than your father now, behind the scenes. Not just as the Lord Commander that he hasn’t quite been named yet, but because he’s taken on quite a few duties that Lord Baelish hasn’t. And…” his eyes were shadowed, suddenly; Margaery didn’t let herself look away, wanting to remember this moment, later.

She’d made plenty of terrible judgments, lately, and she wanted to be sure, when Sansa or Garlan questioned her about it, that this wasn’t one of them.

“If I’m pageboy to your brother, there’s nothing strange about me being near the King, when he’s born,” Olyvar said finally, the words all coming out in a whoosh of air; Margaery was quite certain that he didn’t drag a breath, while he said them.

She stared at him, some of the shock she’d felt earlier returning, with those words. “I…No,” she said, and Olyvar let the air out all at once, looking distraught that she hadn’t even given it much thought.

She sighed. “Jaime Lannister was closer to the Queen Mother than any man ever was, including her own husband, most nights,” she said tiredly, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes. “That was why most of the Seven Kingdoms weren’t surprised when Stannis declared that her children belonged to him. I’m not going to make the same mistake.”

Olyvar’s face twisted. “It’s hardly the same mistake,” he told her. “I wouldn’t even have much reason to be near you, but I’d be…” he swallowed, words choking off for a moment, and Margaery blinked at him. “I’d be near my son, and that would be enough for me. You could keep all the finery, all those titles you promised me, so long as I got to be away from Baelish and near my son.”

She blinked.

Margaery wondered, with those words, what sort of life he’d led, to actually make that offer.

Most of the smallfolk would have gladly signed away whatever they had to, to move up in the world, to get out of the shit-filled streets and Baelish’s brothels, in particular.

Olyvar had wanted that, originally.

And now, he just wanted what amounted to a somewhat comfortable life, serving a man who would be going to war, eventually, and perhaps even sooner than that, on the off chance that it meant he would be able to look at his son grow up from across the room.

She closed her eyes.

The old Margaery, the one who had married Joffrey, the one who had hated this boy for his role in her brother’s death…would have still said no, she knew that. Hells, the very old Margaery, the one who had first gotten her into this mess, would have killed him after she got pregnant.

But…she had gone to that sept, truly, to find some sort of peace, some sort of absolution for all of the wicked things that she had done there, and even if she had left the sept with the clear impression that manipulating Septa Unella might have some use in bringing the smallfolk back under the fold of the Crown as much as she might find some peace in the Faith, she had meant it, going there.

And perhaps this? Was just the real part of her penance, the part that wasn’t scraping her knees with prayers and reciting words she wasn’t certain that she meant, reaching out to people she didn’t quite understand but who found such solace in the Faith that she found herself jealous of them, for all their rags.

And she found that she couldn’t deny him, after those words.

And…the look in his eyes, the fiery intensity there? She had a horrible feeling that if she did deny him, and let him live afterwards, things would only get very much worse for her.

Baelish would likely be far kinder to a whore who had told him the truth, a truth that would give him advantage, than one he had to dig the information out of.

And he was right. Serving as Garlan’s pageboy was quite a bit different than serving as Lord Commander to the Queen.

“Just to be clear,” Margaery said, holding up a hand, and his eyes widened, “If you served as my brother’s pageboy for long enough for that to even matter, you wouldn’t be looking at the finery and the titles I originally promised you.”

Olyvar stared at her. “No,” he said, cocking his head at her. “I’d be looking at something that lasts longer than that.”

Margaery sighed. “Fine,” she said, and his eyes grew wider still, “but I still need to convince my brother. That might…take some doing.”

He smiled at her. “I can be patient,” he said, the words almost playful.

Margaery rolled her eyes. “And if you ever scare me like that again,” she said, “about Baelish? The deal is off.”

He met her eyes. “That sounds fair,” he said, and Margaery let out a startled laugh, at those words.

* * *

It had taken more time than she would like to get Garlan alone, but then, she supposed that was to be expected when he had been placed in charge of Margaery’s armies in King’s Landing, above even his own father, something that Mace had not taken sitting down.

He was also dealing with pirates who had been raiding the Southern coasts of the Reach, apparently, which, annoyingly, had been news to Sansa.

When she did finally get the chance to speak with him alone, Sansa was practically vibrating with unease, and as she laid out the situation for him, or, as much as she could, she saw the same unease reflected on Garlan’s features.

He was a good person to compare ideas with, Sansa reflected, when she didn’t know who else to turn to, because his thoughts aligned so similarly with her own. They both cared for Margaery.

And they both wanted to make sure that she got out of this alive, something that Sansa was not certain she did have in common with Baelish.

“We have Tyrell loyal seats in almost every seat on the Small Council,” Garlan informed her, as she stepped into the room that they had found to be the most useful, for having secret meetings, for all that it gave Sansa the creeps, to be in this room at all. A room that had once been hers, when she was little more than a prisoner in this place. “With four noticeable exceptions.”

Sansa ticked them off with her fingers. “Baelish, Varys, Kevan Lannister, and Grandmaester Pycelle.”

All dangerous choices for removal, for they were all rather vocal members of the Small Council.”

Garlan dipped his head. “Yes,” he said. “I would suggest removing Grandmaester Pycelle next, but I worry at the backlash that might have, among the maesters of Oldtown, when he has been appointed such by their own.”

Sansa hummed, swallowing hard. She was not as concerned about the Grandmaester; for all she knew, he might still be Cersei's creature, but he was old and infirm. The others posed a rather more serious threat, especially when Kevan _knew_. “And Lord Kevan?”

“We named him Hand of the King, after Tyrion’s disappearance,” Garlan said, shaking his head. “We cannot take that away without risking losing the Lannisters, and at this point, he’s perhaps the only thing keeping them from rallying behind Tommen Baratheon.”

“Lannister,” Sansa corrected, idly.

Garlan shrugged.

It had never really mattered to the Tyrells one way or another, unless they had something to gain from believing one thing or another, after all, about the legitimacy of Cersei’s children.

She pressed her lips together. “He knows,” she said, softly, and Garlan’s eyes darted to hers.

“What?” He breathed, looking horrified, and Sansa found herself looking down at her hands.

“He told Baelish and I, just the other day,” she admitted. “He knows.”

Garlan closed his eyes, and then swore viciously under his breath. “How many other fucking people know, Sansa?” He demanded, and she flinched a little at the heat in his words, but didn’t bother to answer.

Because dear gods, the truth was, she herself didn’t have the answer to that question.

“We cannot remove him, then,” Garlan finally said. “If we do, there will be nothing keeping him from telling the world exactly what he knows, and if we kill him, the Lannisters who haven’t flocked behind Cersei will want to know why he died, however innocuous we try to make it, so soon after Joffrey’s death.”

Sansa sighed. “I know,” she whispered, hating it. Hating the thought of having to trust another man that she didn’t trust to keep his mouth shut, in order to protect the Crown, when he had every reason not to, despite his strong words to the contrary.

“And if we remove Baelish too soon, we risk making a dangerous enemy,” Garlan continued. “One who knows all of our worst secrets.”

Sansa hummed. “Varys,” she said, turning around to face him. “Tell me what we can do with him.”

If she could not be rid of Baelish yet, Varys was becoming a dangerous thorn in her side, one she was tired of dealing with on her own, because he would never allow Baelish to rise higher, and, like it or not, the longer she kept him around, the higher Sansa needed Baelish to rise.

Sansa sighed, reaching up and pinching the bridge of her nose at Garlan’s continued silence, because the truth was, neither one of them knew what to make of the Spider. He was a tricky man, who had held his position for ages, and proved his worth in doing so.

It would not be easy, to be rid of him, just as it was not easy to plot against Petyr Baelish while holding him above every other lord in King’s Landing.

“At least tell me we have some good news,” she spat out, and Garlan hesitated, for a moment longer.

Sansa grimaced, leaning up from where she’d been against the table and sighing. “I see.”

And then Garlan spoke. “Actually,” he said, “We do.”

She blinked at him expectantly, and Garlan sent her another unreadable look.

“The North has been silent, since the death of Joffrey,” he said, and Sansa’s heart skipped a beat, anticipating what he was about to say. “But House Bolton, under the son, Ramsay Bolton, has finally bent the knee to House Tyrell.”

Sansa lifted a brow, even as she felt relief course through her, found herself wondering if there was some slim chance that the North had bent the knee to House Tyrell because Sansa was here, and not with Cersei in Casterly Rock.

She knew that the Boltons had retaken Winterfell, since the time that Stannis Baratheon had left it to go to the Westerlands, and then promptly disappeared off of the face of the earth. Truth be told, Sansa might have been more concerned about it if she hadn’t found herself suddenly facing far more pressing matters closer to home, and she couldn’t say how she felt about the knowledge that the Boltons had retaken her home, again, not for her, just as Stannis had taken it for himself rather than making illusions of gestures to House Stark. House Bolton had declared for Joffrey in the past, as well, which Sansa knew meant she would have to watch them carefully if she ever did return home.

That was a strange thought, for Sansa was no longer certain that she would ever see Winterfell again, for all that the prophecy of a woman likely dead now had told her that she would.

And even if she did, she knew it would be some years from now.

But at least the Boltons were a Northern House. Winterfell belonged to the North again, and try as she might to feel uneasy about the thought of it being back in the hands of those who had once bent the knee to the Lannisters, she could not help but feel relieved, at the thought.

The Tyrells were in no position to force House Bolton to bend the knee. They could have easily held out longer. The realm was in a shaky place, after all, and under her brother, the North had wanted its own independence from all of them, and their fighting over an iron throne that the North cared little for.

But her home had not disappointed, and if there was any time for the North to choose a side, this was it.

This could...truly shift the balance into their favor, Sansa thought, smiling slightly.

Then, “Ramsay Bolton?” she asked. “Lord Roose’s bastard?”

She was not entirely certain why it mattered. From what she understood, the Boltons were licking their wounds in the forests beyond Winterfell, having lost it so badly to Stannis when he retook Sansa's ancestral home. Their declaring for anyone was superfluous, at this point.

She remembered, vaguely, that in exchange for his loyalty, Joffrey, a bastard, had named Ramsay Bolton, another bastard, a legitimate son of his father. It was understood that Roose Bolton had another heir, from a Frey wife whom it would behoove him not to set aside, if he wished to keep the peace with the Lannisters, but Ramsay was to be the heir, now.

Garlan grimaced. “When Stannis expelled the Boltons from Winterfell, Roose Bolton died of his wounds some days later in the woods outside of Winterfell, as the Boltons were fleeing. They did not make many friends, amongst the Northern lords, it seems, while they were in power the first time. Ramsay is his father’s natural heir, and it seems that he...has managed to retake Winterfell, with Stannis not there to guard it, and only a handful of soldiers there to do so, with the way that he took his armies to the North and the West.”

Sansa pressed her lips together. “And Stannis going to the West left it open for the taking, rather conveniently,” she pointed out.

It lacked honor, that they had stolen Winterfell out from under Stannis' nose when he was busy fighting other battles, but then again, she supposed, these were the Boltons they were speaking of. She was quite sure that they had been at the Red Wedding, and while she didn't like the thought of Stannis holding Winterfell for himself, she hated the thought that the Boltons had managed to get their hands on it yet again.

And then, they had bent the knee to House Tyrell, it seemed. 

Garlan didn’t bother to deny it.

“Yes,” he said, “But now that they have bent the knee in our favor and let Cersei know their position when they didn’t have to, we’ve gained a rather impressive ally in Ramsay Bolton. With him, comes...much of the North. There are those who still refuse to rally behind him, but being the Lord of Winterfell has its advantages.”

Bolton, who was an impressive ally because he possessed her home, Sansa thought, annoyance flooding through her. Garlan didn't need to tell her that being the Lord of Winterfell came with certain advantages, after all. 

She was interested, however, in knowing how much of the North refused to rally behind the Boltons. The Boltons, who had taken Jeyne Poole and dressed her up as Arya Stark, to strengthen their claim to something that didn't belong to them anymore than it did Stannis.

“And,” Garlan went on, when she was silent, “The Boltons have offered us a gift, along with their bent knees.”

Not a few minutes later, Sansa left her bedchambers minutes after Garlan had done so, lest they be seen together by anyone who might answer to Baelish over it.

She was smiling.

 


	11. Dorne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh ye of little faith...  
> You think I would drag us all back into that dumpster fire?

_“I’m sure it’s hard,” Arianne said, as she braided Myrcella’s golden locks, and imagined herself choking the younger girl with them. “To be separated from a mother you’ve known your whole life.”_

_Myrcella, the little brat sitting on the bench beneath her, sniffed, reaching up to wipe at her eyes. “What do you know about it?” She muttered, resentful, and Arianne sighed._

_Her father had insisted, from the safety of the Water Gardens, that Arianne spend as much time as possible with Myrcella Baratheon, once he had learned that the other girls were being cruel and dismissive to her, never mind that she was much younger than Arianne, and that every time Arianne looked at her, all she saw was the Mountain, killing an aunt she’d never gotten to know._

_Myrcella was not an easy little girl to get along with, either._

_She was spoiled, used to getting her own way in all things that had to do with her own care, save, perhaps, for when it came to her brother, for she seemed frightened of Trystane and of every man they had come across since her arrival here; Arianne was not blind to that, nor did she had too many guesses about why that was, considering all of the horrible things she had heard about Joffrey Baratheon, so far._

_Never, of course, from his own sister’s lips, who spoke of lemon cakes and how the tea in King’s Landing was far superior to the iced tea here, and how her septa was a far more disciplined septa than the shrew raising Uncle Oberyn’s children, and how she didn’t like the way that Trystane thought he could get away with pulling her hair, and Arianne ought to do something about it, personally._

_Arianne bit back another sigh._

_Today had been yet another attempt, on Arianne’s part, to bond with the girl who would be her brother’s wife, one day, if her father had his way._

_A Lannister, married into their family and treated as if she belonged there, after it had been the Lannisters who had, through their negligence, let their brute rape and murder a Martell._

_A Princess with far more claim to the title than the girl who’s hair Arianne found it so difficult to braid, just now._

_Myrcella’s Septa, a stern, unfriendly woman who didn’t like it when Myrcella tried to play with the Sand Snakes any more than the young girls liked being forced to spend time with Myrcella, because they were, in the septa’s own words to Arianne, “terrible influences,” had shaken her head, when Arianne informed her that she and Myrcella would be experimenting with some more Dornish styles, for Myrcella’s hair._

_Arianne had a feeling she would have objected if she could find a good reason to, but Arianne, as boring as she thought the afternoon would prove to be, had thought of the one activity which the septa could not refuse to Myrcella._

_After all, they would be indoors, in the blistering heat, doing very ladylike things. Arianne was just trying to help Myrcella acclimate to Dorne a bit better, as well, which the septa could not object to._

_It wasn’t as if Arianne was going to strip her naked and dress her like a whore, as she was sure the septa had feared, when she had turned of her nose and left them here, in Myrcella’s rooms._

_These rooms, which Arianne had specifically chosen because they were as far from Trystane’s rooms in Sunspear as one could get. She’d made that decision before Myrcella had ever stepped foot on Dornish soil, because she didn’t know what sort of harpy Cersei Lannister had raised, after all._

_She didn’t want the girl breaking her brother’s heart._

_But Myrcella…had not turned out to be the little tart Arianne had worried she would be. Spoiled, annoying, rather boring, in Arianne’s mind, and disappointingly uninterested in finding something to entertain herself with alone, but not a tart._

_She did not, however, seem to care much for Arianne, despite her father’s best intentions. Arianne could have easily told her father this._

_She understood why he did not order one of the Sand Snakes to spend more time with her; the girls were all terrible little ruffians, and none of them could quite conceal their distaste for her, something that they felt happy to express after they had seen the cold way Oberyn Martell had greeted her, even after he had lectured them himself not to judge Myrcella for who her family was._

_Children were terribly good at reading adults like that, after all._

_But Trystane was a boy, and so the damned septa never let the two of them have any time alone together, and therefore, the only other person available to spend time with the girl was Arianne, many years her elder and therefore, uninteresting._

_Arianne also had a feeling that Cersei Lannister had petrified her daughter with tales of the Martells’ indecency and cruelty, if the way she flinched every single time one of them entered a room was any indication, before she started in on her demands for the day._

_And perhaps it was the flippant way that Myrcella had uttered those words, reminding Arianne of the other day, when she had demanded to know why someone was going through the letters she sent home to her mother and brother, that caused Arianne to speak again, her hands pulling a little too harshly at the braids she was making of Myrcella’s hair._

_Myrcella flinched._

_“My mother left me, when I was a child,” she said, and Myrcella was suddenly very still._

_She had to know that, of course; it had been the scandal of the Seven Kingdoms, when Doran’s wife had returned to Norvos and left behind a husband in a still very real marriage, and three children._

_Myrcella wold have heard the story from her mother, if nowhere else, when she was sent here._

_Or perhaps Cersei Lannister was the sort of woman who might cover up such a tale by telling her daughter that Mellario was dead, and hoping that her name was never mentioned, in Dorne._

_In truth, Arianne did not know how a woman like Cersei Lannister might think._

_Myrcella finally licked her lips. “Did she love you?” She asked, and Arianne started, staring down at her perfectly golden head and wondering if Myrcella Baratheon ever had doubts, about being loved._

_“I…” Arianne opened and closed her mouth. She stopped braiding Myrcella’s hair without quite realizing that she was doing so._

_What a strange question, she thought._

_Of course her mother had loved them. She had left them because the idea of having all of her children fostered away, as was the Westerosi custom, was too horrifying for her, and she feared that if she let them go, she would never see them again._

_Arianne remembered well the last time she had seen he mother. She had been crying, her dark skin glistening in the afternoon sun, as she kissed Arianne’s forehead, and told her to make sure that her father never separated her and Trystane, because they were brother and sister, and they belonged together, as a family._

_And then she’d left their little family behind, and Doran had locked himself up in the Water Gardens._

_Arianne pressed her lips together, the thought of her mother, even after all of these years, more painful than she could say, but she couldn’t bring herself to resent Myrcella for asking after her._

_Mellario of Norvos had left a hole in Dorne that even Myrcella, even after all of these years, must have noticed._

_“She loved my brothers and I too much,” Arianne said, softly. “That was why she had to leave us.”_

_Myrcella swallowed. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, after several more moments, and Arianne bit back a sigh, not particularly wanting to have this conversation with the other girl._

_“Your uncle sent you here to marry my brother,” she finally offered, “Because he wants to keep your legacy, the Crown, safe. Because he loves you.”_

_Myrcella twisted in her chair, squinting up at Arianne. “So your mother left you because she wanted to keep you safe?” She asked._

_Arianne’s lips quirked. “She left us because she loved us too much, and felt that she had been burned for it,” she said. “She wanted us to be happy, here, and she feared that if she stayed here, with such different customs than the Dornish have, it would only make things worse for us.”_

_Myrcella’s brows furrowed; she seemed to be giving the words serious thought. Finally, she whispered, “I can understand that. Sometimes, I think we would have been better off if…”_

_She trailed off, then, seeming to realize that whatever she had been about to say, it was nothing she should be sharing with Arianne._

_Even if Arianne suddenly wanted to know what she had been about to say._

_“There,” she said finally, finishing the girl’s braids and holding them up before the mirror. “Just like Obara’s. What do you think?”_

_Myrcella looked at herself in the mirror, cocking her head._

_Her face was expressionless._

_It was a disturbing look, on such a young girl._

_“It’s nice,” she said, in a perfectly bland tone, and Arianne didn’t know if that was because she hated it, or not. “How did your mother wear hers?”_

_Arianne pursed her lips. “The Norvosi way. Very different from anything worn in Westeros. I’ll show you, sometime, though you won’t like it.”_

_Myrcella’s pretty red lips pulled down into a pout. “How do you know I won’t like it?”_

_Arianne blinked down at her. Perhaps she had judged this girl too harshly, too early, she thought. After all, Myrcella was a spoiled little thing, but Arianne thought she knew something of the loneliness with which Arianne herself had grown up._

_And that could be…useful._

* * *

Myrcella sighed, reaching up to pull her hair out of the saggy braid that it had been in, and allowing her golden locks to fall down over her shoulders.

She knew that it was the pregnancy, that pregnancies could cause women to become irritable and uncomfortable in their own skin, but she suddenly hated having to deal with her hair.

When she was a princess, she didn’t think she should have to worry about doing her own hair herself.

When she was a little girl, there had always been a servant available for that, though Myrcella had enjoyed the freedom that she’d acquired since coming to Dorne; she’d never known if the servants surrounding her at all times were spying on her for her brother, or for her mother, growing up, and the thought that they might be, and might be reporting anything unladylike that she said about her brother, had terrified her through much of her younger years.

When she had come to Dorne, Arianne had made it very clear that she would not allow Myrcella to be coddled, to the absolute horror of her septa.

Myrcella understood now that it had been so Myrcella would be forced to reach out to Trystane, at the very least; in her own way, Arianne had genuinely been trying to help her by making her get used to her new situation.

At the time, it had only made Myrcella feel lonely. And, beyond that, annoyed with Arianne.

Arianne, who had situated herself to become something like a mother to Myrcella, because of that loneliness. Or, at the very least, an older sister.

Myrcella sighed, glancing down at her stomach.

The child was barely that; she knew that the round mass at her belly meant that she was to have one, eventually, in a few months’ time, no less, and that that child would be the living proof of her love for her husband, even if that was not how the rest of Dorne saw it.

No, they saw it as an heir.

The other day, when she had insisted on going to the Sept, surrounded by Martell guards, to pray for her husband’s swift return, under the guise that she was mourning her dear brother, she’d heard the shouts of the smallfolk.

They didn’t love her, of course; she was a Lannister, and they wanted all Lannisters to die, and were hardly shy about that. But they liked her well enough, as their little golden haired princess, loved that she loved her dear husband so much, and they shouted that her child was the Prince that was Promised.

That one day, that child would destroy her family.

Myrcella grimaced at the reminder, shaking her head, determined not to think like that.

She had left that family behind, after all, when she had taken Tyene’s hand, and let the other girl lead her away from her father and brother. She had abandoned them without a second thought, because the allure of being back here, in this place, was too much for her to resist, and after all, Tommen would always be safe with Jaime.

Or at least, that was what she had told herself until she reached the banks of Dorne, and knew the truth.

Arianne had greeted her at the harbor, arms spread wide, pulling Myrcella into her arms and wrapping them tightly around the other girl, and then she had pulled back, and introduced Myrcella to her husband, Ser Gerold Dayne.

Myrcella had known who Ser Gerold Dayne was, of course. The very first night that she had come to Dorne, there had been a feast held in her name. Ser Gerold was conspicuous in his refusal to attend.

Myrcella had known with a stone cold clarity, the moment Ser Gerold Dayne reached out and took her hand, bringing it to his lips with a gentle kiss, that she made the wrong choice, in taking Obara’s hand.

That she should have gone with her father to the Rock, because whatever she had known of Dorne Before, something had changed.

But she had lifted her chin and smiled at Gerold, blushing a little as if the feel of another man’s kiss might make her blush, and thanked Arianne for bringing her home.

And she had been right; things had changed. Doran no longer ruled Dorne; he was trapped in a tower, like the princesses of her uncle Tyrion’s tales, when she was a child, with Ellaria Sand, who too hadn’t liked this coup against the prince. And Trystane, who had made a life amongst those she didn’t know that she could trust, bearable, wasn’t there, either.

But what struck Myrcella, in the days after she had returned to Dorne, was how much everything had remained the same, despite all of that change.

Of course, Obara and Tyene were back to their plotting ways. Myrcella knew that they were up to something, though the question remained as to whether or not they were working together. Before, Myrcella might have said she knew they were working together, but after what had happened with Lady Nym, she didn’t think she could honestly say.

But Arianne seemed almost blind to her cousins’ plots, whatever they were. She spent her days thinking about how to better Dorne, without doing the one thing that everyone, even Myrcella, awkward as it was, knew would be accepted by the kingdom: war.

Myrcella didn’t even understand why. The entire time that she had known the other woman, Arianne had not made secret the fact that she loathed the Lannisters just as much as her uncle and her cousins ever had, even if she was kind enough to pretend otherwise, when she first began befriending Myrcella.

She supposed that besides that, Arianne was actually doing a fairly good job of leading Dorne. Unlike her father, she actually spent her time in Sunspear, and Myrcella supposed there was something to that. She had also been in charge of the court at Sunspear for almost the entire time her father had been in the Water Gardens, and so Myrcella knew she had some experience with doing what needed to be done.

But she didn’t seem to want a war, and Myrcella couldn’t understand why.

It wasn’t as if she cared about Myrcella’s feelings, in particular, on the matter. She had made that clear with the way she refused to even see Myrcella, every time Myrcella asked for an audience with her, but dragged Myrcella before her every time she wanted to study her reactions.

Myrcella grimaced, not wanting to think about the dark looks that she got from every noble who came to Sunspear to bend the knee to Arianne, pledging themselves to her in the event that she should declare war on the other Seven Kingdoms.

None of them had wanted to look at her at all, but they all had. They had all stared at her like they were hoping, now that Arianne was in charge, that she would order Myrcella’s immediate execution.

She hadn’t, of course, but it was the sort of thing that Myrcella might expect from Ser Gerold Dayne.

And she couldn’t afford to make him angry enough to try, she thought, grimacing.

Myrcella’s eyes, where they watched herself in the mirror, trailed down to her protruding stomach; she swallowed hard, still a little in awe of what she saw there, every time she looked into the mirror.

Her child.

Myrcella still couldn’t believe that she was pregnant, with a child. A child, who was hers, and her husband’s, and not Joffrey’s, as a part of her had always been terrified might one day occur.

But Joffrey hadn’t touched her like that, while she had been in King’s Landing, and this child was Trystane’s.

And he wasn’t even here to see it.

It killed Myrcella, a little more each time, to have to write to her husband, carefully censored words that she knew would still be read over by Arianne, without ever mentioning the child in her womb, for the fear that someone in King’s Landing was no doubt reading her husband’s letters, as well, both the ones received and sent.

She wanted nothing more than to tell him the wonderful truth, that he was going to be a father, that they were finally, truly, going to be a family, just the three of them.

All the ones who mattered.

She hoped that the child had Trystane’s curls.

She was terrified, and excited, but mostly terrified, especially with the way that everyone seemed to look at this child.

The Prince that was Promised.

But Myrcella was determined to love this child, not for who he might represent to the Martells and Dorne, but whom her mother would never allow to become that, but because he was hers.

All her life, she’d been forced to share everything with her brother, and now this? Her husband, her child, they were hers, and hers alone. And she wanted nothing but to be to him or her, whatever this child ended up being, the mother that she’d never had. To make sure that this child knew, always, that it was loved.

And to get its damn father back before it left her body for good.

She smiled a little, as she reached her hand down to rub at her belly, again.

They said that her goodsister, Margaery Tyrell, was pregnant as well, but with her brother’s child.

Myrcella pitied the other woman. She could not think of a greater curse, for she had spent much of her life expecting that exact scenario, than to carry a living reminder of Joffrey within her, and then to be forced to bring that child into the world and raise it as though she had loved the man who had created it.

She also knew that the moment that child was born, the child within her belly would become nothing more than a pawn, the same way that Myrcella’s was about to become.

Myrcella didn’t want that for her child, but she knew that it was going to happen, regardless of Arianne’s current plans, whatever they happened to be.

A knock at the door made her jump, and she swallowed hard, clearing her throat.

“Ah, come in,” she muttered, and a moment later Tyene was sticking her head through the door. She smiled, and Myrcella forced herself to smile back.

“Ravens brought a letter for you, Myrcella,” Tyene said, as she stepped into the room. She blinked at the sight of Myrcella’s hands tearing at her hair, but walked forward without comment, anyway.

Myrcella lifted her chin, holding her hand out expectantly, and Myrcella knew, the moment the letter touched her fingers, who it was from. Her mother hadn’t sent her anything since she had absconded with a Martell, and she would no doubt not allow Tommen to do so either, now that she had him again.

She looked at the seal on it, anyway.

“It’s a letter,” Myrcella said, in a dull voice, eyes downcast so that she didn’t have to see the knowing in Tyene’s eyes; she had been the one to bring it, after all, and Myrcella knew that she had done it on purpose. No doubt, she had insisted on being the one to bring it to Myrcella.

Myrcella supposed that there was a strange sort of mercy in that, in a friend bringing the letter to her rather than someone she hated. “From Trystane.”

She didn’t want to open it in front of Tyene, Myrcella realized suddenly. Even if that meant she knew the other woman would wonder if she trusted her, and Myrcella couldn't afford the other girl’s doubts at the moment, the thought of opening it in front of her made her feel…vulnerable. Raw.

She licked her lips.

She didn’t want anyone to see her like that, anymore.

She tucked it into the pocket of her gown, determining that she would read it later, much as she wanted to throw Tyene out and read it for herself, now, to pour over the words that Trystane had sent her, the only words that she still had left from him, since she couldn’t have him in person, these days.

Tyene raised an eyebrow, leaning against the wall. “You’re not going to read it?” She asked.

Myrcella shrugged. “I’d much rather get to talk to him, in person,” she whispered, hoarsely, and Tyene’s cheek twitched.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and Myrcella…believed her.

“I don’t understand why Arianne won’t do anything,” Myrcella said, mournfully. “He’s her brother. You’d think she would care.”

“Arianne is a very busy woman, these days,” Tyene comforted her, or at least, Myrcella thought that she was trying to be reassuring. She wasn’t really certain.

Arianne was a busy woman; she’d usurped her father, as the Head of House Martell, as the Princess of Dorne, Myrcella knew that.

She also knew that Arianne had some sort of unspoken deal with Margaery Tyrell, and that if she wanted to, she could get Trystane back here, but she didn’t. Her own brother, and she’d left him with the thorns and lions.

She said it like she didn’t know exactly what Arianne was doing; whatever that deal was, Trystane was being used as collateral. Arianne had made a choice between Myrcella and Trystane, and she had chosen Myrcella.

The piece in the game who would have greater worth to her, when the time came.

And here, Myrcella had thought that Arianne truly loved her, the way that she had always said she did, before Myrcella was sent back to King’s Landing and Myrcella realized that Arianne Martell was just another Cersei Lannister with a younger face and a better ability to pretend she sympathized with Myrcella’s plight.

It had been horrifying, that stinging sense of betrayal she felt as she saw Gerold Dayne standing beside Arianne, and she knew, even without being able to tell how she knew, that she had lost the other woman for good.

That she had never been anything more than a piece in Arianne Martell’s game, and that soon, Arianne would damn well collect.

A part of Myrcella wondered every minute of every day if Trystane wasn’t already dead, and the letters she was being sent were being sent by someone in King’s Landing, or, worse still, someone in Dorne, pretending to be him.

But the letters meant that he lived, still, he had to; they knew things that no one else but her husband could have known, and she clung to that knowledge with every fiber of her being.

Every letter that her husband sent to her, she kept in the vanity by her bed, wanting to make sure that they were near her always, even if he could not be.

Besides, she was worried that Arianne would order one fo the servants to burn them, eventually, and Myrcella would damn well put up a fight, if that ever happened.

“Come on. I think you could use a distraction,” Tyene said suddenly, her eyes sympathetic, and Myrcella forced her shoulders to hunch a bit, lowering her eyelashes, and got to her feet.

Tyene reached out, taking Myrcella’s hand into her own and giving it a gentle squeeze before she turned and led Myrcella from the room.

Myrcella smiled.

* * *

Myrcella knew that Tyene came up here, most times, to get away from everyone else. This was an activity that she had shared with her father, when Oberyn Martell still lived, and one that she had continued with his death.

Myrcella had only been up here a handful of times, all after Oberyn had gone to King’s Landing, because he hadn’t liked the idea of the Lannister daughter learning poisons, even if he had grudgingly admitted that she was a “sweet girl” at one point.

It still disturbed her, every time she came up here, and saw the elaborate mixtures spread precariously throughout the room, and stuffed in cupboards.

The birds, hanging in their cage from the ceiling of the little tower, which was nothing as big as the Tower of the Hand, in King’s Landing, where she had only been a handful of times, all after Lord Arryn had died, for he had not allowed her in there at all.

They hung, the little yellow creatures, dumb to the knowledge of their use, the fact that they were only there for Tyene to test her poisons on them, and for them to die, if it was what she wished.

Though usually, death did not come quick, not for the birds.

Myrcella cleared her throat, moving to the other side of Tyene’s work table as the other girl set herself up, reaching for a few ingredients without a word, because Myrcella knew what to expect from her, at this point.

They stood in silence for a while, Myrcella idly counting the number of poisons sitting in jars in this room which she could identify, as she tried to think of how she wanted to word this.

For all that she found this place unsettling, it almost felt…nice, to be here. Myrcella supposed she could understand why the other girl always came here to get away from everyone else; it wasn’t like there were many places in Dorne where she could, after all, and too many people were unsettled by this place to come and bother her.

But it was Tyene, as she mixed a poison that looked strangely…purple, in front of her.

“My father was a master of poisons,” Tyene informed her, and Myrcella gulped, feeling her face grow rather hot. She took a step closer to the other girl, when everything within her wanted to move away.

Tyene’s gaze softened. “He was going to get his maester’s chain, you know,” she said, and her voice was purely informative now, an important distinction that she had no doubt the other girl had made on purpose, to comfort Myrcella.

Myrcella smirked inwardly, and made herself a little smaller, knowing that it would work.

When Tommen had been younger, before Myrcella had been sent to Dorne but after Joffrey’s coronation, her older brother had wanted to send her younger brother to Oldtown, to become a maester.

Joffrey.

Myrcella grimaced at the thought of her dead brother.

She remembered when Arianne had told her that her brother was dead, the way the other girls had reacted, not knowing how to feel when Myrcella didn’t, to her own brother’s death.

In truth, Myrcella hadn’t known how to react to the news that her brother was dead, and she suspected that the other girls knew that. That, if they hadn’t known before, they knew now, or suspected, what he had done to her, to make her feel that way about his death.

Her brother was dead.

Her brother, who had been her nightmare for so long, who had tormented and abused her, who had laughed every time she cried, whether it had been at his hand or not, had died.

Her brother, who had told her once that he wanted to continue the dear old tradition of the Targaryens, not knowing or not caring that it was also a tradition of the Lannisters, of putting a child in his sister’s belly.

Her brother, who had tried to have her husband, the one man she had ever truly loved outside of her family, and perhaps even in it, killed, after imprisoning him in the Black Cells to begin with.

She closed her eyes.

In that moment, before she remembered that she had an act to put on, Myrcella had wanted to laugh with glee, at the news that her brother was dead.

In the next moment, as Arianne kept talking and she realized that would be seen as very strange indeed, she had been annoyed that she herself wasn’t there to see him go, the one thing that she had wanted for so very long.

Something that she had been imagining for far longer than she ever wanted to admit, the sight of her wrapping her fingers around his cock and _yanking until it tore free_ -

Myrcella had excused herself from the three of them as quickly as she could, running back to her chambers without trying to make it look like she was fleeing, because she didn’t want the whole of Dorne thinking that she was mourning the boy, and laughed into her pillow until her laughter turned to sobs and she ended up vomiting in her chamber pot.

Her septa, when the woman came later, had seen the vomit and tried to comfort her, as if she thought that would make Myrcella feel better, after growing up alongside the other girl.

As if she didn’t know exactly what Joffrey was capable of. As if she hadn’t, more times than Myrcella could count, come into Myrcella’s rooms and found her gown in rags, seen the bruises on her body, and cleaned her up without a word to anyone, because after all, Cersei could hardly be brought to care-

Perhaps Myrcella wasn’t handling her brother’s death as well as she had hoped she might, but he was her brother. She thought that she had a right, after living with Joffrey alive for so long, to be confused about how she felt, now that he was dead, and she could not even see the body for herself, for proof that it was the case.

That this wasn’t some elaborate, horrible trick on her brother’s end, to punish her once he returned from the dead, the way that his wife had, and tormented her with his life once again.

She grimaced again; Tyene glanced at her.

“Are you all right, Myrce?” She asked.

Myrcella shrugged. “The sun,” she said, pointing through the open window of the tower, where the sun was streaming in.

Tyene didn’t look like she believed her, but, after a moment, merely shrugged. Myrcella liked Tyene; in fact, she was Myrcella’s favorite of the Sand Snakes, even before everything that had happened with Lady Nym, according to Obara and Tyene, while she was gone, but she didn’t know Myrcella, not really.

No one here did, not even Arianne, though the other woman thought that she did.

But they didn’t know why Myrcella felt so…fine, with the knowledge that Joffrey was dead, or she didn’t think that any of them would be looking at her in quite the same way, now.

Myrcella knew that Joffrey had wanted to send Tommen to Oldtown because he was so that he would never one day become a threat to Joffrey, but Cersei had put an end to those plans, quickly enough, not wanting any of her children parted from her.

And then Myrcella had been sent to Dorne, of course.

She’d told Tyene that, once, and obviously, it was something that the other girl remembered. She had a terribly good memory; in all honestly, that concerned Myrcella more than Arianne’s sudden indifference to her.

“But then he decided that wouldn’t be the life for him, and went to the East, and had something of a wild experience, there,” Tyene said, and then winked at her. “It wasn’t all Dorne, what made Oberyn Martell who he was.”

Myrcella gave her a faint smile; she knew how much it still hurt the other girl, to talk about her father, after what had happened to him.

Tyene cleared her throat. “There, he learned the art of poison, and in the Free Cities, it truly is an art.”

Myrcella hummed. “And then he killed my grandfather,” she said, without a bit of emotion in her voice, which was a bit harder to feign than the emotion she was pretending to feel for her dead brother.

Tyene paused, the mixture in her hands slipping through her fingers as her lips parted, and Myrcella grimaced, reaching out as fast as she could to grab it before it fell to the ground and shattered.

Tyene blinked, looking surprised that Myrcella had managed to catch it, and then a little disturbed, at the sight fo the bottle in Myrcella’s hands.

She sent Myrcella a tight smile as she plucked it from her fingers, murmuring a soft, “Thank you.”

Myrcella shrugged, and Tyene, still looking unsettled, went back to her work.

Myrcella wanted to ask her who this was for, who was to be killed with this poison.

When they had first come up here, Myrcella had been terrified, for one horrible moment, that she had done something wrong, that this was it; that Tyene had finally seen through her, and intended to use the stuff on her, now.

She was slowly relaxing, ever since then; the way that Tyene hovered over her, the gentle looks that she kept sending Myrcella, her discomfort as Myrcella made herself smaller before the other woman, they all indicated that she didn’t see Myrcella as anything like a threat, anymore.

Good.

Still, the poison was for someone, and Myrcella still wasn’t certain where Tyene stood, in the battle lines being drawn across Dorne, these days.

“It used to be my favorite thing to do, as a little girl,” Tyene admitted, smirking at Myrcella. “I would come up and watch him here for hours. Not talking, of course; he said that talking would distract him, and so I had to sit very still. Really, I think he was afraid that I would try to reach out and touch something if he gave me a moment’s hesitation.”

Despite herself, Myrcella smiled. “You must have been a curious child, to want to watch him mix poisons, all day,” she said. Then, a thought occurred to her. “Did he tell you that they were poisons?”

Tyene snorted. “The very first day that I snuck away from Ellaria to come up here,” she admitted, shrugging. “He wasn’t the sort of man who tried to hide the truths of the world from his child. I…loved that about him.”

Myrcella shifted; now she was the one who felt uncomfortable, and it was not something that she tried to feign, either.

“This is called Dragon’s Breath,” Tyene said, giving the mixture a flick with her wrist.

Myrcella let out a breathy little laugh. “Did a Targaryen create it?” She asked.

Tyene shrugged. “No idea,” she said. “Could have been, the Valyrians of old,” she said, and winked a little at Myrcella.

Myrcella smiled.

“But I doubt it,” Tyene said. “This sort of thing…It’s an absolutely awful sort of poison.”

Myrcella raised an eyebrow, leaning over the table that Tyene was working at, even though the other woman always warned her to avoid exactly that, lest she jostle the ingredients sitting out on it.

“What does it do?” She asked, and thought of her brother, and wondered if this was how Margaery Tyrell had felt, to convince the boy that she actually loved him, actually cared about his perverse pleasures.

She was a better actress than Myrcella had ever been, Myrcella supposed.

Tyene smirked at her, flicking it again before pouring it into a jar, all but a few drops, which she then carried over to the little yellow birds in their cage.

“It burns you,” Tyene told her, with a smile, as the birds sucked at the flask greedily. “From the inside out. No one else can see that anything is wrong, of course; you can’t scream because your body is paralyzed, from the inside, the moment the stuff makes it down your throat. And then, it’s only minutes before…”

She glanced down at the birds, who had gone very still. Flicked a beak, and nodded in satisfaction when the bird’s eye twitched.

“Before anyone notices,” Myrcella finished for her. Tyene, not looking up from her birds, nodded.

Myrcella thought of Joffrey, letting himself be seduced by a wife who was either as wicked as he, and therefore likely had never loved him because she was just as incapable of it as Joffrey, or who was just trying to survive beside a husband who enjoyed torturing people.

She wondered if he had ever realized that his wife didn’t love him, before the end.

Myrcella eyed Tyene, and then hunched her shoulders in a little more. She had confided in Tyene, days ago, that she no longer felt safe, in Dorne. That she thought someone was going to want to hurt her, now that her brother was dead and proved that the Lannisters could be brought low.

Tyene had kissed her forehead. It was the first time that the other girl had done so, though Arianne did so often enough, when she wanted some sort of reaction from Myrcella.

“Do you think…?” She hesitated, knowing how the other girl might take the request. “Would you teach me? On the birds, I mean.”

Tyene hummed. Then, in a voice that implied she was doing Myrcella quite a favor, “If you promise to only test it on the birds.”

That was something Myrcella could easily do.

Once upon a time, she had promised her brother that if it was what he wanted, she would be his bride, one day, and where was Uncle Jaime, anyway?

Joffrey had laughed, and kissed her.

Tyene laughed, and handed Myrcella a flask of poison.

Myrcella hid her grin.

* * *

The day that Gerold had dragged all of those nobles before the throne and demanded that they pledge their allegiance to the throne, if Dorne ever declared a war, Arianne had wanted to murder him in her sleep.

Had seriously considered it.

More than that, she had wanted to take a knife to his gut and cut until there was nothing left of his intestines, right there in front of the entire court.

Instead, she’d been forced to sit there on her father’s throne and watch as lords who had once pledged to her father promised her their loyalty - and their men’s swords, while Gerold smiled as if he were being nothing more than a supporting husband who had pulled all of this together out of love for his wife’s cause.

It had been a humiliating defeat, and what was worse, no one else seemed to know that it was a defeat. After all, Arianne had ascended the throne while her father still lived with the express purpose of giving the Dornish people the war that they had wanted since Elia Martell’s death.

And so Arianne hadn’t been able to object; not when a lord whom her father had once offended by promising to send her to their family as a cupbearer, and then changed his mind at the last moment, came before her and told her he was happy to know her as his princess.

As Myrcella stood in the corner of the throne room, hand on her pregnant belly, watching with a face that grew paler and paler the longer she continued.

Arianne hadn’t known how she was going to protect her, as Gerold gathered the lords of Dorne for war, and she wondered if she was going to be able to.

She had just promised them their war, and she meant to give it to them, if she wanted to keep her father’s throne.

But she had to protect Myrcella, because, much as the girl was infuriatingly quiet, these days, Arianne still cared for her, and Quentyn and his army that posed her such a threat once was nowhere to be found, these days.

She had promised herself that she would, had insisted to Margaery Tyrell that she, in fact, bring Myrcella back here for that purpose, and now here she was, nearly losing Dorne again, which would only mean bad things for Myrcella.

But she had managed to hold them back for this long, and Arianne knew that she needed to throw them a bone, soon.

But here Gerold was now, asking Myrcella to dance, and Arianne didn’t like it one bit.

She leaned back a little in her chair, a part of her wanting to get up and ask Gerold to dance herself, but another part of her was worried that he would reject her, in front of all of these nobles.

She couldn’t afford that defeat in front of so many of them, either. They needed their war, soon, and she needed to figure out a way to give it to them without going back too far on the pact she’d made with Margaery, without endangering Myrcella.

Gods, Arianne had something of a migraine.

She’d woken up this morning vomiting onto the floor beside her bed, the bed that she hadn’t shared with her husband for some time, and Arianne knew that she was coming down with something.

Just another thing to worry about.

“Ser Gerold,” Myrcella said, crisply, as she took the other man’s hand, and allowed him to lead her out to dance floor. Then, as the music began again, a bit more hesitant this time on behalf of the harpists, she asked dully, “What are you doing?”

Gerold squinted at her. “I’m sorry, Princess?” He sounded distracted, and she followed his eyes, found that he was staring at Arianne, where she sat at the head of the room, rather than looking at Myrcella at all.

Because she knew he wasn’t looking, Myrcella rolled her eyes.

Arianne, however, caught the movement, raising an eyebrow at Myrcella in surprise, for the other girl had been strangely shy every time she was within Gerold’s sight. Or, perhaps, not strangely; Gerold had made no secret his feelings about the Lannisters, nor about Myrcella’s position in Dorne.

Arianne could see him saying something else, something that made Myrcella smile, though Arianne could no longer tell if that was because she found it amusing or she was just pretending to, and then they were gone, off on the dance floor.

Andrey Dalt scowled, at the sight of Gerold twirling Myrcella around on the dance floor, rather than his wife.

She had slept with Andrey a few times, in their youth, as had Tyene, who was always interested in a new conquest, but he was not the jealous type, even if he was fiercely protective of her.

So she knew that something was wrong, seeing the way that he was scowling at Gerold.

And it made Arianne’s stomach twist with nausea.

She watched the two of them dance for several more moments, before she gestured over to Garin, where he stood by the food tables, helping himself.

He met her gaze and grinned, wading through the crowd before he made his way to her, giving her a little bow and hurrying to stand behind her throne, leaning an arm against it as he too, pretended to watch the dance.

“Your Highness,” he greeted, and Arianne sent him a small smile before turning her attention back to the crowd.

This was not the same night when her husband had promised her lords a war, but Arianne could feel all of their eyes on her still, all of them waiting for her to make some sort of announcement.

And Arianne…didn’t have one to give to them, at the moment.

“Garin,” Arianne said, as the other man came closer, bending down to hear her whisper,“I need a favor.”

Garin dipped his head. “Anything for my sister,” he said, and Arianne sent him a small smile.

His mother had been her wet-nurse, as a babe, and Garin had been one of her closest friends ever since.

She knew that he, at least, would never betray her.

“My husband is up to something,” she said, and Garin’s eyes widened a little, as they found their way almost unintentionally over to where Gerold and Myrcella had just stopped dancing, Myrcella pulling away from him and making her way with some purpose back to the feasting tables, where quite a bit of food was still set out.

Pregnancy had made Myrcella ravenous, these days. She’d put on some weight, something that Arianne was happy to see after she had returned from King’s Landing. As much as arianne could tell, it looked like the other girl had avoided eating quite a bit, while she was in King’s Landing, and Arianne didn’t know if it was from the stress, or something else.

She grimaced a little at the thought that Myrcella was so afraid of her true family that she’d stopped eating, in King’s Landing, and wondered if Trystane was experiencing the same issue, now.

But no, she told herself. The Tyrells were in control of King’s Landing, these days; he was far safer there than he would be with the Lannisters, and they would see to it that he came to know harm.

Trystane was safe; she knew that everyone else in her family thought her a heartless bitch, to have sent him off alone like that, but she had only done it because she knew that he would be safe, with Margaery and Lady Nym watching over him; after all, they both knew her wrath would be great if anything happened to him.

And her brother could use a little growing up, if she was being honest.

And, if she were being even more so, the thought of explaining all of this to him, how she had arrested their father, how sh thought their brother was coming here to take everything she had ever worked towards away from her…terrified her, because she knew that Trystane wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t think that her excuses were good enough.

She swallowed hard, and thought about how Tyrion Lannister had sent Myrcella here thinking that she would not come to harm over it, eyes still on the girl as she shoved another lemon cake into her mouth.

“I need you to figure out what, exactly, he’s planning,” Arianne continued in a whisper, still watching Myrcella, because it wouldn’t do to tip off the game this early. “And if my cousins have anything to do with it.”

Garin glanced at her sharply; she could see him out of the corner of her eye. “You think they’re…plotting with him?” He asked, sounding disgusted.

Arianne could well imagine why. It sickened her, as well, to think that her cousins had turned against her the way that Lady Nym had turned against them, and with Gerold Dayne, of all people.

But Garin had grown up with Tyene and Obara as well as he had Arianne, she remembered, and the thought that girls she had regarded more as sisters than as cousins would betray her in such a way felt abhorrent, to her.

She had promised them a war, had promised it to them as recently as the other day, and it was infuriating that they didn’t have the patience to trust her, their own family, of all people.

Her lips quirked in something like amusement as she wondered if this was how her father felt, locked away in the Water Gardens, even though that was a completely different situation. After all, her father had promised no one a war, and had very much delivered on that promise.

“Myrcella has been acting strangely lately,” Arianne whispered to him, nodding to the girl.

Myrcella, as if she could feel their eyes on her, glanced up sharply. When she noticed that it was Arianne looking, she sent her a small smile, which Arianne forced herself to return.

When Gerold spun her around again, Arianne continued, “Too perfect. She is furious with me, and yet, she doesn’t once raise her voice. Acts like she is content here.”

Garin raised an eyebrow. “And…you think that means they are plotting against you? Because Myrcella does not weep and carry on so?”

Arianne pressed her lips together. “Myrcella is a spirited child. Her silence is…concerning.”

Garin hummed; clearly, he was rather skeptical, but he had believed her at first, about Gerold, and Arianne was just going to have to trust him.

She was running out of those she found truly trustworthy, these days.

Then, after a calculated silence, “I don’t know what to think,” she whispered to him, as Gerold’s eyes sought out hers in the crowd, darkened when he saw how close she was with Garin. “That’s what I want you to find out.”

He gave her a little salute, and Arianne forced herself to smile.

“Do it quickly,” she hissed, as he stepped away from her and disappeared into the crowd.

Arianne turned her attention back to the dancers, and that was when the doors to the hall opened, and a herald banged down his spear, three times, in announcement of a royal member of the family.

Arianne froze, because the royal members of her family who weren’t locked away in a tower in the Water Gardens were all in this room, and so was Myrcella, so there was no reason for them to be making that announcement, not unless Quentyn had returned, and if he had, it would have been at the front of an army, surely.

She felt a little bit sick, at the thought.

She was not blind to the threat that he still presented, the threat that could bring Dorne into the war that they were all so excited about, though she feared that not all of Dorne would stand behind her in that case.

Truthfully, that was what she was really afraid of.

And then she saw the person whom the herald was announcing, and Arianne’s world fell apart a little bit more, then.

The dancing, as Arianne barely noticed, had come to a pause, then.

If Garin were still there, Arianne would have demanded to know why the fuck no one had bothered to tell her that…

That…

Surely, someone must have known, someone must have been aware that she was coming. It was not as if she could just land in the harbor without anyone fucking noticing.

Still, Arianne saw the looks of shock on every other face around her, as Mellario of Norvos sauntered into the dancing hall as if she belonged there, as if it wasn’t completely strange to see her there again after so many years without her presence in Dorne, and what a gap that had caused.

“Mother,” Arianne breathed, staring up at the tall, darkly tan woman before her, a veil covering half of her face, her body quite covered for one living in Dorne, something that Arianne belatedly remembered her being modest about when she had still resided in Dorne.

Which she didn’t, anymore.

Arianne licked her lips, lifting her chin at her mother, as her mother took in the sight of her, sitting on her father’s throne, and tried not to feel chastised, under that particular gaze, as Lady Mellario of Norvos took in everything in the throne room.

Her husband promptly dropped Myrcella’s hand and stalked up to the throne, and if Arianne had been more aware of her faculties, she might have been able to answer him when he hissed at her, “What the fuck is she doing here?”

But she didn’t, because she couldn’t quite bring herself to think properly at all. Couldn’t bring herself to even stand to her feet, as she stared down at her mother, as the woman walked further into the room, as the crowd parted like water, before her.

The woman looked older, but then, Arianne supposed that was to be expected. Arianne had not seen her mother since she was a child, after all, and that had been some time ago.

But still, she was beautiful as the day she had been when she got in her ship and left Dorne and her family behind for good. Beautiful, and cruel, to have returned here after so long without even a waring.

And Arianne couldn’t help but wonder why she had, after all of this time.

For a moment, she allowed herself to thrill in the small hope that it was because her mother had learned that she had taken the Dornish throne, but she let the hope fade rather quickly.

After all, she much doubted that news of it had already reached Norvos. She was not even certain that news of it had reached most of Westeros.

And Arianne wondered what it was that her mother saw, looking at all of them.

Arianne, sitting on the throne, her husband, standing tall and proud beside her, Obara and Tyene, at either side of him. Doran and Mellario’s faithful bodyguard, Areo Hotah, nowhere in sight.

Her father had a way of making his disappointment seem lesser, by not paying much attention at all to Arianne, when she was a child, and he had made his disappointment clear, with each husband that she had refused over the years.

But her mother...Before she had left, her mother had made her disappointment a known, potent thing.

A loud one, that had set all of the castle tense, whichever castle she happened to be in, at the time.

Oberyn used to joke that her father had eventually sent the woman away because he lived in such fear of her, though Arianne knew that wasn’t the case.

She didn’t think that her father feared much, besides the Lannisters, much to her chagrin.

But, Arianne didn’t think her father had ever recovered from her mother’s abandonment, her return to Norvos.

Arianne was going to have to deal with her mother’s disappointment, though, if that look in her eyes did not fade.

Mellario took several steps further into the room, before pausing again, glancing at Gerold before her eyes ever even swept towards Arianne, and Arianne could not deny the sudden, painful feeling of rejection that welled up within her, at the sight.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” her mother said into the silence that had descended over the hall, without even glancing in Arianne’s direction, and Arianne flinched.

“He is my husband, Mother,” she introduced him. “And I do believe that you’ve met at some point. Ser Gerold of House Dayne.”

Mellario’s eyes swept over to her, next. “Arianne, darling,” she said, and there was a warmth there, alongside the coldness, that Arianne found herself clinging to, all the same. “You look wonderful. And sitting in your father’s chair.”

Arianne flushed a little, mouth parting.

“Well, someone had to do it,” her husband joked, at her side, and Arianne closed her eyes, irritation welling up inside of her.

Mellario shot Gerold a scathing look, and then returned her attention to Arianne, opened her mouth as if to say something, but Arianne, despite her shock that the woman had come back here at all, beat her to it.

“Why have you come, Mother?” She asked.

Mellario stared at her for a moment, her eyes searching, and Arianne hoped desperately that she found whatever it was she was searching for, before she spoke again.

“I…heard about some of the things that have been happening of late, in Dorne,” Mellario said, coldly, and Arianne swallowed hard. “I thought now would be as good a time as ever, to invite myself here to see my daughter’s new husband, if she would not even invite me to the wedding.”

Arianne closed her eyes.

Obara, at her side, spoke up rather primly, “It was a rather quick affair. We didn’t think you would have time to make it.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Obara Sand,” Mellario said, sharply, and Obara swallowed hard, looking almost ashamed, which was not an expression that Arianne often saw on the other woman’s face.

Myrcella’s eyebrows shot up, where she stood in the crowd, and then something like a grin crossed her features before she remembered that she was in public and it vanished from her face.

Her mother…this was her mother, Arianne recognized her immediately, and at the same time, she didn’t, because her mother had obviously changed much since the last time Arianne had seen her.

She found herself missing the woman of old, the one who had engaged in shouting matches with Doran across castles, not caring who she woke up in the dead of night, over this cold, accusing woman.

“Well,” Arianne said, clapping her hands together, “Whatever reason you’re here, Dorne is happy to see you again, Mother. I’m sure you’ll understand it will take a little time to get some rooms prepared for you…”

“No matter,” Mellario said, raising a hand. “I will just take the rooms I had when I was a Princess consort, here.”

Arianne grimaced, and didn’t bother to point out that those were the rooms she slept in, most nights, now that her husband had taken up possession of hers.

She glanced over at Gerold. He shrugged.

She supposed that the rooms were already made up, at the very least, and if she didn’t share a bed with her husband, her mother would only want to dig deeper.

And Arianne didn’t know which side she would pick, once she found out the truth, and couldn’t afford to deal with yet another headache, even if a part of her was secretly thrilled at the sight of her mother, again.

Even if a part of her wanted to see her mother’s return as a sign, that she was at least doing something right, even with the woman’s disapproval.

Because her mother had done something that she had once vowed never to do; she had come home, and that, surely, meant something.

The rest of the ball seemed…strained, after that, with nobles uncertain whether to suck up to Arianne’s husband, or her mother, tonight, all of them looking as confused as Arianne felt, about the woman’s return.

“Find out why she’s here,” Arianne hissed at Tyene, where the girl stood at her side still, as her mother made her way towards them, through a crowd of pandering nobles. “Now.”

Tyene dipped into a little curtsey, and disappeared.

Obara eyed her sharply. “What are you planning to do about it if she’s here because Quentyn found her?” She hissed, and Arianne raised an eyebrow at her.

“You think it a possibility?” She asked, fear thrumming through her that her mother had somehow already chosen a side, between the two of them.

Obara shrugged. “He’s been gone a long time, Arianne,” she pointed out. “It could be, he went crying to Mother about what he believes is his.”

Arianne swallowed, trying not to think about it. Trying not to think about the possibility that both of her parents had already been turned against her.

That wasn’t the sign that she wanted.

“Tyene will find out,” she forced herself to say, even if she didn’t quite believe the statement, herself.

It only mattered that Obara did.

Mellario, where she had walked up to Myrcella on her way to coming to Arianne, sought out Arianne’s gaze in the crowd, and Arianne squirmed a little, under that look.

She had done the right thing, she reminded herself. She had done the only thing to keep Dorne from falling into a civil war, in order to fight another one, which was what the Dornish wanted, after all.

She had done the right thing.

Her mother didn’t get to just walk in here, after all of these years of silence, and make her feel like a foolish child, when she hadn’t been here, and she didn’t know what Arianne was up against.

She didn’t.

* * *

Sharing rooms again with her husband was…strange. The two of them had found out, in the early days of their marriage that, despite their feelings for each other, which were strong enough in the bedroom, they drove each other mad.

They were both creatures of habit, and neither liked the other intruding on that habit. It was the sort of thing that didn’t come up in bed, but did come up when they both wanted to use the privy at the same time.

It was maddening.

Her husband.

She had never wanted to marry Gerold. He made for a good lover, someone to bounce ideas off of, and he was passionate in everything that he did, but Arianne had wanted to marry someone who would agree with her, not fight with her at every moment.

And they didn’t fight because they loved each other so much, the way that her mother and father had always fought. They fought because they had fundamentally different ideas about the wars to come.

Gerold was swiftly becoming a danger to her and the more time she spent with him, the more guilt she felt about what she knew in her heart she would have to do, to keep her father’s throne.

She had put distance between them because she had thought it would make things easier, in the end, and now, here he was again, sharing a bed with her, because her mother had returned from Dorne and somehow felt entitled to what was once hers, and now wasn’t.

“Why is your mother here?” Gerold demanded, spinning on her as he left the privy room, then.

Arianne glanced up sharply from where she had been changing into her nightgown and unbraiding her hair, at the same time, dancing on one foot because yet again, she’d been forced to put her husband’s wants before her own.

Gods, Arianne did not want to have this conversation. Not with her husband, who had undermined her at every turn since their marriage, who didn’t seem at all interested in honoring an alliance with the Tyrells or keeping Myrcella alive past her due date, if he didn’t have to.

Because she didn’t know the answer, and she hated speculating with someone she no longer thought that she could trust.

Her mother was back, after so many years of silence, and Arianne would have appreciated a little time to come to terms with the news alone, before being bombarded by her husband, who had all of the subtlety of a brick.

Arianne pressed a hand to her mouth. “I don’t know,” she gritted out. “Couldn’t you tell that it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to you, to see her here tonight?”

Gerold eyed her. “Was it? All of the court knows how you adored her. Perhaps you invited her here the moment you took the throne.”

Arianne reached for her brush, sitting on her bedside table, and ran it through her hair, tiring of this conversation yet again.“For what purpose?”

“Do you need to have a purpose to bring your mother here?” He asked her.

Arianne snorted, setting the brush aside and turning to eye her husband speculatively. She knew already that they would never have the relationship that her mother and father had had; when she was a little girl, she had dreamed of a lover who would show her the passion her father and mother had shown each other, even if it had ended in pain, because it had been one of the few relationships Arianne had seen which she was convinced was real, save perhaps for Ellaria and Oberyn’s.

Everyone else, they played these games, marrying off to one another for the politics of the matter, so that they could get something out of it themselves, or for the sake of a child and not for a political marriage at all, and Arianne thought those marriages turned out even worse, most times.

And she had gone and gotten herself married for the sake of politics, as well.

She knew that it would not be forever; she and Gerold were both too stubborn for that, and one day, she intended to make sure he knew that she was Princess of Dorne, and he only a consort by her will.

“If you knew my mother well, you would know that it is impossible to bring her to do anything. That is why she and my father are no longer one.”

Gerold stared at her for a moment longer, and then ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. “Do you think that she…disapproves of you taking the throne?”

Arianne hummed. “Obviously,” she muttered. “Didn’t you see her in there?”

Oh, Mellario of old would not have been silent about the fact that she disapproved of Arianne sitting on her father’s throne; even if Arianne had just been a girl when her mother had left them, she knew that much.

But her mother’s scathing look when Gerold had joked about it, the way the nobles had shifted around her as if they could sense an incoming storm…

Oh, Arianne knew she was in trouble. She felt like a child again, about to be reprimanded for jumping into the deep end of one of the pools in the Water Gardens, when she had been told over and over again that she wasn’t supposed to.

It was an unsettling feeling.

Even when her father reprimanded her, she didn’t feel that way.

Gerold stared at her for a moment longer, speculatively, and for a moment he looked like he might say something comforting, before he shrugged. “Let’s fuck, Wife. We haven’t done it in so long.”

Arianne rolled her eyes and reached for the ties of her nightgown. “I have to use the privy,” she said, coldly. “After, though.”

Gerold grinned.


	12. Winterfell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains the semi-graphic death of a child.
> 
> Also, as far as I remember, Arya and Shireen never met, but if that’s not the case…oh well. 
> 
> Anyways, please comment!

The Onion Knight kept telling her that it would be all right.

“It’s going to be okay, Princess,” he would remind her. “It will be all right.”

He would say it over and over, and she thought that it was because eventually, he wanted her to believe it. He wanted her to say it back to him.

But she couldn’t; every time she tried, at least to bring a little peace to his sad eyes, the words would get clogged in her throat and she couldn’t say anything, at all.

She thought that he knew that, though. It was why he kept saying it, over and over.

She knew that he loved her, and yet, she couldn’t help but wonder if he saw her as a much smaller child than she was, now. He had never treated her like she was made of broken glass prone to splintering further, in the past.

But so much had changed, in recent days, that she supposed she couldn’t blame him for that, even if, for all the times that he told her it would be all right, she believed him a little less.

But she trusted the Onion Knight to protect her, whatever happened.

The Bolton usurper, the one who had snuck into Winterfell in the dead of night after her father had left her here to go to the Rock, he had let the Onion Knight keep a knife, to protect her with.

She wasn’t certain why he allowed it; the Bolton had mad eyes, and a part of Shireen suspected that he had done it because he thought it was amusing, that her knight thought he could protect her from an entire fortress of Bolton loyal soldiers.

He was the sort of man who, she thought, would find that sort of thing amusing.

She thought he found her Onion Knight’s devotion to her amusing as well, and she didn’t understand why it was amusing to him when all of the rest of her father’s soldiers here had been killed, because clearly he hadn’t found them amusing.

But she also knew that she would never understand the man’s reasoning, would never understand why he had decided to let her Onion Knight live, why he kept her trapped down here until he needed her for something, either, rather than trying to ransom her.

Because he was mad, she knew.

She knew it from looking into his eyes, that first night as the bodies of her father’s men burned around her, some of them still alive, she suspected, though she had never shared that particular thought with Ser Davos.

She thought it would only make him look sadder, and he was already so sad, by what had happened.

She didn’t want to see it get worse because of her.

Ramsay’s wife, Arya Stark, had asked him to keep Shireen and her knight somewhere safe, shaking as she asked it, because she was just as frightened of him as Shireen had been, when she had had to sit there and watch him flay alive all of her father’s soldiers, the ones who had fought so bravely for her but hadn’t been fortunate enough to die in the night, while the Bolton took Winterfell back from them, from where he had been hiding out in the woods, which shouldn’t have been possible at all.

But Arya hadn’t wanted Shireen to be exposed to more than what had happened that night, it seemed, and had been just brave enough to ask for that.

Arya was just as afraid of her husband, Shireen thought, as Shireen felt, every time she looked up into those mad eyes, when he demanded an audience with her and she had to stand before the chair her father had sat in, while Winterfell was his, and pretend that he didn’t terrify her.

And her husband had thought it was amusing to honor her request by sending Shireen down where, “No one will disturb her, Wife,” he had said, and laughed while he said it.

For a single, frightening moment, Shireen had been terrified that Ramsay Bolton was going to throw her into the pit of her father’s flayed, burned soldiers, the ones he had forced her to watch die, and she had felt anger towards the other woman, for intervening on her behalf at all.

But he hadn’t.

Shireen sniffed, leaning back against the wall as she closed her eyes, not wanting to think about the room around her.

Didn’t want to think of how many dead Starks were buried in this crypt where she was forced to sleep, forced to spend most of her days alongside the Onion Knight, because after those first few days, when Ramsay had first been victorious in taking Winterfell, he had gotten bored with her and hadn’t dragged her before him again, since.

The Onion Knight was on the other side of the crypts; she thought that it comforted him, to stand at the doors entering the crypts, with his knife in his hands, just in case anyone tried to come for her.

She didn’t think that he would be able to hold off anyone, but she had seen him fight off several of Ramsay’s guards, when they came down for her. She didn’t understand why; Ramsay did not seem like the sort of man bothered by his own men’s deaths, and he only sent more, after the Onion Knight had killed those.

He always told her not to look, when he did it, but Shireen looked, anyway.

Looked, and imagined that this time, her Onion Knight might have actually cut through Ramsay Bolton, this time, and they could be free of the bastard.

There was not much else to do, inside these crypts, than to think. At least when she was allowed to still sleep inside of the fortress, as terrifying as it had been to sleep so close to Ramsay Bolton, she’d had her books, because Ramsay didn’t seem to find anything amusing in taking them away from her.

Down here, she had only been allowed a bath tub and her blankets and gowns, and precious few of those, as well.

She could not read to the Onion Knight, could only recite stories of the Dance of Dragons while the Onion Knight listened patiently ad pretended that she wasn’t getting the stories wrong, each time she recited them again, her memories of them fading a little bit more with each retelling.

And so, Shireen spent her time imagining, when she wasn’t talking to the Onion Knight. Imagining that this time, he would find some way for them to escape, that they would leave this place and go back home, where she had always felt safe, even if she had been lonely, and her father would come back and find her there, once he had been victorious.

She would finally be the princess he told her that she was, then.

The doors to the entrance of the crypts opened then, and her Onion Knight stood up sharply, the knife that Ramsay Bolton had allowed him to keep for his own amusement raised in the air.

He lowered it, when he saw that their guest was not a guard, but Myranda, the kennel master’s daughter, who had never been far from Ramsay’s side, when he first retook Winterfell.

She sniffed, haughtily, and sought out Shireen’s gaze, in the darkness of the crypts.

They were allowed torches, down here, but sometimes they went out, and the two of them would have to sit in the darkness and wait for Myranda to return with another torch.

This time, the torch had not yet gone out, but it kept flickering.

“I’m here to give the Princess her bath,” Myranda said, and the Onion Knight stiffened.

“Can’t it happen outside these damn crypts?” He hissed at her, voice so soft, she was sure he thought she couldn’t hear him. “He hasn’t let her out of here in days.”

Myranda let out a noise like a scoff; in the beginning, she had thought it was funny, Shireen thought, to pretend to be kind to Shireen.

Now, she seemed bored with that.

“I can draw a bath in the tub that he had brought down here for her, if you turn away,” she said primly, and the Onion Knight, her fierce protector, scoffed.

“She is a Princess, you know,” he said. “She’s not used to…”

“We must all get used to things we aren’t used to,” Myranda said, with a little smirk, and Shireen bit back a sigh, holding up her hand.

They both fell silent, turning to look at her expectantly.

“Its fine,” she assured the Onion Knight, even if it wasn’t really, not at all.

But her Onion Knight already worried enough; she saw no reason to make him worry even more.

Myranda got to work, as always, making it seem like some great chore, to pull the buckets down the steps, despite the Onion Knight being turned down when he offered to help her.

She filled the bath tub, and this time, Shireen hoped that the water was warm, as the Onion Knight turned around to afford them some allusion of privacy.

Myranda didn’t seem to care if the bath was private or not, but Shireen had been forced to get used to that.

Even when she was sleeping upstairs, Myranda had been there, for every bath, and Shireen didn’t know if it was because she enjoyed humiliating her, or if she thought that Shireen wasn’t capable of giving herself her own bath, as a princess.

Shireen would gladly have given herself her own bath, if it meant she didn’t have to spend time with Myranda, and all of her questions.

She sighed, shrugging out of her gown, which was getting filthy, from how long she had spent down here, but Myranda never offered to wash her gowns, and slipping into the bath with only the slightest feeling of self-consciousness.

During the first few days after Ramsay had taken Winterfell, before Arya had asked for her to not be sleeping so close to her husband’s chambers, had asked his promise on it, Shireen had slept in the Lady of Winterfell’s chambers, still.

She had been forced to eat her meals with the rest of the wretched Bolton family, forced to sit at the table her parents had once sat at, across from Ramsay Bolton and Arya Stark, next to Walda Frey.

No one spoke of what had happened to Roose; the last time that her father had fought the Bolton army, Roose Bolton had been at the head of that army, but he wasn’t here, now.

Shireen wondered if he had gone back to the Dreadfort, but wasn’t quite brave enough to ask.

But Walda Frey was kind; she looked at Shireen like she pitied her, like she was already imagining what Shireen would look like, dead and flayed, like the rest of her father’s men had been, but she was kind.

Arya was kind, too, but she was even more frightened of her husband than Walda seemed to be, and they hadn’t spoken much, before she had asked Ramsay to take some pity on Shireen, and he had thought it would be funny to send Shireen down to the crypts, with the dead, in response.

Myranda had been kind too, in the beginning. Had told Shireen that she wanted her to be happy here, that she was an honored guest, even if Ramsay did not acknowledge her as a princess.

And then, the kindness had worn off, and Shireen had seen in her the same madness that she had seen in Ramsay Bolton’s eyes.

“Do you have anything that you want to tell me, Princess?” Myranda asked, with that same mocking title that they all used since the first time that the Onion Knight had called her that.

She almost wished that he would just call her Shireen, because it hurt worse, to hear them all mocking her with that title.

As if it had never belonged to her in the first place.

Shireen reached up to pull her hair out of the other woman’s grip. “No,” she whispered, in a small voice.

She knew that she was going to have to get better at lying, if she was truly stuck here, with Ramsay Bolton.

If her father was never going to come back for her, something that she was still trying to find it hard to accept, because she was sure that her father would have come back for her, after he had heard what happened to Winterfell, to his men here.

But he hadn’t, not as the days grew shorter and Ramsay brought her before his chair, as the new Lord of Winterfell, and asked her how she might feel about it, if he declared himself her Regent, now that her father seemed to have disappeared Beyond the Wall.

And if it ended up being that way, if Ramsay Bolton became her Regent, she was going to have to know how to lie to him.

It felt wrong, lying. She had never been very good at it, because she had never spent much time around many people to begin with, given that her father and mother kept her locked away for so much of her young life, and when she did get to speak to others, she didn’t want to lie to them.

But she thought that she could learn to lie to Ramsay.

And she needed to practice, on Myranda, now that she was the only other person, besides the Onion Knight, that Shireen saw regularly enough to lie to.

And in a way, this lie was even the truth.

She didn’t want to tell Myranda anything, because she knew that Myranda was Ramsay’s woman, for all that he was married to Arya Stark, just as the Red Woman belonged to her father, and he to her, and not to her mother, not really.

Myranda would probably tell Ramsay anything that Shireen told her.

Myranda hummed. “Not even about the Shadow?” She asked, and Shireen closed her eyes.

The Shadow.

Myranda asked her about the Shadow every time that she came down, and Shireen wondered how she knew; he didn’t talk, so surely she had not gotten the information from him, but somehow, she always knew when he had come to visit her.

Still, she practiced lying, because what else could she do?

She had the Onion Knight, but he was her knight, and she couldn’t bear the thought that if she did finally tell Myranda about the Shadow, her only other friend would be taken from her, too.

She was afraid of the Shadow, sometimes, but not like she was afraid of Ramsay, and the Shadow was her friend, while Ramsay very much wasn’t.

She cleared her throat. Opened her eyes again, and, even though she had already clearly been caught, she whispered, “No.”

Myranda was silent. Then, she reached out and tugged on Shireen’s hair, a little too tightly. Shireen squirmed, trying to pull away from her, but Myranda held fast.

“You shouldn’t try to lie to me, Princess,” Myranda taunted. “Bad things happen to liars, you should know that.”

Shireen sniffed; Myranda was holding her hair in a punishing grip, and it caused her eyes to prick with unshed tears.

But she wasn’t going to cry, in front of this woman, she thought, desperately.

“And if Ramsay is going to be your Regent, he needs to know that he can trust you,” Myranda went on, and Shireen bit back a scoff.

She knew that was the plan he had told her, that it was the thing he intended, now that he was here, because there was a difference between being Lord of Winterfell and the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, but she also knew that he wouldn’t let her live, that long.

And it was a terrifying thought, but one that she knew to be true. It was the reason that the Onion Knight guarded the entrance to the crypts, day and night, the reason that she never saw him sleeping unless she begged him to. The reason that Ramsay kept her down here at Arya request, rather than bringing her up to sleep in the rooms she had been sleeping in, before.

Ramsay might claim to be her regent for a little while, if that was even his intention and he wasn’t pretending all along, but eventually, she would disappear. Because she annoyed him, or because he thought it would be amusing.

And her father would never come back for her, before then.

Shireen didn’t say anything of this to Myranda, however; she didn’t even tell it to her faithful knight, because she knew that he worried about her enough, already.

Sometimes, when she had begged her Onion Knight to sleep and his breathing finally evened out, where he refused to move away from the door, she would whisper it to the crypts, where the dead could not respond to her.

She would whisper to them that she knew she would be joining them soon enough, and she hoped that they did not feel too imposed upon, that she was forced to live down here, among them, for now.

Myranda let go of her hair abruptly, and stood up from where she had been kneeling behind the bathtub. “I think you’re all clean now, Princess,” she said, coldly, and Shireen lifted her chin as the other woman said, “Get out so I can dump the bathwater.”

Shireen forced herself to step out; the crypts felt freezing now, after her bath, and she searched the floor desperately for the gown she had been wearing before, pulling it on over her head and refusing to meet the other woman’s eyes, as she did so.

Myranda let out something like a scoff, before she tipped the bath a bit, dumping the water back into the buckets that she had brought with her, before sniffing again and making her way back up the stairs, out of the crypts, the buckets in both of her hands.

The doors shut behind her with a loud bang, and Shireen jumped a little, at the sound. At the reminder that there were always at least two guards outside those doors, to make sure that she and the Onion Knight couldn’t escape again.

Shireen took a deep breath, adjusting her gown again, and let it out slowly.

“All decent, Princess?” She heard the Onion Knight ask then, and despite herself, Shireen smiled.

“Yes,” she said, and her Onion Knight stepped out of the shadows, and Shireen forced herself not to flinch, yet again, at the sight of the scar on his neck, from those first few days after Ramsay had taken Winterfell, when she had been sleeping in the Lady of Winterfell’s chambers but the Onion Knight, after Ramsay had finally taken his sword from him, was forced to sleep in a kennel, beside Ramsay Bolton’s angry dogs.

He had tried to help her escape, in those first nights, because he was furious with the Bolton, and Shireen didn’t know how he had done it, but somehow, he had escaped the kennel where the dogs were, and come to her.

They had gotten as far as the outer courtyard, before they had been found, standing in front of the pile of her father’s soldiers.

Found by the dogs, and by Myranda and Ramsay, who looked amused at their little escape attempt.

That was when her knight had gotten the scar on his neck.

They didn’t speak about it now, though; sometimes, if she wasn’t looking at him, Shireen could pretend it wasn’t there, a reminder of how he had failed, and how she had failed to keep her faithful knight safe, in turn.

That was when Arya Stark had asked that Shireen not have to sleep so close to Ramsay’s rooms, and he had thrown them in the crypt, instead.

She sniffed, glancing around. She supposed that, even filled with dead Starks, the crypts were better than the sound of creaking floorboards, every time someone moved outside of her rooms, and she wondered if this time, it was Ramsay, come to hurt her in that way that seemed to make Arya Stark so afraid, had made her scream, in the nights when Shireen had still been sleeping up there, and could hear it.

Now, she suspected that she was simply too far away to hear the screams, but they still occurred, like they had.

She swallowed hard at the thought, hugging herself a little as she sat down against the wall; there weren’t any chairs down here, because the dead didn’t need them.

Ramsay had not even allowed the bath tub until the second week that she had been trapped down here, and even then, someone had to bring the water for it.

Shireen sniffed again, told herself to stop being stupid, because she knew that if she started crying in front of the Onion Knight, it would only make him feel bad, and she didn’t want to make him feel bad.

He had done everything he could, to protect her.

It just wasn’t enough, because in the end, he wasn’t really her father, the only one who really could, now.

“Everything all right, Princess?” Her knight asked her, even if he had to know that it wasn’t, not really.

She sniffed, in answer.

The crypts were large, housing many dead Starks, but they were not large enough that the Onion Knight could not have heard her conversation, with Myranda.

She knew that he didn’t like her spending so much time with the Shadow, because the Shadow didn’t speak and he thought the Shadow was mad, like Ramsay Bolton was, but he never objected, every time she lied to Myranda about it.

She was still his Princess, after all, and he knew that the Shadow was her friend, now, just as he was.

He wouldn’t try to take him from her.

“Do you think…” Shireen bit the inside of her cheek, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at the knight. “Do you think Father won’t come back because he’s punishing me, for this?” She whispered, finally putting a voice to the worry she had been trying to hold back all of this time, because she couldn’t stand making the Onion Knight look even more sad than he already did.

But the question plagued at her, the longer she spent in the crypts, wondering when she, too, would be buried alongside all of these bodies.

The Onion Knight sucked in a breath. “Princes…”

Shireen sniffed again, rubbing at her eyes, not able to look at the Onion Knight, now.

“Your father loves you very much, Princess,” the Onion Knight said, a bit stiffly. “He only did it so that he could keep you safe.”

“No, he didn’t,” Shireen whispered, interrupting him, and the Onion Knight turned to her with wide eyes.

“Princes…”

“If he loved me, he would have taken me with him,” she whispered, very sure of the thought. “Like he took Mother, and the Red Woman.”

She tried not to think about the fact that her father probably would have chosen the Red Woman over her mother, if he’d wanted to, and didn’t want to think about the thought that even then, he loved her mother more than her.

Else, he would have taken her with him, when he left this place, and she would never have ended up as a captive to Ramsay Bolton. Or, at the very least, he would have come back for her, the moment he learned that Ramsay had taken Winterfell, where he knew his daughter to be.

She sniffed, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with her grimy hands.

Myranda had just insisted on bathing her, and already, she was dirty again.

That was what came of living down here, she thought, glancing around as the Onion Knight bent down in front of her.

“Your father was trying to protect you, Princess,” he told her, gently, and his eyes were pained. “He was going to fight the Lannisters, and he didn’t want to drag you into a battle. He thought that…I’m sure that he thought the Boltons were gone for good, else he would never have left you here.”

Shireen sniffed again, refusing to meet his eyes. “Then he should have come back,” she whispered, so softly that the Onion Knight had to lean forwards to hear her.

The Onion Knight let out a sigh, at her words. “They say your father’s gone North,” he said. “Can’t imagine why, but I’m sure that he doesn’t know about what’s happened here. Or he would come back.”

He said it like he didn’t truly believe it, but wanted her to, the same way that he always told her that everything would be all right, it would.

She licked her lips. “I know,” she lied, because she didn’t really know that anymore, did she?

Her father had almost sacrificed her to the Lord of Light, before the Battle of Winterfell. Had wanted to, because the Red Woman whispered it in his ear, and she had always thought that the Red Woman was good, that she was her friend, before that moment.

She had told him that the Lord of Light demanded a sacrifice, and the only reason that Shireen hadn’t been sacrificed, she knew, was because of the Onion Knight.

Because he had reminded her father of how he had made sacrifices to the Lord of Light already, even if Shireen didn’t know what he was talking about and the thought of it made her cringe, and still, Joffrey Baratheon lived.

That had been what had staid her father’s hand, not his love for his daughter, and it had made her sick, to realize that.

And then, he had left her in Winterfell, while he had gone West, which he had never done before, not since he had first taken her from Dragonstone, and she didn’t know if it was a punishment, for the fact that he hadn’t sacrificed her when he should have.

And then, the Boltons had taken back Winterfell, and she wondered if her father had not returned for her because he had recognized his failure, in not sacrificing her to the Lord of Light, was the reason that the Boltons had managed to take Winterfell back.

Wondered if he was sacrificing her to them, now, rather than the Lord of Light.

Shireen loved her father, and it hurt, to know that she had failed him by staying alive. That she was in this position at all because he hadn’t done what the Red Woman told him to, with her.

The Onion Knight’s eyes were sad, as he took a seat against the wall beside her.

She thought he knew what she was thinking, but he didn’t try to convince her otherwise. Just sat with her, and she was glad for his silence.

* * *

A girl who called herself Arya Stark took a deep breath, as the doors to her chambers were ripped open, trying not to flinch at the loud sound as it echoed through the room.

Myranda stepped into her chambers with all of the prim smugness of a queen, for all that she was nothing more than a kennel master’s daughter, and they both knew it. She eyed Arya up and down, and then smirked a little, and clapped her hands together.

The loud sound made Arya flinch, too, where she sat on the bed, or rather, laid on it, barely able to sit up properly after her husband’s…ministrations, the night before.

Her gown had slipped down, exposing much of what he had done to her, and it was that Myranda was smirking at, the bitch.

Arya wondered whether Ramsay bruised her when he made love to Myranda, and if she enjoyed it when Arya could not. If it was the same sort of bruising, or if he was somehow nice to her because he liked her madness, saw it as akin to his own.

Myranda eyed her with amusement. “Ramsay says its time for supper, now,” she said, and Arya grimaced as she got to her feet, and reached for her torn robe, where Ramsay had left it on the floor beside her bed, earlier.

“Already?” She asked, trying to infuse this situation with normalcy when they both knew that there was nothing normal about it.

Myranda, the kennel master’s daughter, was Ramsay’s whore, and she loved him with a jealous, possessive love.

Arya couldn’t imagine what was wrong with the mind of someone who loved Ramsay Bolton so obviously.

Myranda hummed. “He’s invited his mother, Walda, as well,” she said. “He wants you there, now.”

Arya grimaced, shrugging into her torn robe more painful than she had thought it would be. She thought for a moment about what to do with her hair, before giving up on it altogether; Ramsay’s men had spent the last several months before they had retaken Winterfell living in the woods, and even before that, they had seen her in worse states.

She saw no reason to pretend otherwise now, just because they bowed before her and called her the Lady of Winterfell, once again.

Myranda pursed her lips in irritation, but didn’t say anything as Arya turned to her and said, “I’m ready.”

Myranda hummed. “Fine,” she muttered, and turned, stalking from the room, leading the way into a dining hall where Arya Stark had once eaten meals with her family, a dining hall that had once been filled with happiness and music.

Now, it was filled only with the sound of silence, the creaking of guards’ armor, and Ramsay Bolton’s smile, where he sat already at the head of the table, across from Fat Walda.

He smiled, as Arya stepped into the dining hall, stood to kiss her cheek, before she sat down beside him, Myranda sitting by his other side.

“I see you dressed up for the occasion, Wife,” Ramsay teased her, but Arya could not even bring herself to feel fear at what he might do to her for not having dressed up.

She was too tired.

“Mother,” Ramsay said, clutching his mother’s arms as he leaned down to kiss her, and Fat Walda Frey shuddered, but didn’t dare pull away as he did so, before he took a seat across from her and between Myranda and Arya, once more.

The meal was tense, silent.

Arya was not usually invited to the meals; she had to go to the kitchens most days and beg, like the dogs, and the servants there were only slightly nicer than Ramsay was with his animals, even if they pretended to respect her as the Lady of Winterfell.

“I’ve been thinking, Mother,” Ramsay said into the silence that accompanied forks being scraped across plates, and drinking, and guards watching on, and Walda lifted her head.

Arya didn’t think she would ever become accustomed to Ramsay calling her that, just as she would never get accustomed to Ramsay calling her ‘Arya.’

But especially not after Ramsay had killed Roose in front of Walda.

“Oh?” The other woman asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Ramsay smirked, and suddenly, Jeyne knew.

She knew that he knew, somehow, about what Walda had done. About the letter that she had sent her corpse of a father, a man who had never loved her if he had married her off to the Boltons in the first place, but certainly hadn’t after Stannis had retaken Winterfell and he hadn’t lifted a finger to find her.

And still, she had sent it, because he was her father. Begging for help against Ramsay Bolton, who saw her child as nothing more than a threat, now that his father was also gone.

Ramsay didn’t say any of this, however. What he did say, still smirking, was, “My dogs haven’t been fed in an age, poor things. They must be almost willing to eat each other, at this point, just to get some food in their stomachs.”

Walda’s face went very pale. “No…” she breathed, eyes widening.

Arya sighed, and looked away, suddenly no longer hungry at all, despite the fact that she, too, couldn’t remember the last time that she had eaten.

Walda’s mouth fell open; she glanced from Ramsay to Arya, and then back to Ramsay, seeming to realize only then that she would receive no sympathy, from Arya.

Oh, she had her sympathy. But Walda should know by now that there was nothing Arya could do, to stop her husband.

There was nothing anyone could do.

“Please,” Walda said, desperation bleeding into her voice. “Please, don’t do this. Ramsay, please! He’s your brother.”

Ramsay chuckled, stabbing another slab of meat and chewing on it loudly. “You had to know this was coming, Mother,” he said, voice cheerful, as if they were discussing the weather. “And your husband was my father; that didn’t stop me.”

He said it as if he thought she ought to be proud of him, for butchering his own father in the woods after they had lost the battle to Stannis Baratheon.

Arya sat very still; her stomach suddenly felt queasy, and she knew that Ramsay would make some comment about her not eating enough, when he took her to bed later, but that would be better than throwing up in front of him, now, she thought.

Walda swallowed hard; the sound of it was loud in the otherwise silent dining room, and Arya flinched.

“Please, Ramsay,” Walda continued, real fear bleeding into her tone now, as she seemed to realize that this wasn’t some new, cruel joke, that he fully intended to make do on the threat. “Please, don’t do this. Not to him. Hurt me, but don’t hurt him. Please. He’s just a child!”

Ramsay grunted, lifting his chin. “And who would take care of him without you, Mother?” he asked her. “You’re so good with him. I’d hate to think that he would grow up alone, an orphan.”

Walda started to sob, pushing back her chair but not daring to get up from it.

“I grew up without a mother, after all, and look how I turned out,” Ramsay continued, smirking for a moment before his expression morphed into one of mock sympathy. “I know you wouldn’t want that for your son.”

Walda swallowed thickly. “Please…” she whimpered, but seemed unable to continue beyond that one word, and Arya looked away as the tears streamed down the other woman’s face, feeling uncomfortable, now.

She knew that if she got up and left, if she spoke out at all, Ramsay would still kill Walda and the child, and he would do worse things, to her.

And Myranda, damn her, smiling where she sat on the other side of Ramsay, would watch.

He didn’t have his creature, his Reek, to watch anymore, so Myranda did, and Ramsay liked to show off for her even more than he had for Reek.

“This is for the best,” Ramsay told her, reaching out to take Walda’s hand in his; she snatched hers away, but he didn’t seem at all bothered by that, just shrugging and leaning back in his chair.

“After you’re gone, I won’t have any reason to keep playing nice with the Freys,” Ramsay went on, still smiling, though the look was almost gentle, now.

The same look that he had given Arya on their wedding night, before he tore open her gown and called for Reek.

“I’ll be able to be rid of them, finally,” Ramsay continued, as if he thought Walda ought to be proud of him for making such plans. “And the North hates them, for what they did to the Starks; when they’re gone, I’ll have an even better claim to Winterfell.” He eyed Arya. “What do you think, Wife? A good present for you?”

Arya shook, and didn’t speak.

Ramsay shrugged again. “Well, if you don’t appreciate it there’s another princess in the castle who might. She definitely stands to gain from it, too.”

Arya felt her stomach drop out, beneath her.

Ramsay smirked, because Walda was crying hysterically now, not listening to a word that he was saying, but he kept talking, anyway, and Myranda was staring at him with rapt attention.

Still, Ramsay was looking at Arya, not Myranda or Walda, and Arya shivered as she knew that he would want to hurt her tonight, that Myranda would encourage it for the way that he was looking at her, now.

“What do you think? Should we invite Her to the proceedings, to watch, Arya?” Her husband asked, at her side.

The thought of inviting Her to the proceedings - of inviting Her to watch Ramsay sic his dogs on a child and his mother, as Arya knew it would happen - was abhorrent, to her, and she wanted to be sick at the thought.

Her mind spun.

She couldn’t save Walda and he child; she could see that in Ramsay’s mind, he’d already made up his mind about it.

But if she could, surely, she should try to keep Her away from it.

And he had been calling her Arya - everyone had, even those who were in on the secret - ever since their marriage, so she should have been used to it, by now. Should have been used to answering to that name.

But in the bedchamber, he didn’t call her anything, and so she took another bite of her food without looking up, without realizing that her husband had asked her anything at all, even though she should have.

She had not slept at all, the night before. Her husband had not come to her chambers at all, and sometimes, those nights were worse, because she wasn’t given the warning that he wasn’t coming, and so she would wait all night, sometimes, to see if he would.

It was better to be ready for him than to wake in the night, caught by surprise because her husband wanted to perform his husbandly duties.

“Wife!” Ramsay shouted, though his demeanor didn’t change in the least, and Myranda snorted a little as she took another sip of her wine at his other side, while Walda, still shaking and whimpering, flinched again.

Arya flinched. “I…” she swallowed hard. Looked at Walda, where the other woman was still shaking and crying, and then away, because Walda was staring at her like she thought Arya might have some sort of solution for this. Then, lifting her chin, “I think it would be unwise, my lord, to bring Her out of the crypts. She’s more comfortable down there, and the Lords of the North seem to prefer things when she’s down there, too.”

Ramsay stared at her for a moment, and then he burst out laughing. “My wife is learning, Mother,” he told Walda, grinning as the woman kept sobbing in front of them.

It was only then that Arya realized he’d purposely had Walda sit on the other side of the table from them, so that she was against them, Arya noticed.

Arya shivered.

She wondered how long he’d been planning this; things were always worse, the more thought Ramsay put into them.

She hoped that he would have the dogs eat them; that, at least, would be over with more quickly than if he had them flayed alive, like the Boltons did to their enemies on the battlefield.

“Well, no time like the present,” Ramsay said, into the silence. “Don’t you think?”

Walda’s tears streamed down her face and onto the plate beneath her hands, and she didn’t answer.

Myranda hummed. “I’ll have the guards go and find the boy,” she said, smirking, and Walda let out another desperate sob as the guards remaining in the room moved towards her.

Ramsay got to his feet, as well, and Arya tried desperately to think of some escape for herself, from what was about to happen.

She couldn’t stop it, but she didn’t want to be forced to watch it, either.

“I’m feeling a bit…tired,” Arya gasped out. “Perhaps I could go and lie down, instead?”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you’re pregnant?” He asked her, and Arya felt the blood drain from her face.

“I…No, my lord,” she said, and Ramsay shrugged, leaning forward and grabbing ahold of her, then.

“Your name is Arya Stark,” Ramsay said, lifting her chin in his hand, and Arya shivered a little as she forced herself to meet his eyes.

Nothing good ever came of meeting his eyes. He didn’t like to be challenged by those who feared him.

“And you will watch this because it pleases me,” he went on, and Arya lifted her chin out of his grip, for just a moment, before nodding meekly and lowering her head again.

Ramsay rolled his eyes, and walked out into the courtyard of Winterfell, and Arya forced herself to follow him, even as her legs threatened to give out beneath her.

She saw, with some relief, that chairs had been set out for them, to watch the…proceedings, and she gritted her teeth and tried not to react to the thought of what those proceedings would be.

She was already going to be punished, tonight, for not reacting the first time he’d called her ‘Arya,’ at the supper table.

She lowered her eyes. “Yes, my lord,” she whispered, and Ramsay let go of her arm as he took his seat.

She sat, as well, and pretended that her stomach wasn’t queasy and unpleasant, ever since that meal. Pretended that her legs would carry her, if she could just persuade herself to get up and run away from this horrible place.

Instead, her eyes strayed to the middle of the courtyard, where the guards, all so very loyal to Ramsay, dragged out Walda and her son, Walda’s hands bound behind her back, but her mouth let free so that all could hear her screams.

The guards were holding her child as one might a fox caught on the hunt, and Arya grimaced, looking away, but there was nowhere to look that felt safe.

Not Walda and her son and the guards, and not the kennel master, bringing out the dogs, as they strained on their harnesses and growled at the air.

Myranda, where she stood at Ramsay’s side, let out a little laugh. “Look at them, Ramsay,” she said, her voice almost teasing. “They’re so hungry. You’ve been neglecting them.”

Ramsay laughed, and Arya felt sick again.

There was a pit, in the middle of the courtyard where Starks had once stood so neatly in a row to meet lords and kings who came to Winterfell.

It was where the Boltons had stood, as well, as they first greeted Jeyne Poole, pretending that she was Arya because it pleased them to do so, because they had something to gain from convincing the rest of a rebellious North that they now had Arya Stark at Winterfell.

Now, it was a pit.

Ramsay had turned it into that, when he took Winterfell back from what remained of Stannis’ soldiers there, after the man had gone North and no one had heard from him for some time.

They had been living in the woods, Ramsay and his men, Myranda and Jeyne. Had been forced to live like animals for months, because it looked to Ramsay like he would never get his chance to take back Winterfell by then, but he was a stubborn man and refused to slink back home with his tail between his legs.

Or at least, that was what he had told Roose, before he buried a knife in his chest and declared to the soldiers of House Bolton that his father had been a coward.

Jeyne remembered the look of shock in Roose’s eyes, moments before he died, as he realized that his son really did have what it took to kill his own father.

But Ramsay’s persistence had eventually paid off; eventually, and Jeyne didn’t quite know how, he had learned that Stannis had gone Beyond the Wall and disappeared for good, and that had been the same day that he had decided to take back Winterfell, under cover of darkness.

Quietly, of course, because the North might not like Stannis much, but they certainly preferred him to the Boltons, just now.

And then…

And then, it had been a bloodbath, even though there were more soldiers inside the Keep than Ramsay had with him.

He’d flayed them alive, in the pit that had been made from their blood drenching the soil of the courtyard so much that the land started to dip inwards, the bodies piled on each other for days, flayed and flayed until each man died of the flaying alone.

Ramsay had gotten rid of the bodies eventually, after they laid out there as trophies, but he seemed to like the symbolism of the pit, and it was where he punished anyone else who wronged him, these days.

Except for Jeyne. Her punishments were always of a…more private nature.

Walda was still sobbing, as she was led out before the dogs, as Ramsay grinned and spread his arms wide.

“Anything else you’d like to say, Mother?” He asked her, and the guards let go of her for a single moment.

Walda tried to run for her son. The guards grabbed her again, and Ramsay laughed.

Jeyne swallowed hard.

“I guess not,” Ramsay said, chuckling, and his men chuckled with him because they feared him, Jeyne knew, but it was cold comfort, today.

Then, Ramsay nodded to the kennel master to let the dogs loose, and his men all backed up as the dogs entered the pit, frothing at the mouth for some food after being left without for so long.

Walda’s anguished screams filled the air, and Jeyne cracked an eye open to find that one of the guards had thrown Ramsay’s brother into the pit before the dogs could reach Walda.

The guards, however, had all backed up, not wanting to become targets of the dogs, themselves.

Jeyne squeezed her eyes shut until her husband leaned over and hissed, “What did I just tell you, Wife?”

She forced her eyes open again, forced herself to remember how to breathe as the dogs made quick work of the child - he was only an infant, after all - and turned their snouts in Walda’s direction, next.

Her name was Jeyne Poole, she thought to herself, in the privacy of her own mind where even Ramsay Bolton could not get to her, no matter how hard he tried.

Sometimes, she had the thought while he was abusing her, in the bedchamber. Sometimes, she had it at inane times of the day, when she knew that Ramsay wasn’t watching her and couldn’t know her thoughts, as she sometimes suspected he had the ability do to.

She was having the thought now, and she knew that it was wrong, because she should be thinking only of Walda, as her child was thrown into a pit of wild dogs who didn’t hesitate to tear him apart, despite the child’s cries, despite the way that Walda fell to her knees and screamed.

She wasn’t trying to get away. She had just seen the worst sight of her entire life, Jeyne was sure, and she was giving up.

There was no escape attempt, no tears, no threats of what her father might do to Ramsay, for this.

Just…screams, for a child already lost, a child whom she would soon join.

My name is Jeyne Poole.

Jeyne Poole.

Jeyne Poole.

She repeated it over and over, in her mind, as she watched the dogs eat Ramsay’s little brother while his stepmother, Fat Walda, watched, and then, she kept up the litany, as she watched the dogs turn on Fat Walda next, where she was bound and flailing on the ground, where she had all but given up fighting them off as the last of her child’s screams had stopped, as the woman’s screams and cries, more for grief for her child than for her own pain, filled the air.

If she were Arya, she would get up, she would do something, because Arya had always been a courageous little thing, even when she was being stupid. She would always do what she thought was right, the way that she had ordered her dog on Joffrey Baratheon, after he had tormented the butcher’s boy, or at least, that was how Sansa had told her it was done.

Arya was good, and brave, and had never questioned her own mind.

Jeyne Poole was just a steward’s daughter, blessed to be Sansa’s friend and thus spend so much time with her.

Jeyne Poole wasn’t brave, or smart, or particularly good with words. She had just enjoyed spending time with Sansa, and learning the sorts of things that Sansa learned, from the septas.

Jeyne Poole couldn’t do anything if the Lord of Winterfell ordered someone’s death, even if she thought it was wrong.

She was shaking, in her seat, and her husband reached out, snatching her hand in hers and squeezing it so tightly that Jeyne flinched, the way she knew he wanted her to.

He smirked at her, leaning down to whisper in her ear, “If you cry over her, I’ll feed you to the dogs next, Wife.”

She tried to tell herself that it was a lie, even as her shaking only got worse. That Ramsay needed her alive, because the North hated him, and because he had only managed to bring them all in line by marrying her. And because he needed to put a child in her belly eventually, so that House Bolton could continue on without worry of being overthrown.

She wasn’t quite convinced of the words, though, even as she thought them. Even as her husband dropped her hand and turned back to the dogs, smiling widely.

Walda Frey had always been kind to her. She was a kind woman; never asking for more than she got, seemingly happy with Roose Bolton, up until the day his own son had murdered him, though her husband was as cold and cruel as any man Arya had ever met.

She had pitied Arya, too, she knew that, though she did not hold it against the other woman.

While Roose was cold, his son was cruel in other ways, and Arya had no doubt that Walda heard those screams, every night that Ramsay came to visit her bedchambers.

During the day, Walda would often come and sit with her, for long hours at a time, never asking for anything, because Arya did not speak, most times, just sitting with her, making sure that she had something to eat, for all that her nickname ridiculed Walda for thinking of food too often, and Arya appreciated it.

She would ask Arya about her life in Winterfell, before she had ever married Ramsay, before she had seen her father killed and been rescued from the vile clutches of the Lannisters by Lord Baelish, would ask her what she used to do here, when she was a lady, as if she would happily bring back such activities again.

Jeyne had never had the heart to tell her that she wasn’t really Arya Stark, that she didn’t know much about what Arya had done to entertain herself when they were younger because she and Sansa had spent so much time avoiding the other girl, and Arya had spent so much time around the boys whom Sansa’s mother said it was inappropriate to be around for so long during the day, instead of learning to be a lady.

Now, Jeyne wished that she had learned some of the things that Arya might have, being around boys for so much of her young life.

She wished she’d learned how to wield a knife.

She wondered what Walda might have said if she told her that she was never really Arya Stark.

She appreciated it when sometimes during her pregnancy, Walda would sit with her and sew, and talk about how her son was going to be the true heir to House Bolton, once he was born, because she was married to Roose while Ramsay’s mother had not been, and she would say it in a whisper as she looked over her shoulder, but like she knew that Arya would never tell anyone else about those secret conversations.

She never had.

And now, that child who was to be Walda’s salvation, and Jeyne’s too, if she was being honest…well, by the time the dogs were done with him, there was nothing left of him, not even flesh, only the blood staining the dogs’ snouts.

There was something left of Walda, but even then, Jeyne knew that her husband starved his dogs so that they would always eat whatever he placed in front of them, and they were hungry, today.

Ramsay was laughing, when it was over with, and beside him, Myranda was laughing, as well.

And then Ramsay clapped his hands, and one of his servants stepped forward. “Go and find the little Princess,” he said. “I have a gift for her.”

Jeyne reached out, hand grabbing Ramsay’s wrist where he still held it in the air, and he half turned in his chair, eyes going very wide at the open defiance, but he did not try to shake off her hand.

She suspected it would have been embarrassingly easy for him, if he had tried.

“What?” He snapped at her, and Jeyne forced herself not to grimace, because she knew that he would punish her for this later, and she might as well not give him more ammunition.

She looked down at the splotches of red on the ground of the courtyard, and swallowed hard.

Wondered if she should have done something more. If it would have been worth it, to try and oppose Ramsay to save the child, or, at the very least, Walda, from such a death, or if he would have killed them and hurt her, anyway.

The way he used to do at the beginning of their marriage, when she was more interesting to him than she was now, when Reek was there to watch.

She suspected that he’d enjoyed it more, because Reek was watching, and that thought gave her a little bit of the fury that she needed to oppose him now, because Walda and her son were dead, but he had no right to be crueler to anyone else, today.

To Jeyne, perhaps, because she was his, but not to Her. Not today.

Jeyne didn’t think she could live through another cruelty to someone else, today. Not when her heart was already beating in her chest, and she thought that she would have fainted if she weren’t already sitting, earlier.

On his other side, standing because she was not a lady, Myranda’s eyes widened at her defiance.

Jeyne licked her lips. “Don’t,” she whispered, so softly that only the three of them could hear, as the dogs finally stopped, and began licking at their paws in desperation.

Ramsay’s eyes met hers for a moment, and then hardened. He ripped his wrist out from her grip as easily as she had thought he would, and then snapped, “You are my wife, Lady Arya, not my counselor, and not my lord. Do not presume to question me.”

Jeyne bit her lip. “I…”

She thought of Arya Stark, that fiery little munchkin she had known growing up alongside Sansa, and thought that Arya Stark would never have been silenced by an angry husband, would never have sat back and done nothing if she thought something was wrong.

But Arya Stark was dead; everyone knew that. It was why Lord Baelish had brought her here, why he had handed her over to Ramsay as a wife, given her the name of Arya when only he, Lord Roose, Reek and Ramsay knew the truth about who she really was.

Arya was dead, or Baelish would never have dared go through with this, not when he could have the real deal.

Arya was dead, and sometimes, Jeyne wished that she was dead, but she was still alive, and that meant she had to get out of here.

She had to get out of here, no matter the cost.

She looked down at the dogs, as the kennel master and his boys dragged the creatures back to their kennel, as the lords who had stayed to watch Fat Walda and her son’s demise - for whatever reason, because they feared Ramsay or were as sadistic as he was, she didn’t know - started to disperse.

As Myranda moved closer to Ramsay, staking her claim after the way that Jeyne had touched him by bending down and whispering something in his ear that made him snicker.

And Fat Walda and her son were gone, as if they had never been, the only reminder of them the red splotches on the ground of the courtyard, that Jeyne could not tear her eyes away from.

She hadn’t cried, Jeyne tried to tell herself, as several of the guards disappeared to bring Her here, the way that Ramsay had ordered.

She hadn’t cried, and that was good, even if a part of her desperately wanted to, and felt like a coward, for having not done so.

And then the guards were dragging Shireen Baratheon and her Onion Knight out into the courtyard next, and this time, Jeyne thought that she might really cry.

She suddenly felt a sympathy for Theon that she had never truly felt before, when he had sat back and watched as Ramsay abused her.

This was what it must have felt like, for him, she thought, to be this powerless, this useless in the face of Ramsay Bolton.

“Princess!” Ramsay said, grinning at her as he jumped to his feet, and the Onion Knight stepped forward at the motion, but that only made Ramsay’s smile grow. He reached out, running a hand through Shireen Baratheon’s hair, and the Onion Knight swallowed hard and reached for a knife that he didn’t possess.

Jeyne knew that Ramsay let him keep a knife, down in the crypts where he kept the two of them captive together. He thought it was hilarious. Every time he sent a guard down there to fetch the princess, to tell her some new horror story about her life, the Onion Knight, as he called the man who never left her side, would try to fight them off.

And every time, they were brought up here, anyway.

Not because the Onion Knight was a bad fighter; to the contrary, he had killed more than half of the men that Ramsay sent down there, but he never got past the third step of the crypts with the Princess.

Ramsay’s dogs wouldn’t allow that, and the Onion Knight would never endanger the Princess by trying to take on the dogs alone, and leaving her in Winterfell, alone.

But still, every time Ramsay brought the Princess and the Onion Knight up to see him, the Onion Knight looked a little more defeated, each time, and Jeyne felt another swell of pity for him today, as his eyes took in the sight of the courtyard, the sight of the blood, staining the ground.

The dogs were gone, but the evidence of what they had just done was not, and Jeyne imagined that they could hear the screams even down in the crypts, today.

Ramsay stepped back, raising his hands in mocking surrender to the Onion Knight, before smiling down at Shireen again.

And…she truly was a princess, Jeyne thought. The girl was clearly terrified, but she didn’t let a bit of that show on her face, as she stared down the new Lord of Winterfell, the one who had usurped her father’s position here after Stannis Baratheon had disappeared and Ramsay had found Winterfell ripe for the picking.

Jeyne would have been proud of her, if she didn’t fear whatever Ramsay was planning, next.

Ramsay was still smiling; that was never a good sign. He liked to pretend to be kind, Jeyne knew, right before he did something horribly cruel.

“I have a gift for you, Princess,” he told Shireen as he bounded back to his chair, sat down in it like a lord holding court, and Shireen did not advance forward into the pit of drying blood.

The Onion Knight stiffened, at those words.

Jeyne bit the inside of her cheek until she could taste blood.

Myranda, at Ramsay’s side, smirked a little. “You’re very lucky, Princess,” she said, in the same voice that Ramsay had used. “The Lord of Winterfell does not give gifts out often.”

Shireen swallowed hard; Jeyne could almost hear it, from where she sat, but she didn’t speak.

Jeyne had a feeling that was for the best; had a terrible feeling that the girl might say something along the lines of the fact that her father was the Lord of Winterfell, after he had taken it from the Boltons, and that would only make everything worse, Jeyne knew.

Ramsay tilted his head back in his chair, looking up at the bright, cold sky for a moment before his gaze returned to Shireen. “You know that we’ve enjoyed hosting you here, Princess, even at great personal cost. Princesses, of course, must be treated in the manner to which they’re accustomed.”

Shireen gulped.

Ramsay eyed her for a moment longer, and Jeyne hated this. Hated the suspense that came with not knowing what it was Ramsay was about to say. What it was this gift was, after what he had just done to Walda and the child.

“You should thank us, for our hospitality,” Ramsay continued. “There are…other ways that we could have dealt with the situation, which would have been less kind, to the daughter of a traitor.”

The Onion Knight looked furious.

“After all,” Ramsay gestured to the blood staining the ground in front of him, “I had to host my father’s wife and her child here, even after my father fell in glorious battle against yours.”

Jeyne didn’t roll her eyes; she knew that the punishment for that would only be worse. Ramsay wanted to create a narrative, because, no doubt, he thought Shireen an innocent girl who shouldn’t hear the truth.

If she knew the truth, Jeyne thought, she would have had her Onion Knight slit her throat, down there in the crypts where they were kept with the bodies of the dead.

Shireen swallowed hard. “I…She was your mother, too, my lord,” she said. “You should have hosted her.”

So, she knew. Jeyne wondered if one of the guards - the butcher’s boys, as Ramsay liked to call them - had told the two of them, on their way up.

Shireen’s eyes flitted over to the pit, and then away.

Ramsay grinned. “Yes, but they weren’t really my family,” he said. “She was my father’s wife, but she wasn’t my mother. My mother was a whore.”

Silence.

Ramsay cleared his throat; clearly, he had not gotten the reaction that he wanted. “Do you want to know why I didn’t have to host them anymore, Princess? And it was about having to. Even after my father’s death, I knew that I couldn’t be rid of them.”

Shireen licked her lips. “Walda was the daughter of Walder Frey,” she said, very quietly. “And he doesn’t like you, very much.”

Ramsay threw back his head, and laughed. He jumped to his feet then, and the Onion Knight stiffened as he moved around the pit to come stand in front of Shireen, tilting up her chin.

“No, he doesn’t,” he said. “Even though we were the ones who helped him do his dirty work, with the Starks.” A shrug. “Well, to each their own. I didn’t like his fat daughter, nor her son.”

Shireen started to shake then, in earnest, the cracks starting to appear in her facade.

Ramsay chucked her chin, and let go of her, but did not move away. Myranda, pouting, stalked forward and put a proprietary hand on his arm.

“But that is my gift to you, Princess,” Ramsay said, nodding to the pit, where the smell of flesh still stung at the air in front of Jeyne’s nose.

“I…” Shireen blinked at the pit, horror in her expression for a moment before she buried it deep, and then blinked back up at Ramsay. “I don’t understand.”

Ramsay hummed. “I’ve finally chosen a side, Princess. Bent the knee, as they say.”

Shireen’s eyes widened, and Jeyne felt a stab of pity, guessing already, solely from the amount of time she had spent around Ramsay, where this was going.

“Are…are you sending me back to my mother, at the Rock?” Shireen asked, hopefully, even as the Onion Knight closed his eyes.

The Onion Knight knew what sort of creature called himself the Lord of Winterfell, now.

“Now, that would be silly,” Ramsay said, laughing at her. “Wouldn’t it, after I just killed the daughter of one of the Lannisters’ strongest supporters?” He eyed the Onion Knight. “You’ve been neglecting her studies. If she’s ever going to make a good traitor’s daughter, she ought to know who’s who, in the world around her.”

The Onion Knight’s cold eyes grew flinty. “I’ll keep that in mind, m’lord.”

Ramsay squinted at him, and then shrugged, bending down so that he was eye level with Shireen.

“No, you’re not going to the Rock, and you can thank your father for that. Because he left far too many Lannisters alive at the Rock, when he took it, and then…went North, because he couldn’t take it anymore. They’ve taken the Rock for the Lannisters, and I’m afraid that your mother probably isn’t very happy, right now, at the Rock."

Shireen squinted at him, looking bemused now, but that pit in Jeyne’s stomach only grew.

“So, I’ve decided not to send you somewhere where you’ll also be unhappy, Princess,” Ramsay said.

He was drawing it out, damn him, and enjoying it far too much, Jeyne thought.

“I’m sending you somewhere else,” Ramsay said. “And they won’t think of you as a Princess, there, I don’t think, but I dare say you’ll like it better than you do, here, or surrounded by Lannisters who hate your father for getting the better of them and then disappearing. Now, you ought to thank me, don’t you think?”

Shireen licked her lips, her throat suddenly very dry.

She was leaving, she thought, She was finally leaving.

And she knew that she should have been more bothered by the fact that he wasn’t sending her back to her mother, was sending her to King’s Landing, which was just another fortress full of those who weren’t her friends, but surely…

Surely, they couldn’t be worse than Ramsay Bolton, as her captors.

“I…Thank you, my lord,” she whispered, the Onion Knight standing stiffly beside her, and Ramsay Bolton threw back his head and laughed.


	13. The Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are...are y'all still out there?
> 
> Also, if you liked the shorter chapters better, let me know!

_Her own son had banished her. Her dear, beloved boy, who had once been able to deny her nothing, and she him, in turn, had sent her away from King’s Landing like a common strumpet, looking at her like he didn’t much care if he never saw her, again._

_It had been humiliating, but worse than that, it had been horrifying, to learn that her own son was sending her away, because of some foolish idea that she had somehow turned against him, when they were the only two people in the world who still cared about each other._

_Certainly Margaery Tyrell didn’t care about her son, with the way she’d been parading him around, fucking him public, in front of his own mother, like a shameless whore._

_Her ladies, the ones who had agreed to return to the Rock with her, were all giving her a wide birth, the closer they got to her homeland. None of them seemed certain whether to believe the accusations against her, and none of them were brave enough to ask._

_And she almost didn't blame them, furious though she let herself be with them at every opportunity, pretending shocked silence for most of the journey, and then blowing up at any one of them at the slightest excuse._

_They seemed happy enough when she sent Qyburn back, told the man to keep an eye on things, in King’s Landing, even if she could not, but still, they were frightened of her, of what sort of woman would turn against her own son._

_She scoffed; as if she would ever turn against Joffrey. All the things she had done in this long war, everything since she had had Robert’s cloak placed around her shoulders, had been for her children._

_And one day, Joffrey would understand that again._

_One day, they would all understand that again, she thought, as the great spires of Casterly Rock came into view, even…_

_Jaime._

_All of her thoughts were about Jaime, now._

_Joffrey might have sent her away, but that was only because Margaery had gotten inside his head, the same way that great bitch, Brienne of Tarth, and their wicked brother had gotten inside of jaime’s._

_But Jaime had been away from both of them for so long now, that Cersei felt something like assurance, that when she saw him again, he would have returned to their senses._

_He had taken Tommen with him, after all, even if she would not forgive him for having lost Myrcella back to the Martells, and that meant something._

_It meant that every day, Jaime was looking down at their child, their son, and remembering who belonged to. Tommen was theirs, and Jaime could not forget that, even when he was at his angriest._

_And if that was the case, it meant that Cersei could still turn this around. She would convince Jaime that he had been wrong to leave her, if he didn’t know it already, because she had only wanted what was best for their family, after all, and then they could be a family, again._

_They could get Myrcella back from the Martells, and Jaime could raise their armies against King’s Landing, if they had to, to get her son back from the Tyrells who had so poisoned his already fragile mind._

_She could still fix this._

_She just needed to see her brother, again. Just needed to feel Jaime’s arms around her, to breathe in his scent and know that he was still hers, and everything would be well, once more._

_And then they rounded the next hill, and Cersei’s troops, her ladies, all came to a stop, just…staring._

_She forced her horse up before all of them, and found that she, too, could not help but stare._

_No._

_No, what she was seeing was impossible. What she was seeing…it didn’t make sense, and she blinked several times, to make sure that the mirage in front of her wasn’t real._

_But it - the troops, gathered in long lines in the valley before the Rock - remained, no matter how many times Cersei tried to will them away._

_Oh no, Cersei thought, something like dull horror filling her._

_No, no, no._

_Something was terribly wrong._

_Something was wrong, because there shouldn’t be Baratheon soldiers waving the Baratheon stag’s flag in front of her home._

_Cersei pulled her horse to a sudden halt, glancing at her soldiers in confusion. “What is this?” She demanded of them, because surely one of them must have sent a scout ahead._

_The men looked as confused as she did, however, and Cersei bit back a silent scream._

_Dear gods, all of her nightmares were coming to plague her, now._

_She should have made good on her promise and had Margaery Tyrell strangled in her sleep, before she ever married Cersei’s son._

_The Baratheon flags did not disappear the next time she opened her eyes; in fact, they were coming towards her._

_“Your Grace…” one of her men said, no doubt about to tell her that they should leave this place and find cover, but Cersei held up a hand, and he fell silent._

_No, she thought. No, she needed to know what this was. Needed to know what had happened here, because Jaime would never have given up Casterly Rock to Stannis Baratheon, not after he had brought their son here._

_Not after their father had fought so hard for it._

_It made sense, she thought, dully. Of course Jaime had not come to their aid, when the smallfolk and their fanatical leaders had risen up against them, because he had been…_

_He had been…_

_No, she would not accept that._

_She would not accept that after everything she had suffered, her own son turning her away, half of her family abandoning her, Jaime was…_

_That he was…_

_“Well, well, what do we have here?” A slimy voice said, and Cersei gritted her teeth as she turned around to face that voice._

_A man with a Baratheon stag on his chest, grinning at her. “The Lady of the Rock, come back too late to lay claim to it.”_

_Cersei felt something like a migraine coming on. “What is the meaning of this?” She demanded, as her soldiers, the ones whom Margaery Tyrell had graciously allowed to leave with her, flocked around her, loosing their swords._

_Even if she already knew, even if a part of her knew exactly what this was…_

_“Perhaps we ought to lay claim to you,” the guards said, looking her up and down, and her soldiers moved forward then._

_“Lay a hand on her and it will be the last thing you ever do,” one of them said, even as Cersei wondered if they even believed the words, after they had witnessed her own son banish her, after they had been dispatched to make sure that she actually did as she was told._

_The men glanced at each other, and then shrugged, and the bloodbath began._

_The entire Baratheon army, or, she thought critically, looking out over the valley, a good half of it was here, after all, while she only had a handful of guards and ladies, and by the end of it, she did not even have those._

_She sat on her horse above her dead soldiers and dead ladies, and contemplated how fast she might be able to make her flight, before even the Baratheon soldiers kept her from that, one of them reaching up and yanking her free of her saddle._

_She stumbled to the ground as they pawed at her, pushing her up against her own horse, their wicked laughter filling the air, because they might follow one they believed to be such an honorable man, but in the end, they all really were men, weren’t they?_

_She reached up, trying to fight one of them off, but her hand slipped in the blood staining his cheek, blood belonging to one of her girls._

_She felt cold fury welling up within her, as the soldier pushed her around so that she was facing away from him, pawing at her gown, two more men joining him._

_She was staring down at one of her dead lady’s faces, as one of the men bent her over, and Cersei felt bile rising up in her throat._

_“Let me go,” Cersei gritted out, through clenched teeth, and the guards looked at her for a moment, their Baratheon armor glinting in the light of the sun, before they laughed._

_“You’ve got no more power here, you Lannister slut,” one of the men said, shoving her up against the horse she had ridden into the valley with, and Cersei gritted her teeth and fought back, kicked and scratched and screamed, because she had not just lost her son and been forced to come back here only to be raped by some common thug who had bent the knee to Stannis Baratheon._

_“I am the Lady of this Rock,” she gritted out, “And if you lay a hand on me, it will be the last thing you ever do.”_

_The men laughed again; their laughter grated._

_“One of your men just said that, Your Grace,” he said, mockingly, “and look at him.”_

_He pulled her up just enough to grab her by the chin and force it in the direction of her dead men, and Cersei felt sick._

_Stannis. Stannis had taken the Rock, and Margaery had taken her son._

_“I’ve always wanted to see what a Lannister lady’s cunt looked like, after the way they’ve fucked us all over,” one of the men said, reaching beneath her gown, and Cersei closed her eyes and screamed, the last scream left within her, as some more of the fight bled out of her._

_Because if Stannis had the Rock, if Jaime and Tommen were dead, if Myrcella had truly chosen Martells over her own family, if Margaery Tyrell had really poisoned Joffrey so fully against his own mother…_

_What did any of it matter, now?_

_He slapped her with the same hand that he had just touched her with, and Cersei swallowed hard and lifted her chin._

_“Go ahead,” she gritted out. “Do your worst, but know that the cunt you’re touching is far better than anything you were meant to have.”_

_The men looked at each other, and then laughed, reaching for her again._

_And it didn’t matter, Cersei thought. It didn’t matter because if Stannis’ men were at the Rock, were at her home, then that meant that Jaime wasn’t here, that her son had banished her and Jaime was dead…_

_And then, suddenly, there was Selyse Baratheon standing in front of her, going for a calm stroll with her serving girls around her, looking for all the world like she belonged at the Rock more than Cersei did, and Cersei could not have that._

_She would not have that._

_“Let her go,” Selyse said, sharply, and Cersei stared, panting, as the guards instantly dropped her._

_She wasn’t expecting it; her legs flopped uselessly, and she nearly fell to the ground before she managed to get them under herself once again._

_Selyse eyed her coldly, before her cold eyes returned to the guards. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” she snapped at them. “My husband would never have stood for this, if he were still here.”_

_The men looked up at her like chastised children, and it only made the humiliation that Cersei felt grow, as she readjusted her torn gown and had to be rescued by a mouse like Selyse Baratheon._

_“Yes, Your Grace,” one of the men said, instantly. “We did not mean…”_

_Selyse’s eyes were still cold. “I know what you meant to do,” she told them, coldly. “It is the same thing that every Lannister soldier still here would like to do to me, to remind me of my place.”_

_Cersei’s head shot up._

_There were still Lannister soldiers here, she thought, eyes widening._

_And if there were still Lannisters here, then that meant, somehow, that either Stannis hadn’t yet taken the Rock for himself, or he’d left enough of them as prisoners, and if some of them were prisoners, then perhaps there was still hope._

_Perhaps Jaime and her son still lived._

_Cersei no longer believed in the gods, but in that moment, she prayed. Furiously, hopelessly._

_“You may go,” Selyse said, then, and the guards, still looking like chastised children, turned and left._

_Selyse turned to her, then, and Cersei found that she didn’t want to have this conversation. Didn’t want to find herself beholden in any way to Selyse Baratheon._

_“Are you all right?” Selyse asked her, and behind her, her servants murmured amongst themselves._

_Cersei lifted her chin. “I’m fine,” she gritted out. “What the fuck is going on?”_

_Selyse sighed. “There have been…some changes around here,” she said, and Cersei rolled her eyes, because she could deduce that much on her own, thank you._

_“Stannis took the Rock?” She asked, forcing herself to at least appear calm, even as her heart beat furiously in her chest._

_Selyse hesitated; Cersei forgot how to breathe._

_Finally, Selyse sighed. “No, Cersei,” she said, softly. “Your brother held out against him. The Rock held out against him.”_

_Cersei shook her head, brows furrowing. “What the fuck does that mean? Why are you still here, if the Rock is holding out against Stannis?”_

_Selyse sighed, and didn’t answer._

_“Where is Jaime?” Cersei demanded, into the silence growing between them. She had the not knowing, hated the look Selyse was giving her, somewhere between sympathy and shared grief._

_Dear gods, Cersei couldn’t stand to learn that she had lost anything else, at this point. “Where is my son?”_

_Selyse bit her lip, before offering softly, “You’ve missed a great deal, Lady Cersei.”_

_Cersei lifted her chin. “Its Queen, actually,” she corrected._

_Selyse hummed. “Is it?”_

_Cersei was getting tired of the other woman’s attitude, her nonchalance in the face of Cersei’s fear and desperation._

_“Where is Tommen?” Cersei screeched at her, fear clawing up her throat._

_No. No, this was all some horrible nightmare, and she was going to wake up from it soon, and find that her son hadn’t sent her away from King’s Landing, that the Lannister flag still flew at the Rock, that everything was all right with the world, that her brother didn’t loathe their son, that Tommen was safe._

_Selyse sighed. “He’s alive, in the Rock, Cersei. He’s safe,” she said, and Cersei remembered, suddenly, how to breathe again._

_Tommen was alive. Stannis hadn’t killed the boy, somehow, and he was alive. Her son was alive, and her heart could beat again, she hadn’t lost everything._

_“And Jaime?” She whispered, hopefully, now._

_Selyse looked away. “I fear that we have both lost our loves,” she said, and Cersei stiffened._

* * *

“And the Baratheon soldiers?” Cersei asked, from where she sat in the Regent’s chair beside her son’s throne, her legs strewn over one of the arms of it, “How are they…settling into things?”

Truthfully, she didn’t much care, so long as there wasn’t a revolt, Cersei thought. At the moment, that was the only true worry that she had.

Eventually, she would show them the mistake that they had made, in declaring for Stannis Baratheon in the first place, but for now, she still needed the bastards.

Ser Benedict Broom, her master-at-arms, cleared his throat. “As…well as can be expected, Your Grace,” he informed her. “There has been some…discontent amongst the lower ranks, but the lords whom you managed to persuade in the courtyard have mostly managed this.”

Cersei nodded. “I see. Invite them all to a feast,” she said, “to be held in the Great Hall, so that they might feel…that they are being compensated well, for their change of heart. And bring as many whores in from Lannisport as you can find.”

Ser Benedict blinked at her, and then said, “Your Grace, your father forbade any whores from being brought into the Rock while he was Lord of it…”

“Well, I am Lord of it now,” Cersei snapped at him, icily, “and I command you to bring as many as you can find. Men are all the same; give them a good whore, and they’ll do whatever you like.”

Ser Benedict pressed his lips together, as if he didn’t quite agree with that assessment, but didn’t dare try to contradict her, for which Cersei was rather grateful.

She didn’t have time to be getting into arguments with her own people. She had enough to deal with, planning how to get her family back together again, and Tommen on the Iron Throne, and contending with the Baratheon soldiers that were still here and only hesitantly following her now, to deal with that.

She narrowed her eyes at her master-at-arms. “How ready are we for a full-scale assault?” She asked. “If House Tyrell refuses to bend the knee, as those obstinate upstarts will, are we able to bring them to heel?”

Her master-at-arms grimaced. “I believe we will just barely be able to meet them on equal footing, Your Grace, as long as their alliance with House Martell stands.”

Cersei grimaced. Of course, because it wasn’t enough that both Houses had to hate House Lannister, of course they were united in their hatred of her.

And of course, both Houses had a claim to a member of her family, even if the child in Margaery’s womb was not living, yet.

“And there’s been no more word of Stannis?”

A shrug. “Nothing since he went North with-”

“Yes, I know who he went North with,” Cersei snapped, and the man fell silent.

She didn’t want to hear about how Stannis Baratheon had somehow convinced her idiot of a brother to go Beyond the Wall with him. It was the sort of foolish thing that she could imagine the Imp doing, or, Jaime, if Stannis somehow made a good argument for chasing fairytales, as he clearly had.

And they were going to get themselves killed, doing it.

But Jaime would come back. Jaime had to come back.

If Jaime didn’t come back, Cersei would drag him back from the seven hells herself, if she had to.

He had no right to go and get himself killed, without her.

Cersei’s brows furrowed, and then, as she glanced out at the empty hall, inspiration struck.

“I want you to find Alysanne Lefford, and bring that traitorous bitch here,” Cersei hissed to the man.

He blinked at her. “Lady Lefford?” He asked. He sounded as if he couldn’t possibly understand what she would want with the other woman, and Cersei scoffed at him.

Lady Lefford was the reason they were all in this mess, after all. If it weren’t for her petty desire for vengeance, Stannis would never have been able to take half of the Westerlands so easily, and perhaps, Jaime would never have been forced to go North, with him.

She was going to pay for that. For taking what was Cersei’s, just because she could not handle what the Crown had demanded of her. Just because she wanted vengeance for something that Cersei had nearly forgotten about.

She glared at him. “Are you deaf? The bitch has offended me greatly, and allowed Stannis Baratheon into our kingdom, endangering thousands of lives for her own selfish reasons. Find her, and bring her to me.”

Oh, she had plans for Alysanne Lefford.

He gulped. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

* * *

Janei had never had a real opinion about her cousin, Cersei.

Oh, when she was a little girl, she had been terribly conceited, about the fact that her cousin was the Queen, that she had given birth to three such beautiful princes and princesses.

She had enjoyed telling her other friends how lucky she was, to have a cousin who was the queen, and truth be told, she had sometimes bragged about it so much that her friends found it annoying.

But it was quite a different matter entirely, to have a cousin whom she saw once maybe every year, rather than being forced into servitude to her cousin, in person, who was…something of a bitch.

She grimaced, biting back a sigh only because she knew that Cersei would reprimand her for it if she heard it, and tried to pretend that cleaning her cousin’s rooms didn’t make her want to bang her head into the wall.

Her cousin, who had sent Janei’s mother away because she kept crying that her children were being used as hostages.

The last of Janei’s sympathy, over the fact that Joffrey was dead, had quite dried up when Cersei had informed her that her mother was already gone, and she hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to her.

Cersei had done that. Cersei had stolen her mother away from her, because her mother was understandably upset with the way that Cersei had all but taken her children as her own hostages, Janei thought, bitterly, and Cersei couldn’t stand to see the woman crying over it, so she’d sent her away.

And Janei would not forgive her for it.

She bit back a sigh as she changed the sheets on Cersei’s bed.

When Cersei had first come back to the Rock, she’d gotten into some sort of…horrible altercation, with the Baratheon soldiers waiting outside, and lost the lives of her servants and her guards, so it seemed that none of her normal ladies could attend to her.

That was why she had chosen Janei, really, she knew. Because she needed someone to wait on her, someone who wasn’t just one of the normal servants of the Rock, though she had brought some of those into her service, as well, Janei knew.

But because there were so few of them left these days - the first days of Stannis’ negotiations with Jaime, and then later his leaving with her cousin had been dark days, indeed - Janei was left to do much of the work herself.

And so, she was changing the sheets on her cousin’s bed instead of sneaking off to find her brother, to comfort Martyn for just a few moments in the spare time that the both had, when that was all that she wanted to do.

Find her brother, and know that even if Cersei had gotten away with sending their mother off somewhere she couldn’t cry in front of them, at least Janei and Martyn still had each other.

But Martyn was always guarding Tommen, and Janei was always running errands for Cersei.

She couldn't remember the last time she’d had a real conversation with someone.

A knock at the door startled her from those thoughts, and Janei sighed. She knew the knock meant that it was not Cersei on the other side of that door, which was something of a relief, she supposed, but not much of one.

When Jaime and Stannis Baratheon had first left the Rock, there had been pandemonium. Soldiers who refused to ride North with them, who thought that they were simply going to get themselves killed because they’d lost their stomachs for war, were the ones who remained at the Rock, beyond the few whom Stannis had assigned there to watch over his wife, and who Jaime had assigned there to watch over Tommen.

There had been a revolt, in those first few days, as indeed, Janei, still a young woman, had known would come, even if for some reason Jaime and Stannis had thought that their truce would last when both of them had left.

The revolt had lasted almost a week, with Lannister bannermen and Baratheon bannermen fighting for the right to lay claim to the Rock in the valley below it, and Janei had never been so frightened in her entire life, not even when Stannis had first thought to attack the Rock before Jaime had flown the white flag, because at least then, her cousin had still been there, had still been able to negotiate with these cruel men who wanted what didn’t belong to them.

But he wasn’t there, this time, and Janei had spent those days huddled in a corner of the Rock with her mother and brother and Genna and Tommen, though she could not say rightly that Genna had huddled with the rest of them, busy making plans for their escape, if they ended up needing to flee, if the Lannister soldiers lost the battle.

And then, by the end of it, they were right back where they had started, with this fragile truce between them, neither one of them laying true claim to the Rock, but neither one of them trying to be rid of the other, either.

Janei didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand how men who so loved bloodlust could so easily give up on a fight, but she had been grateful.

And now, all of those men had pledged themselves to Cersei, and Janei understood that even less, but she didn’t have her mother here to comfort her, now, and she knew, at least in part, what it meant.

There was going to be a war. There was going to be more fighting, of the sort that she ha faced during that week long revolt, and Janei could not stand the idea of another war, of having to hide away in a corner in fright because at any moment, the enemy could knock down those doors and have their way with her, simply because she was a woman.

She sucked in a deep breath, and told herself that whoever was on the other side of that door was not there to start a war.

They wouldn’t have knocked, either.

She sniffed hard at the knock to her door, head lifting suddenly, and said softly, “Come in.”

A moment later, Tommen stepped into the room, and Janei froze at the sight of him.

If she were being honest, she would admit that she had been trying to avoid Tommen as much as she had Cersei, in recent weeks, since Cersei had announced his coronation.

With Cersei, she didn’t have the chance to avoid her often, and she was awful enough that Janei didn’t feel guilty for doing so, but Tommen was…different.

Sweet, and she felt bad seeing him like this, named King when he didn’t want it, when Cersei was the only one who had, so Janei had been doing her best to avoid him, as well.

But he wasn’t her sweet little cousin anymore, Janei reminded herself. Cersei had seen to that when she had named him King, and dragged them into this new war.

“Your Grace,” she said, sniffing again as she forced herself to curtsey for the boy, and Tommen squinted at her in confusion for a moment, as if he couldn’t understand why she would curtsey to him when she had never done so in the past, before he shrugged.

“Hello, Janei,” he said, stepping further into the room and taking a seat at Cersei’s desk as if it belonged to him, and for a moment, Janei grimaced at the thought of Cersei walking in on the two of them, before she remembered that Tommen was Cersei’s son.

Once, since Janei had started her service for the other woman, Cersei had caught her sitting before her mirror, putting some of Cersei’s more extravagant paint on her lips, and the other woman had smacked her for daring to touch what didn’t belong to her.

Janei was hesitant about touching anything that she wasn’t told to in these rooms, after that.

“What are you doing here, Your Grace?” Janei asked, abandoning the sheets for now and walking over to him, taking the seat across from him. “Shouldn’t you be at your lessons, with the maesters?”

The boy shrugged; his legs swung in the air, the chair too tall for him, and Janei swallowed hard, reminded herself that it wasn’t his fault that his mother had named him the King.

He was still a little boy, and still her cousin.

“I’m done with that, for today,” he informed her, rather primly. “Usually, I chase Ser Pounce down to the kitchens, but…”

He bit his lip, looking away.

“Mother thought it would be better if I took some time away from Ser Pounce for a little while, so I’m…”

Bored, he didn’t say, but Janei heard it, all the same.

She bit back a sigh.

“What are you doing, today?” Tommen asked her, and she reflected that the boy must truly be bored, if he wanted to know that.

“I…Your mother has me cleaning her rooms, today,” she said. “And then, I’m to have tea with Aunt Genna, later, but not until all of my chores are done.”

Tommen blinked at her. “Can’t you have the servants do the chores?” He asked, innocently, and Janei ground her teeth together, reflecting that he might as well ask such a thing, when they were cousins.

“I…Cersei wanted me to do them,” she told him, not wanting to get further into this conversation, suddenly.

It wasn’t fair, that he had come here, she noticed, as she glanced out the open door, with some new member of his Kingsguard who wasn’t her brother, that she couldn’t even see Martyn, now, and Cersei would no doubt reprimand her for being late about her chores, because she was spending time with the woman’s son, instead.

Tommen’s voice got very solemn suddenly, with her words, and Janei looked away, wondering if she had revealed too much, with the small bite in them.

“I’m sorry about Aunt Dorna being sent away,” Tommen said, when they had been sitting together in silence for too long, “I didn’t know about it, either.”

Janei swallowed hard.

“Thanks,” she whispered, because no one else had bothered to say that to her or Martyn, since Dorna had been sent away, but she still didn’t know how to respond, when it was Tommen’s mother who had been the one to send him off.

She was avoiding Martyn, too, for all that she wanted nothing more than to go and find him, now.

The one time that the two of them had spoken alone to each other, since their mother had been sent away without either of them knowing, they had simply stood together in awkward silence, neither of them certain how to react to this.

Martyn had started crying; Janei had hugged him, and then hurried away as quickly as she could, when he looked at her with wide eyes and asked if she couldn’t intercede with Cersei again, to bring their mother back.

Truth be told, Janei was avoiding as many people as she could, these days.

“Maybe soon, Mother will let her come back, and she can serve as one of her ladies, too,” Tommen said, then, lifting his head, and he sounded rather excited about the possibility.

Janei ground her teeth. “That would be lovely, Your Grace,” she told him, though she didn’t think for a moment it would happen.

Tommen blinked at her. “You don’t have to call me that,” he said, softly. “I’m just…We’re still family, aren’t we?”

His eyes got very wide as he said those words, and Janei wanted absolutely to assure him that they were, though a part of her didn’t, at the same time.

They didn’t feel like a family, anymore.

“Of course, Y-Tommen,” she said, softly, and Tommen smiled at her, and it was so hard to feel any sort of resentment towards him for who his mother was, when he was smiling at her, like that. “But you’re also the King.”

He gulped. “I…Yes,” he said, slowly, as if he were still getting over the shock of it, himself.

Janei supposed she could sympathize with that.

She wondered if he had ever imagined that he might be the King, when his brother took the throne. They were not so far apart in age, after all, and Joffrey was hardly a sickly child, from what she understood, even if he had been something of a beast.

Tommen didn’t strike her as the sort of boy who would enjoy being a king, would enjoy abusing those sorts of privileges.

Abusing.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.

“Your mother is your regent, right now,” she informed him, something that he had to already know, “but one day, you’re going to really be the King, and people will have to listen to you and do whatever you say.”

Tommen’s eyes widened, for a moment, before he cleared his throat, pumping his legs again. “Then I’ll outlaw beets,” he said, scrunching up his nose at the thought of them.

Janei bit back a laugh. “Yes, well, perhaps, when you are the King, and your mother isn’t your regent anymore, you can decree that my mother has to come back. That Cersei can’t send her away.”

Tommen squinted at her for a moment longer, before he seemed to shrink in on himself. “I…That would be years and years from now. I don’t think…I don’t think that I’ll be King that long.”

Janei stared at him. “W…Why do you think that?” She asked, carefully.

It was disturbing to her, quite suddenly, that Tommen didn’t think he would be king long enough to be his own man. That he didn’t think he would survive that long, as she could clearly see, in his eyes.

He was just a little kid.

He shrugged. “Joffrey wasn’t King that long,” he said, softly, “And he was crowned in King’s Landing, where the King is supposed to be crowned.”

Janei swallowed. “You’re not your brother, Tommen,” she started to say, but the words fly rather hollow, in her throat.

Tommen blinked up at her. “I’ll ask Mother to bring Dorna back,” he said, quietly. “Since she’s my Regent, she’s supposed to do what I want, isn’t she?”

Janei pressed her lips together, and wondered if Cersei would see it that way. “I…Thank you, Tommen,” she said, though she had a horrible feeling that all of this was about to backfire on her, somehow.

Dear gods, she just wanted her mother to come back, and Cersei would know, of course, exactly where the request had come from, the moment Tommen asked it of her.

He smiled at her. “And I’ll tell her about the beets,” he said, and Janei forced herself not to roll her eyes, because after all, she’d forgotten how young Tommen was, during this conversation, it seemed.

“That’s…very kind of you, Your Grace,” Janei said, very quietly, because she didn’t want to tell him that Cersei would probably hit her again, for daring to try and manipulate her precious boy.

She just wanted to see her mother again. Just wanted to know that she was all right, and that when Cersei said she had sent her away, that didn’t really mean that she was dead in a ditch, somewhere.

She just wanted things to go back to the way they used to be, before, when Cersei was still in King’s Landing and Stannis Baratheon was some danger known of, but never faced.

Janei missed the way things used to be, when she was a child and none of this had meant anything, when they said that there was a war on.

“You should probably go, Your Grace,” she said, because she didn’t want to say anything else to him that would find its way back to Cersei’s ears, and she tried not to feel guilty at the way that Tommen’s face crumpled, with her words. “I’m sure you have many important things to do, as the King.”

He shrugged. “Mother doesn’t let me do much,” he said. “She says I’m too young, and that one day when I’m older, I’ll have so much responsibility that I’ll be glad that she’s taking care of things, now.”

Janei squinted at him. She wondered how Joffrey would have reacted, if his mother had ever dared to say such things to him.

Then, she shrugged. She wasn’t good at manipulating people, anyway, and she didn’t want to be known as someone who could. She didn’t like the dirty feeling that it left her with, afterwards.

“Well, maybe she’s right,” she said, quietly. “But I really do have to finish these bedsheets, Your Grace.”

He glanced at the unmade bed, and his lower lip jutted out in a pout. “Maybe…could we spend some more time together, soon?” He asked her. “It’s only…I don’t have Ser Pounce anymore, since he’s better off in the kitchens, and the maesters won’t let me do anything fun, with my studies.”

Janei bit her lip. “What about Martyn?” She asked him. “You could do things with him.”

Gods, it would be worth it, to hold her tongue and say nothing while Tommen came to see her, if only he would tell her a little bit about how Martyn was doing.

Tommen shrugged. “Mother says that I shouldn’t be learning the sword,” he said. “Or, she did, at one point, so I’m not sure if she would want me learning anything from Martyn. And she says that riding horses is too dangerous now, because of the Baratheon soldiers.”

Janei licked her lips. “Well, Martyn likes playing cyvasse,” she told him. “And other games. You could ask him about that.”

Tommen shrugged again. “All right,” he said, and, as he moved towards the door, “I hope that Aunt Dorna comes back, soon.”

Janei felt her heart clench. “Me, too,” she whispered, and then Tommen and his guard who wasn’t her brother was gone, and Janei hurried to finish up making the bed before Cersei returned and asked her why she was being so lazy, lately.

It did not take long for Cersei to return. A part of Janei was surprised that she had not walked in on the two of them, talking, and she didn’t know why that thought was so terrifying to her.

She didn’t think that Cersei would care that they had been talking, but she did fear how the other woman would react if she knew that Janei had asked Tommen for help with her mother.

Janei did not want her to think that she was trying to manipulate her darling son. She knew how protective the other woman was of him.

Janei dipped into a curtsey, as Cersei stalked inside and slammed the door after herself, and tried not to flinch as she realized Cersei must be in some sort of mood. Maybe.

“I’ve cleaned your chambers, Your Grace,” she said, keeping her eyes downcast as Cersei stalked into the room; Janei could never tell what sort of mood her cousin might be in, these days, and she had found out that it was better to keep her head down when the other woman was around for her own safety. “And I gathered your letters together here, on the table.”

She gestured to it, and tried not to react to the fact that her hands were shaking.

Cersei turned to her then, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, you don’t need to call me that, dear,” she said, “If it’s just the two of us. Cousin, is fine.”

Janei gritted her teeth together. “Yes, cousin,” she repeated, and Cersei looked at her for a moment longer, and then moved forward, taking Janei’s hands into her own.

Janei’s hands suddenly felt like they had been soaked in mud.

“I know that you’re disheartened, about your mother going to live at the Crag,” Cersei said, still smiling, and gods, Janei hated her a little more for it, “But I hope that you come to realize soon that it is for the best.”

Janei swallowed.

“How?” She whispered, and Cersei’s hands abruptly dropped hers.

“Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Cersei said, and her eyes were glittering now, “but she sometimes has difficulty understanding her position within House Lannister. I think that you and your brother will benefit from some time on your own, especially considering your age.”

Janei swallowed.

“And dear?” Cersei asked, as she turned from her and started to strip off her outfit, “This could be very good for you, to learn how to be a woman, if you ever wish to fool a husband into thinking that you love him.”

And Janei couldn’t help what she did next; her jaw fell open.

Cersei was facing her again, and she smiled, now. “Tommen will need a wife someday, after all.”

Janei felt her stomach drop. “I…”

Tommen.

Tommen, who she had just thought of as a very young child, was going to need a wife, some day.

She thought she was going to be sick.

Cersei moved towards her, then, and Janei resisted the urge to take a step back from the other woman.

“Is something the matter?” Cersei asked her. “You like Tommen, don’t you, Janei?”

Janei licked her lips. “I…I love Tommen,” she whispered, lowering her eyes. “He is my cousin, but I don’t…I…”

She could feel her eyes filling with tears.

Cersei reached out, then, taking her chin in her hand and lifting it. “Give it some thought, Janei. Tommen is a sweet boy, and you’ll likely never find a better husband. And cousins can be good. My mother and father were cousins, when they wed. Besides that, you have a better temperament for a queen than Margaery Tyrell does.”

Janei swallowed. “I…” she moved quickly away from the other woman, towards the desk that Tommen had been sitting at, earlier.

Tommen, who was just a boy, and who she probably wouldn’t marry anyway for years and years, but who had just told her that he didn’t think he would survive that long.

“There were…some letters came for you earlier, Your Grace. From…From House Tyrell,” she said, and her hands were all but shaking, as she picked them up off the desk.

She didn’t dare to say ‘The Crown,’ as the letters had introduced themselves.

Cersei slumped down onto the couch, reaching up to cover her eyes with her hand.

“Well, read it, then,” Cersei muttered, waving a dismissive hand towards the sealed letter on the table, as she slumped down into the chair in front of her bed. “Let us hear what House Tyrell has to say.”

Janei swallowed, reaching for the letter and picking it up. She unsealed it, slowly, keeping one eye on Cersei all the while.

Her eyes scanned over the words before she read them aloud, but Cersei didn’t seem to care that she was being slow about it.

“You’ve been invited to the funeral of King Joffrey of House Baratheon, where it will take place in King’s Landing in a fortnight. House Tyrell would…would like to negotiate with you, after the funeral has taken place, over the state of the realm,” Janei read, and then glanced up with wide eyes to Cersei.

Cersei moved off the couch with speed, snatching the letter out of Janei’s hands, and Janei let it go without a fuss, taking a step back, glad that the other woman wasn’t slapping her this time, instead.

Cersei’s eyes scanned across the page, and Janei bit the inside of her cheek, because if House Tyrell was already asking to negotiate, she thought, that couldn’t be good.

They hadn’t even fought a real battle yet, and Janei didn’t want anyone fighting battles, didn’t want to run the risk of her own brother fighting in those battles, but that look, in Tommen’s eyes…

It had scared her, when he said that he didn’t think he would be King for very long.

“Well,” Cersei muttered bitterly, as she threw the letter aside. Janei watched it fall to the ground with a flutter. “It’s nice of her to invite me to my own son’s funeral.”

Janei cleared her throat, looking away.

Cersei harrumphed. “I’ll have to discuss it with my advisors, of course,” she murmured, under her breath, and Janei didn’t think that she was still talking to her, was still even aware that Janei was still in the room, but she forced herself to listen, anyway. “And Tommen won’t be going, of course. Of course the Tyrells would turn my son’s funeral into a political event, so that his own brother couldn’t attend…”

Janei sighed, and went back to finishing the sheets.

* * *

Visiting her son was becoming something of a chore, Cersei thought, and almost felt guilty for the thought.

In the latter days of Joffrey’s reign, before he had sent her away, visiting him had felt like something of a chore, as well, and she didn’t like the comparison, didn’t want to think that Tommen was slipping through her fingers the same way that Joffrey was.

But she was busy, these days, as the Regent, keeping things together from a place of vulnerability, when they had been far less vulnerable, in King’s Landing, when Joffrey had been king.

Still, she tried to carve some time out of her day, each day, to visit Tommen. To ask him about his lessons, and make sure that the boy was on his way to becoming a good king, when he did reach the right age for it.

And besides that, she was his mother. She knew that they had not spent much time together throughout much of his upbringing, and especially not after Joffrey had been crowned King, but she’d had to devote her time to Joffrey then; he had needed her more. Had needed her guidance, and protection, even if he had spurned it, in the end.

Cersei was determined to spend enough time with her younger son that he knew never to spurn her, when she offered help.

“Tommen,” she said, as she walked into his chambers and found him writing out his assignments from the maesters.

She’d made sure that they increased his lessons, now that he was to be king. He would not be ruling on his own for many years yet, not if Cersei had anything to do with it, but when he did become king, he needed to have an understanding of what he was doing.

Sometimes, she thought Joffrey had not understood what he was doing, and that was why things had gotten so bad with the smallfolk, near the end.

She came forward as he turned in his chair and beamed at her, always such a happy child, and she leaned over his shoulder, looking down at his work.

“How are your studies going?” She asked. “The maesters say you’ve been very devoted to them.”

At the same time, she did not want him to grow too bookish.

Bookish kings were always seen as weak, by the people, and he would have his mother and his Small Council, once she had chosen them out, to support him, once he was sitting on the Iron Throne.

She just had to get him there, again.

He shrugged. “I’m learning about the Faith, just now,” he said, and Cersei felt herself stiffening, at those words.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “And their relationship with the Crown. It’s very important.” His brows furrowed, as Cersei’s heart sank further at the reminder of those who had ultimately torn her son away from her. “Why wasn’t I crowned by a septon? I’m supposed to be crowned by the High Septon.”

Cersei gritted her teeth, reflecting that she was going to have to have a word with these maesters about the sorts of lessons that they were teaching her son.

The Faith was not as powerful as the Crown, and she didn’t want him believing that it was, not when he became King.

“There is no High Septon, just yet,” Cersei told him, as calmly as she could manage, thinking of the way the man had been butchered by Joffrey, the last good thing her son had done, as King. “And you will have another coronation in King’s Landing, when we get it back for you.”

He sniffed. “The way Grandfather did, when he fought off Stannis at the Battle of Blackwater with the Tyrells?”

Cersei ground her teeth together. “Yes,” she said. “Like that. Stealing it away from the usurpers who tried to take it from you.”

He bit his lip. “Do you think…Do you think we could do that, without anyone getting hurt?” He asked her. “It’s only…Stannis’ men are here now, and they were with him, then.”

Oh, Cersei remembered that dearly. And they would pay for it dearly, when the time came that she had the power to make them do so.

She remembered holding her son on the Iron Throne, and whispering to him that she was a lioness who would protect him, as she prepared to kill the boy with poison before Stannis and his hordes ever got to him.

And now, she was forced to bribe them with fine wines and promises of great wealth, if only they spared her son now.

Cersei reached up to rub at her temples. “I don’t think that’s very realistic, Tommen,” she told him, perhaps harsher than she had intended. “But you’ll understand, when you’re older. Are the lessons really that interesting to you?”

Joffrey had loved learning about the Targaryens, but little else. Jaime, she remembered, had hated his lessons, had more often than not persuaded her to sneak out with him so that they could play soldiers or ride horses.

Tommen enjoyed sitting here for hours, learning these things, and Cersei didn’t quite know what to make of such a child.

He shrugged. “I guess,” he said. “But the maesters will only teach me so much a day, and the rest of the day…”

He was bored, Cersei realized.

She pressed her lips together, trying to think of some way to remedy this that didn’t mean going back on the punishment she had dictated, of his cats being taken from him because he spent too much time with the damn things.

“Perhaps…” she said slowly, and when he looked at her eagerly, she said, “Perhaps you might go horseback riding with Martyn.”

His eyes lit up, and she held up a hand. “Provided that you are extremely careful, and stay away from where the Baratheon soldiers are still encamped, and take Lannister guards with you.”

His brows furrowed. “But aren’t the Baratheon soldiers ours, now?”

Cersei wouldn’t risk it. “And only for an hour each day. Understood?”

He nodded, eagerly. “Janei says that I might come up with games to play with Martyn, too. Like cyvasse. She says that he…”

“When have you been spending time with Janei?” Cersei interrupted, eying him down her nose.

Tommen’s shoulders hunched in on themselves, and Cersei resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The boy was a king now; he should know how to look like one, after all.

“I…Well, she’s been spending some time with me, lately,” he whispered. “Since…since Ser Pounce had to go down to the kitchens…”

Cersei rolled her eyes; she supposed she had walked in to that one, after all, as annoying as it was to hear the first person that Tommen might try to spend time with once she’d taken his stupid cats away was a girl.

“And how are your lessons going, Tommen?” She asked him.

Joffrey had always favored learning about the history of the Targaryens, and she hoped that this time, Tommen would pick something useful to dig deeper into.

Tommen shrugged. “Fine,” he whispered. “I wish…”

Cersei leaned forward. “What is it?” She asked, because he looked so longing, for a moment. Dear gods, she hoped he wasn’t about to bring up those damn cats again.

Perhaps Joffrey had had the right idea, about cutting them open. At least he didn’t hide away with them, the way that Tommen always seemed to.

“I wish that I could spar, again,” he said. “I enjoyed that, when Ser Loras let me…”

“Ser Loras was a pillow biting idiot,” Cersei gritted out, raising a hand to silence him, “And his sister is a traitor and a whore. I don’t want you speaking about them so cordially, again.”

Tommen bit his lip. “But…”

“But what?” Cersei demanded, her patience wearing thin, already. She couldn’t stand the thought that her son had enjoyed sparring. It was a dangerous sport, and it would only lead him to think that he should be in the battlefield.

Cersei did not intend for him to ever fight in a battlefield.

Joffrey never had, and his realm had been well defended.

“But she’s my goodsister, isn’t she?” He asked, still sounding confused, and his confusion was the only reason that Cersei didn’t throttle him, for the words.

Cersei took a deep breath, and let the air out, slowly.

She had told herself, before, that she was going to have to make this war something that Tommen could believe in, even if the boy’s belief didn’t particularly matter, so long as she was Regent.

But she didn’t need him fighting her over it at every second, either.

“Margaery Tyrell was your brother’s wife, yes,” she said, reaching out and taking Tommen’s hands in her own. “But there’s something that you need to know about the Tyrells, something I’m sure your maesters have mentioned. They’re opportunistic idiots. Do you know what that means?”

His brows furrowed. “Um…”

“It means that they let their ambitions get in the way of everything else,” Cersei continued, calmly. “They always have. And I would not be surprised if…” her eyes narrowed. “If the child your goodsister is claiming belongs on the Iron Throne does not even belong to your brother. It took her a long time to get pregnant, after all.”

And she hadn’t gotten pregnant until after Cersei had left King’s Landing.

The realization, something she had only wanted to use to manipulate Tommen into going along with her, hit her like a stone, then.

Margaery had only gotten pregnant after Cersei had left King’s Landing, when Cersei wouldn’t be there to try and fight her over the paternity of the child. And yes, she had been fucking Joffrey in front of so many people all the time, but she would only need to do that if…

If she thought that there would be doubts, about any child that she gave birth to.

Cersei saw red, for several moments, and was only able to pull herself back together when Tommen let out a small cry and she realized that she had been squeezing his fingers, too hard.

In the end, she supposed, it didn’t matter who the child belonged to, even if the thought that Margaery Tyrell was masquerading around with a child she was only pretending was Joffrey’s infuriated her.

No, she thought. Even if it was a useful ruse, even Margaery Tyrell wouldn’t be stupid enough to pretend her unborn child was Joffrey’s, if it was not, not after he had died. She wouldn’t want to risk her own child, in such a way.

All of Cersei’s children had already been born, when Robert had died, which made their claim to the throne far more realistic.

No, if the child hadn’t been Joffrey’s, surely, Margaery would not risk such a thing. Would not risk harm befalling her own child.

But still, the way that Tommen’s eyes widened was rather gratifying.

“And in that case,” Cersei went on, “Not only are you the rightful heir to the throne, but Margaery Tyrell is an adulteress and a traitor. You don’t want to think Kindly about such people, do you?”

Her son stared at her for a moment, before shrugging, and Cersei ground her teeth together. “Tommen.”

He bit his lip. “I guess not,” he said. “But…but they’re still family, aren’t they?”

Cersei resisted the urge to roll her eyes, as she placed her hands against Tommen’s cheeks. “We’re family, Tommen. Me, you, Myrcella, and Jaime. We’re the only family that matters, either.”

He bit his lip. “But…what about Janei and Martyn?” he asked, so innocently, and for a moment, Cersei felt frustration welling up within her.

Whatever else he was, Joffrey had understood her, when she told him that they were the only family that mattered.

Tommen…Tommen’s bleeding heart thought that everyone mattered, and that was a dangerous belief to have, for a king.

“Janei and Martyn are your lessers, Tommen,” she said, kneeling down beside his desk, and he flinched a little at her tone, but Cersei could not bring herself to regret it. “They aren’t your family. They don’t matter. They exist to serve you, the way that your Uncle Kevan exists to serve House Lannister. Do you understand?”

He stared at her for a moment, and she knew that he didn’t understand, but she didn’t get the chance to continue before there was a knock on the door and one of her spies stepped inside.

“What is it?” She snapped, annoyed that he had interrupted without her permission.

At the look on his face, she stood.

“Your Grace,” the man said, and she smiled at Tommen one more time before walking over to the man. He leaned close to whisper, “We’ve retrieved Lady Alysanne Lefford, Your Grace.”

Cersei smiled, a cool feeling of calm washing over her, at the words, and she forced herself to forget about Margaery Tyrell, for a few moments.

“Bring her to my chambers. And guard?” She called out to the man waiting by the door; he hurried forward. “If I have to find out that my son has been receiving visitors from him and not yourself, you’ll find yourself mucking stables from now on. Understood?”

The man blinked at her, and then dipped into a bow. “Yes, Your Grace.”

She turned back to Tommen, then. “Remember, Tommen. You must have guards with you at all times, and if your lessons turn out poorly because you’ve been spending so much time in the son, you won’t anymore. Understood?”

He nodded, albeit a little shakily, and, satisfied, Cersei turned and strode from the room.

Frankly, she was surprised that her master-at-arms had managed to get Alysanne Lefford here so quickly. It had only been a few days since the order had been given, after all, and the Westerlands were a wide country land. Besides that, a part of her had hoped that Alysanne would fight back and refuse to come, so that she could punish her further with the full support of those lands.

Still, she supposed, Alysanne Lefford had to have known that this was coming.

The woman was waiting in the yet again empty Great Hall, and Cersei smiled coldly at her as she took her seat in the Regent’s chair, leaning back in it and eying Alysanne up and down.

The other woman looked worse for wear, since the last time that Cersei had seen her, though Cersei did not mind admitting that it had been some time since then, and that she no doubt looked worse for wear, as well.

It was the sort of thing one must come to expect, after losing a child.

She did not expect Alysanne to wish her condolences, over the loss of her oldest boy, not after what Joffrey had done to Leona Lefford, but it still grated on her nerves when Alysanne walked forward of her own free will, without having to be dragged forward by the guards, and did not curtsey before her.

Her father had respected Alysanne, Cersei remembered, which was a difficult thing for most to achieve, from her father. It was one of the reasons that she had sought the other woman out in particular, when she had wanted to find her son a new wife, one who wasn’t Sansa Stark and who was nothing like Margaery Tyrell.

She wondered if this was why, this stoic coolness greeting Cersei, after she had been dragged here in chains.

Cersei lifted her chin, forced herself to meet the other woman’s eyes, to see the anger in them.

Well, Cersei was angry, too.

That was why Alysanne was here, after all, and not safe in the home that she’d opened the doors to Stannis Baratheon to, for her own family’s protection, and to get back at Cersei, in particular.

Cersei knew that was why. Knew it in her soul, just as she knew that if she had actually returned the girl’s body to Alysanne, after Joffrey had had his way with it, what Alysanne might have done would have been worse.

She ought to be grateful that Cersei had refused her that request. Leona Lefford had been absolutely unrecognizable, by the time that Joffrey was done with her.

“Lady Alysanne,” Cersei said, in a mocking tone. “I did not expect you to show up, even with your King’s summons.”

Alysanne lifted her chin. “I didn’t have much of a choice, Your Grace,” she said, coldly, “When this so-called King has cut off all trade to the Golden Tooth.”

Cersei hummed. “Well, and what did you expect, darling?” She asked haughtily. “You are a traitor, and the King cannot waste resources on a traitor when there are so many other mouths to feed, in the Westerlands.”

Alysanne scoffed at her, not deigning to meet her eyes again, then.

Cersei stepped down from her chair, folding her hands before her. “Aren’t you going to wish the King condolences?” She asked. “For the death of his brother.”

Alysanne sniffed. “I don’t see a King here, only you.” She looked Cersei up and down. “Unless you’re the one claiming the title? I don’t believe that’s how the succession works, though.”

Cersei ground her teeth.

“I would wish the King condolences,” Alysanne said, “on having you for a mother, if you would let me see him.”

Cersei could feel something like a migraine coming on, as she stalked closer to the other woman.

“You will mind your tongue before me,” she gritted out, but she knew instantly that it had been the wrong thing to say; the other woman looked amused, that she had managed to get under Cersei’s skin so easily.

Alysanne lifted her chin, and didn’t respond.

Cersei stared at her for a moment, before finally scoffing, wanting very much to bring this woman low after all of the devastation that she had wrought on the Westerlands, and for her own petty reasons.

Letting Stannis Baratheon into them, forcing Cersei’s brother to bring arms against the man, forcing her to lose him to Beyond the Wall.

Finally, Alysanne murmured, “I will not wish condolences on the little monster that you lost. He killed my daughter.”

For a moment, Cersei wanted to kill the other woman, then and there. Wanted to flay her alive to see what lay underneath. Wanted, suddenly, to see if she would be as unrecognizable as her daughter, if Cersei did to her the things that Joffrey had done to Leona Lefford.

But she reminded herself that the fate she had in mind for Alysanne was a better one, after all.

Cersei stared at her for a moment, wanting very much to hit her, before snorting and moving away from the other woman.

“Do you think I care what happened to your daughter?” She asked. “Because of you, Stannis Baratheon killed thousands of sons and daughters, as he entered the Westerlands. He only stopped because my brother stopped him. I think that you ought to pay for that, don’t you agree?”

Alysanne lifted her chin. “Go ahead and kill me, then, Your Grace,” she gritted out.

Cersei bit her lip. “Oh, don’t think I shall kill you,” she said. “No. My father understood the use of making an example of someone, and you harmed our family far more than the Reynes did. No. You shall be made quite the example of, for anyone else who thinks its a good idea to commit treason against the Crown.”

“You’re not the Crown,” Alysanne scoffed. “You’re just one lucky bitch.”

Cersei smacked her, hard, across the face.

“You were content to think me the Crown when you wanted to marry your daughter to my son,” she said, coldly. “And you should have mourned her in peace, and not tried to get revenge against your betters. The Crown does it wills; it is your job to do as you’re told.”

Alysanne spat to the side. “Your Crown will turn to dust,” she spat. “It will fester and rot away, the way that my daughter’s body did because you would not even let me look at her. You will become nothing, and my daughter shall be avenged.”

Cersei laughed, leaning forward and grabbing the other woman by the hair, forcing her head up to face Cersei. “You sold your daughter to have the pride of saying she had married the Crown,” she said. “You knew what Joffrey was. You knew what he was capable of. And then you turned around and threw a fit, let Stannis Baratheon kill a thousand other daughters and sons, simply because you made a mistake.”

Alysanne’s eyes widened as she stared up at her, and Cersei’s lips curved into a smile.

“Tell me I’m lying,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t barter your daughter for fame and fortune, and then get offended when you lost your gamble.” Silence. “Tell me!”

Alysanne breathed in harshly through her nose. “You are a mother, too,” she whispered. “I thought that you might protect her for that reason alone.”

Cersei dropped the other woman’s hair as if it had been burning her. She took a step back. “Your lands will be stripped from you,” she said, into the silence. “They will go to Stannis Baratheon’s highest general in the Westerlands, for his support to Tommen in this war effort. Ironic, after you were the one to let Stannis walk across your borders in the first place. And your House will be forgotten, just as your daughter has been forgotten.”

Alysanne let out a sound that might have been a keen, as she rocked back on her haunches, and Cersei couldn’t help but stare at her. Everything she had ever seen of the other woman, had ever heard about her, suggested that Alysanne Lefford was as cold and cruel as any man.

She did not look as cold and cruel as any man, where she knelt before Cersei.

She looked like a weak, old woman, and Cersei enjoyed the sight, very much.

It proved that her father had been wrong, about some things.

* * *

“Janei,” Genna said, embracing the younger girl as she stepped into her parlor room, and then leading her over to the divan. “How are you holding up?”

Janei sniffed, instantly looking smaller now that she was sitting again. Her eyes were puffy, and Genna imagined that she must not have been forced into Cersei’s presence in the recent past, lest the woman would have reprimanded her for those tears.

Janei had gotten thinner, in the time since Genna had seen her last, she reflected, with some annoyance. She had no doubt that the girl was wasting away, the way that her mother had been, before Cersei had sent her away, and she loathed the thought.

Loathed the thought that Cersei was tearing down their House, one woman at a time.

She gritted her teeth, petting Janei gently, not letting her irritation show.

“I…I’m fine,” Janei promised, which Genna knew instantly was a lie, but she didn’t bother to call the other girl out on it, because she thought that serving as Cersei Lannister’s lady’s maid, the girl must be questioned quite enough for one lifetime.

Instead, Genna hummed, and poured the other girl some warm tea, watched as she reached out and took it with hands that were almost shaking, bringing it to her lips and drinking it rather too slowly, for Genna’s liking.

Genna had not known that Cersei was going to send Dorna away, anymore than Janei seemed to have, and it was infuriating to her, that Cersei had done so without even letting the woman say goodbye to her children.

It was ironic, she couldn’t help but think, that Cersei so blamed Margaery Tyrell for not letting her say goodbye to her son, and then had turned around and done exactly the same thing to Dorna.

But she had been too late to stop it, and by the time she had learned of it, Cersei was already obsessing over her next problem; how she was going to declare war on the Tyrells from relatively equal footing.

She wanted Shireen back, but so far, she had not done anything to get the other girl back, that Genna knew about. She was too focused on her plans for retrieving Myrcella, and inventing a war with the Tyrells that Genna was not even certain the Tyrells wanted, at this point.

She sighed, leaning back in the sofa and giving Janei a long, expectant look.

Janei sighed; she was a smart girl, for all that Cersei was most certainly underestimating her, and she knew why she had been invited to this tea, after all.

“I think that she’s…lonely,” Janei said, looking down at their enclosed fingers, and Genna pressed her lips together. “That’s why she wants me to be one of her ladies.”

That did not surprise Genna; Cersei and her brother had always been attached at the hip, and every time that they were separated, the two acted like they had lost some part of their soul, wandering the halls aimlessly like lovestruck maidens.

Well, they had, until the last time that Genna had seen Jaime, when he had last been here. Frankly, she had been rather startled by the change in the man. By his lack of interest in his sister, in the capital, in his devotion to Tommen and to the war effort.

It had been…refreshing, and disturbing, at the same time, to see him so changed in so little time.

"And I think that she…she’s trying to decide who she wants to marry Tommen to,” Janei continued, her words trembling a bit as she said them.

Genna grimaced; she was not surprised at the revelation, as she knew Cersei rather too well for that, but Janei looked rather shellshocked, and she pulled the other girl closer, at the words.

“What else?” She whispered in her ear, because she knew that Cersei kept her spies everywhere.

She would have been a fool to trust Cersei, when the other woman had told her that she would bring her the most important of her decisions before she acted on them, and Janei was a surprisingly good source of information, she noticed.

Janei licked her lips, taking another shaky sip of her tea. “House Tyrell invited her to the King’s funeral, to negotiate afterwards.”

Genna sucked in a breath. “And?”

“She said she’s going,” Janei said, very quietly, and Genna turned to her more fully, lifting the other girl’s chin.

“What else?” She asked, because she could tell that there was more.

Janei sniffed. “She’s going to declare Margaery’s child a bastard, when she’s in King’s Landing,” Janei gasped out. “She says she has some sort of proof, that Margaery was unfaithful to her husband, and she’s going to use it to cast doubt that the child Margaery is carrying is actually Joffrey’s.”

Genna swore under her breath. “She’s lost her damn mind,” Genna breathed, something like horror filling her expression.

Janei didn’t respond to that. Perhaps because she too, knew it to be true.

“And Tommen?”

Janei shrugged. “She doesn’t want him to go.”

Which was at least sensible, Genna supposed, even if it was infuriating.

“What about Myrcella? What is she doing about Dorne?”

Janei shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted, swallowing hard. Genna gave her a hard look, and Janei glanced away. “She doesn’t tell me some things.”

Genna sighed; she supposed the girl was doing her best, after all. “All right,” she said, patting Janei’s arm. “All right. Well. Go on, then.”

Janei all but fled, and Genna leaned back in her seat with a long sigh.

All for her mother, Janei reminded herself, as she walked out of Genna’s parlor, and made her way back to Cersei to make her report to the other woman, about Genna’s responses, about what specifically the other woman had asked about.

Anything for her mother.


	14. King's Landing

_“Margaery will be...indisposed, for the next few days, as she deals with her grief for her husband,” Sansa informed the girls, and tried not to feel guilty for the way that she looked away from them, as she said the words, for she knew they would all have questions._

_Every single one of them knew how Margaery felt about her husband, and sending all of her ladies away while she grieved for an indeterminate amount of time was...strange, for the way she did feel. She had never done that, not even when Ser Osmund had raped her, not when she had nearly lost her child._

_They knew that there is something off about Sansa’s statement, that whatever was wrong with Margaery to the point where she is refusing the help of all of her ladies save for one mute maidservant, it isn’t grief over her husband, and Sansa can see the curiosity there in their eyes, alongside the sympathy and confusion._

_Alla stepped forward, then, seeming to have found her voice alone amongst the group, despite being the youngest amongst them._

_Her eyes were very soft._

_Sansa wondered what learning the truth about what had happened to Margaery might have done to her, if she had been the one to find Margaery instead of Sansa._

_“Is she all right?” Alla asked, nervously, and Sansa swallowed hard._

_Because she knew she couldn’t tell them the truth, and yet, she wasn’t certain how to spin a lie that any of them would believe, not when they all knew what sort of a man Joffrey had been._

_“...No. She...has suffered a loss,” Sansa said, which was the most true thing that she could bring herself to say about what had happened. “And she would appreciate your distance, and your thoughts and prayers, as she cannot go to the Sept herself.”_

_Not after the slaughterhouse that Joffrey had made of it, the last time that he’d been there._

_“Of course,” Megga said, sounding near tears herself, something which it was hard to fathom thinking of Megga as doing, Sansa thought, suddenly._

_It was a strange thought, when she had so many more occupying her head, at the moment._

_“All that matters now,” Sansa continued, swallowing hard, “Is that she will recover, and that her child’s claim to the throne will not be harmed by this...tragic accident.”_

_Beside Megga, Elinor’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t speak up. Sansa might have slapped her, if she had._

_Gods, she was furious with the other girl. Furious with what she had done, what she had forced Sansa to do, in turn._

_Throughout the rest of her address to the girls, carefully tailored truths because she wasn’t certain they would believe her if she lied to them outright, she could feel Elinor’s gaze on her, pinning her, demanding a better explanation than the one Sansa had given._

_But Sansa…_

_Sansa didn’t want to talk to Elinor. Elinor could have avoided this if she’d just warned Sansa, warned Margaery, that the boy meant to deliver Joffrey’s poison would be taking it himself, in Olenna’s original plan._

_She walked out, walked down a corridor and then another, her feet moving faster with each step because she could hear someone following around behind her, and dear gods, she couldn’t answer any questions right now._

_Margaery had seemed all right, as she had addressed the whole court while she informed them that their king was dead, but she wasn’t, and Sansa needed to be with her. Needed to be there for her, even if it was just to sit in shocked silence together._

_“Sansa!” Elinor cried, reaching out then and grabbing Sansa’s sleeve, desperately. Sansa paused, turned back to face her. Grabbed the other girl, because dear gods, if Elinor was going to insist on having this conversation, they weren’t going to do it here, out in the hallway._

_She dragged the girl into the nearest empty room, and slammed the door shut behind them._

_Elinor didn’t miss a beat, despite the rough treatment of being thrown up against that door, a moment later. “What the seven hells is going on?”_

_Sansa scoffed. “Why? Do you need to report it to your mistress, now?”_

_Elinor grimaced, backing up a step. “Sansa, I just…”_

_But Sansa didn’t let her finish, the helpless anger she’d been feeling ever since she’d walked in on Margaery like that, known that the Kingsguard standing beside her was nothing but a threat now that he’d seen it as well, bubbling up to the surface, now that she had a target for that rage._

_“I hope your husband is well, Elinor,” she said, every word biting. “After you told me how he took a turn for the worse, the other night.”_

_Elinor’s flinch was the most satisfying thing that Sansa had seen for some time._

_Sansa lifted her chin. “Unless…you were lying, for some reason, but I can’t imagine why you would lie about something like that, when you knew how pivotal your own role was, to the plan.”_

_Elinor flinched harder, that time, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. “I…”_

_She couldn’t even think up a good lie, Sansa thought, annoyance filling her._

_Olenna had chosen the wrong protege indeed, she thought darkly. The Queen of Thorns always had a lie ready._

_“What’s going on?” Sansa repeated incredulously, spinning on the other woman. “If Olenna Tyrell asked you to plunge a dagger into your own chest and twist the knife, would you do it?”_

_Elinor paused, pulled up short by Sansa’s aggression. She opened and closed her mouth. “I…”_

_Sansa scoffed, turning her back on the other girl. “Obviously not. You were willing to go along with everything she told you to do, even lie to us about the boy, but the moment you actually had to do it, you were a coward and forced me to, instead. Used your own husband as an excuse to get out of killing a child, yourself. Did you think that would alleviate the guilt, Elinor? Did you think making me kill him, unknowingly, would make you feel better about the whole thing?”_

_“Sansa, please,” Elinor said, looking down. “Olenna was just trying to help her. You know that. And I…”_

_“I was just trying to help her,” Sansa said. “And I thought you were, too. But instead, I failed to save her from a fate worse than death because of you.”_

_Elinor flinched back then, as if Sansa really had slapped her, and Sansa had the sudden feeling that she didn’t need to explain what had happened to Elinor, what Margaery had gone through, and she squeezed her eyes shut, for it should have been Margaery’s decision whether or not to share any of that with her._

_“Because you failed to tell me something very important,” Sansa gritted out, “and I hesitated when I shouldn’t have.”_

_Elinor swallowed. “You would never…” she shook her head. “You would never have gone through with it, if you’d known.”_

_“Damn right I wouldn’t have!” Sansa snapped, and Elinor winced at the sound. Sansa lowered her voice, it occurring to her that they shouldn’t be having this conversation in the middle of the open hallway._

_But then again, what did it matter, when everyone in King’s Landing seemed happy enough with the new arrangement?_

_There was little love lost for Joffrey among smallfolk and nobles alike, after all._

_Still, she grabbed Elinor, pulling her into the nearest open room, slamming the door behind the both of them. Elinor tripped on air as Sansa dragged her into the room, and Sansa felt a moment’s guilt for manhandling the pregnant woman, but it faded fast._

_“I would have gone with my original plan,” Sansa said. “I would have wrapped my hands around his fucking throat and choked the life out of him myself if I knew what your plan was. I would have killed him myself, like I wanted to in the first place, if I’d known that Olenna’s plan included killing innocents alongside the guilty.”_

_Elinor scoffed. “He was happy enough to volunteer.”_

_“To help us poison a madman, not to die as a sacrifice for it,” Sansa snapped. “And is that so wrong? I imagine any one of Joffrey’s servants would have jumped at the chance, child or no.”_

_Elinor shrugged. “Do you really think Olenna would have let that boy live, with what he knew? With what could be tortured out of him, no matter how much he hated his master?”_

_Sansa stared at her, deflating slightly._

_No, Olenna would not have let him live, and it hardly mattered now, anyways, because Baelish certainly had not._

_But that didn’t mean that Sansa had to accept his death so easily, had to accept Elinor’s friendship again._

_“Sansa,” Elinor whispered desperately, “What happened last night?”_

_Sansa looked away._

_She hadn’t been able to tell the other girls, because they hadn’t been in on the plan and because she couldn’t bear the thought of revealing Margaery’s secret to the world._

_But dear gods, right now, she was so angry with Elinor._

_“He raped her,” Sansa said bluntly, pursing her lips at the way that Elinor’s whole body flinched, at those words. “He raped her, over and over again, and now he’s dead.”_

_Elinor was staring at her, mouth open, clearly at a loss for words, with the way that Sansa had chosen to reveal that information to her._

_“He was a madman, and he’d figured out who she was, last night,” Sansa said. “So he raped her.”_

_She didn’t know if she recognized the woman she felt like today, anymore than she had recognized Margaery last night, for the way she was gaining some sort of perverse pleasure from Elinor’s pain at the words._

_Elinor…deflated, at the admission, sagging against the door and staring at Sansa as if she didn’t recognize her._

_She had wanted the truth, Sansa reminded herself, and she was just giving it to her, even if she felt a stab of guilt at the way Elinor was staring back at her, clutching to her arm so tightly Sansa winced._

_“I…” Elinor swallowed hard, and her eyes filled with unshed tears._

_“And I could have stopped it,” Sansa went on, mercilessly, because she had been holding all of this in silence, because Margaery needed her right now, and if she broke down in front of the other girl, that would be unfair, after what she had just gone through._

_And if she broke down in front of Baelish, he would think she was still the weak girl he pretended that she was, and she couldn’t have that, just now. She needed him to deal with her on an equal level._

_But Elinor…Elinor had done this. Elinor had been the reason she was so blindsided by that boy, bringing her poison, the reason she had taken so long to make sure that poison got to Margaery and Joffrey._

_And in the mean time, Joffrey had…he had…_

_“I could have stopped it, if I’d just gotten there earlier,” Sansa whispered, and she didn’t care that there were tears, now, in her own, eyes that Elinor was staring at her in wide-eyed shock, because she couldn't talk about this with anyone else, and every time Margaery broke down in front of her, it was another reminder that she had been too late._

_Dear gods, she’d been too late…_

_Sansa cleared her throat, attempting to pull away from Elinor, but the other girl still had a viselike grip on her arm._

_“That’s what happened,” she whispered, hoarsely._

_Elinor swallowed. “Sansa…” she breathed, but Sansa suddenly knew that this had been a horrible idea, confiding in Elinor at all, that she needed to get away from her, back to Margaery, now._

_The only other one who understood what had happened, that night, besides Baelish._

_“Let go of me,” Sansa gritted out, when Elinor was still holding onto her so tightly._

_Elinor dropped her wrist, stepping back. “Sansa…”_

_Sansa turned and walked out of the room, not bothering to stay and hear whatever other excuses she might have come up with, next._

* * *

“Sansa,” Baelish said, walking into her chambers uninvited, and Brienne let out a harrumph of annoyance before leaving them to it, but only because it was what Sansa had asked of the other woman time and time again.

She knew that Brienne didn’t approve of the man, that she thought him a snake, as indeed, anyone who knew him well should.

But she needed Brienne to trust her, with this.

The door shut behind Baelish, forcing Brienne’s probing eyes out, and Baelish moved closer, pressed himself up against Sansa as he took her face in his hands and pressed their foreheads together.

Sansa forced herself to remain very still, to not pull away.

She wondered if he thought that the meek little thing she had become, since she had agreed to become his wife, was the same woman who made love to Margaery, or if he was trying to coax that woman out of her, with every time he touched her, so patiently.

And then, Baelish whispered, “The new High Septon has been appointed, and approved by the other septons.”

Sansa closed her eyes so that he couldn’t see the shock in her eyes, at his words.

“I thought…” her forehead furrowed, as she tried to figure out how to play this, before she opened wide eyes to stare into Baelish’s. “I thought that these things usually took longer.”

Baelish shrugged. “I think the septons realized that it would be within their best interest, to speed things along.”

Sansa hummed, forced herself not to move away from Baelish. “Then…how long will it be, before my marriage to Tyrion is annulled?”

Baelish smiled down at her; she thought it was one of the first true smiles she had ever seen, on his face, and the thought was unsettling. “Not long, my lady,” he told her, and Sansa closed her eyes again, breathed in deeply.

She knew that she ought to pretend to be pleased with the news, but all she felt was dread. Dread, at the thought of losing the one protection she still clung to, the one thing that kept her out of Baelish’s bed, the last place that she wanted to be.

If she couldn’t have Margaery’s bed, he still wasn’t an option, she thought, darkly, and she was rapidly losing ideas of how to deal with him.

His scent was overpowering, in that moment, and she pulled away.

“I have some news of my own,” she said and watched as his face fell, just a bit, as he pulled back from her and cleared his throat.

“Oh?”

“Cersei,” Sansa said slowly, handing over the letter she had just received, addressed to ‘Queen Margaery,’ and signed by ‘Queen Cersei,’ conspicuously without any other titles, not knowing how to feel about the letter’s contents, just now, “She’s agreed to come and speak with us, at the funeral.”

Sansa didn’t know how to feel about the news. Cersei had come, and she knew that ought to be a good thing, because it meant that she was willing to hear whatever they had to say, in their negotiations, but she knew Cersei.

Knew her well, and it wasn’t like Cersei, to give up on a fight, so quickly.

Baelish stared. Then, “This is good news, actually,” he said. “It means she’s not confident in her position.”

Sansa snorted. “What does that matter?” She asked, feel the panic well up within her. “The moment she comes here and sees…what’s left of Joffrey’s body, she won’t give two shits whether she has the confident position, here, or not.”

Baelish eyed her, and didn’t bother to argue, no doubt realizing that she was right. “Hm, yes,” he agreed, and Sansa stared at him. He reached out, taking her by the shoulders. “Do you trust me?”

The words hung in the air for several moments, after he had asked them.

No, Sansa thought.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He could see the lie in her eyes, for he had once told her that she was not as good of a liar as she thought she was, but he pretended to believe her, anyway, and that scared her more than the thought of Cersei coming here at the head of an army.

He smiled at her. “House Bolton, in their…eagerness to prove their newfound loyalty to the Crown has rather…acted out.”

Sansa stared at him. “I don’t understand,” she said, heart beating in her chest, wondering if he had somehow read the letter that they had received from Ramsay, knew about…

About Shireen.

She could not let him find out about Shireen, Sansa thought, horror clogging her throat.

Baelish grimaced. “I don’t know if this is because they understand your position on the Small Council to mean that House Stark is gaining prominence again, but House Bolton has…gifted us with something.”

No, Sansa thought. Of course Baelish had found it.

His eyes sparkled. “House Frey is…no more.”

Sansa blinked at him, the words not fully making sense, as she repeated them in her mind. “What?” She asked.

Baelish looked gleeful, the bastard. “House Bolton killed Walda Frey, Roose Bolton’s widow, and attacked House Frey in the middle of the night, before they could retaliate, laid waste to their lands, and took Lord Walder Frey up on the top of his castle, and flayed him alive in front of his daughters, after they had butchered his sons,” he said. “They left his body up there to be found in the morning, and made his daughters haul it down to be buried, before they too, were butchered.”

Sansa flinched.

“Before he died,” Baelish went on, “from what I understand, Ramsay Bolton took his head off, and replaced it with a fish’s head, before he ate the rest of the fish over an open fire while his men killed those girls.”

Sansa stared at him. “He…they…”

They had taken her brother’s head off, and replaced it with a wolf’s head. Roose Bolton had been there, at the Red Wedding, as the smallfolk called it.

And now…

And now, his son had killed the Freys.

“All of them?” She whispered, hoarsely.

Baelish licked his lips. “I understand that only…Edmure Tully and his pregnant wife were allowed to live, to take the news to Riverrun, which is how we heard of it.”

Sansa closed her eyes. Edmure was her uncle, her mother’s brother, and a part of her was truly glad to learn that he had somehow survived, but moreso horrified, by what she had just heard, by what the Bolton bastard had done.

The Bolton bastard whom Joffrey had legitimized, and who had just publicly bent the knee to House Tyrell.

He sounded like a monster.

He sounded as bad as Walder Frey.

And yet, he was now the reason that Walder Frey and all those people who had been involved in her brother’s death, her mother’s death, were gone.

She grimaced, not knowing how to feel at all about the news, as she turned back to face Baelish again.

“Are they…expecting something in return?” She asked, terror filling her at the thought that they might now demand to keep Shireen, despite their promise.

Baelish hesitated for a moment, staring at her intently, before he said, “From what I understand, my lady, the North has little love for House Bolton, even less now that Roose Bolton is dead.”

Yes, and there had been suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, Sansa remembered.

Dear gods, it was annoying, needing help from every quarter, and yet knowing that it meant dealing with people like Ramsay Bolton.

“They simply want the endorsement of the Crown, in return for their bent knees. Ramsay Bolton is a bastard, but he does claim to be married to your sister.”

Sansa hesitated, jolted by that reminder; Jeyne. He meant Jeyne.

Jeyne, who Baelish had once taunted her about, when he thought that he would never have her again, and by the look on his face, he wanted her to forget that, now.

She licked her lips, tried to think about the best way to handle this, without his prompting, because Sansa was tired of doing everything that Baelish told her to do.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking about it. Couldn’t help wondering if Walder Frey’s final moments had been as horrible as her mother’s must have been, watching her son and his wife die in front of her.

If the fish that Ramsay had eaten had tasted good, after he had removed its head.

She shuddered; where had _that_ thought come from?

“You once promised me a good deal, Lord Baelish,” she said, “in return for this marriage, between us.”

Baelish eyed her. “And I believe I’ve delivered on more than what I promised,” he told her, and Sansa shrugged.

“Perhaps so,” she agreed, “but all the same, I think that every bride deserves a wedding present, doesn’t she?”

He eyed her, pulling her hands into his and kissing them gently. “And what sort of present are you looking for, my lady?” He asked her.

Sansa met his eyes, looked at him the way that she used to look at Margaery, when the two of them bedded each other feverishly, while still trying to hide from the rest of the court.

“The North,” she whispered, and enjoyed the way his eyes widened, at her words.

Yes, she thought. Perhaps, even if she was losing these battles between the two of them, there was still a way to win the war.

She took a deep breath, waiting.

Baelish's eyes were hard, searching, as they met hers. "My lady..." he began, but he'd already told her, already given away the fact that he didn't think of her that way. Had made that more than clear, for all that Baelish was the sort of man who had a thousand plots going on at once.

She knew what it was that he wanted, knew what it was that he wanted to call her, and it wasn't wife.

Well, wasn't just.

"The Boltons..."

"Helped the Freys butcher my mother and brother," Sansa interrupted him, spitting the words out, choosing not to point out that she knew who else had been involved in that, and it hadn't just been the Lannisters. She met his eyes, and Baelish took a half step back from her, but didn't falter otherwise. "I don't trust them."

Baelish swallowed. "I'm not sure that...matters, my lady," he warned her. "The North is a fickle place, as you well know. They will not bend the knee unless they have a lord to force them to do so. And with Ramsay Bolton married to Lady Arya, they have no reason to turn against us, just now."

Sansa licked her lips, wanting to believe that the North might bend the knee for her sake, but she was not so naive, anymore.

But the reminder that there was a girl paraded around Winterfell, pretending to be her sister, and that, worse than that, that girl was Jeyne...

She cleared her throat. "I won't accept House Bolton as the wardens of the North, Baelish," she said. "And if you want me for a wife, you're going to do something about it."

He reached out then, taking her hand in his. "Sansa..." he said it like he thought she was an insolent child, making unreasonable demands.

She took a careful breath, thought of the way that he had looked at her, in those early days after Margaery had killed her husband, softened her eyes in response.

She remembered that despite the way his...lust, feelings, whatever they were, seemed to have grown for her in recent months, rather than diminishing, Baelish had always loved the innocent young girl that she was.

However disturbing that was.

But she was not that little girl any longer; that was the problem. She had grown up, while he was busy ignoring it, while she was busy convincing him that she hadn't, and now that she had need of him, he wouldn't do as she willed because he didn't see the political advantage behind it.

So she would just have to give him another.

"I hate the thought that the people who killed my dear mother still live," she whispered, twisting her arm in his grip, reaching up to touch her fingers against his. "They say that Roose Bolton himself was the one who stabbed my brother, and his spawn is just as wicked as he."

Baelish stared at her for a beat, licked his lips. "Getting rid of an ally and leaving a void behind never bodes well, my lady," he said, brushing his fingers gently against hers.

Sansa licked her lips, whispered harshly, "They will never be my allies so long as they were complicit in my mother's death," she said. "I will never be able to see them that way."

She thought Baelish might have paled, but if he had, he quickly remembered himself.

For a moment, she wondered how he was going to spin that, wondered if he was going to find some new way to keep himself from being implicated in what had happened to her mother, but it didn't matter.

She knew the truth, after all, no matter how much he claimed to love her mother, once.

She looked forward to figuring him out a little better, though. It might help her figure out what the rest of his game was, as well. 

For a moment, she almost wished that he would get down on his knees, here and now, and confess all to her in the hopes that she would still want him by her side, rather than risk a betrayal later, but Baelish was not that sort of man. He was not the sort of man to make a sacrifice of any sort, when it was personal. 

"Find me another Northern House, a House that will bend the knee, given the right amount of support from the Crown," Sansa told him. "Surely a man of your...machinations can figure that out for me. And I will consider that a very good wedding present."

Baelish licked his lips. "And if it...can't be done?" he asked her, slowly. 

Sansa snorted. "Then I will do something very stupid, my lord," she told him, something like the fury she had to keep hidden, these days, flashing in her eyes. "And you'll have to consider your wedding present being cleaning it up."

She thought, from the way he looked at her after those words, that he believed her.

She managed to extricate herself from him, then, walking towards the door without once looking back. She did look back once she had gotten down the hallway, to make sure that he wasn't following her, or having one of his creatures follow her, though she did not have much to hide, at least from him, about where she was going.

"Is Margaery within?" Sansa asked the serving girl, as she came to a stop outside of Margaery's chambers Joffrey's chambers. She found it rather hard to think of them as Margaery's now, even as she thought she was beginning to understand Margaery's reasons. "I need..."

She needed to speak with her. Needed to hear from someone else about whether or not the thing she had asked of Baelish had been incredibly stupid, needed a second opinion that she actually trusted.

Because maybe Margaery had been through a great deal, maybe Sansa was no longer certain that Margaery was...able to think in the ways she had once been able to, but Sansa had always at listened to her, even when she didn't trust her.

And she thought that Margaery had at least done her the same courtesy. 

"The Queen has gone out to the orphanage she patrons," the serving girl informed her, and Sansa felt her stomach sink in her chest.

"She's gone out? To the people?" she demanded, something like worry welling up within her at the words, though she thought that there was something else there, that perhaps she was just annoyed that Margaery was not there when she needed her. "Again?"

She'd thought she'd at least made it clear to Margaery's ladies, if not Margaery herself, that she shouldn't be going out amongst the smallfolk, not when half of them wished her dead, these days.

The serving girl looked nervous. "I...yes, my lady," she said. "She said that she wanted to bring them some gifts."

Sansa gritted her teeth. "And I don't suppose that she at least took some guards, this time?"

The girl looked confused, and Sansa remembered that not all of the Keep knew about Margaery's last little escapade into the city. Still, she was too annoyed at the moment to care.

"Yes, my lady," the girl informed her, and Sansa sighed.

"Well, I suppose that's something," she muttered, and stalked away, intent on finding Garlan, if she could not find his sister.

* * *

“My lady,” Alla said slowly, where she walked at Margaery’s side with a bag full of dried foods, in her hands, “Are you sure that this is a good idea?”

Margaery tossed her hair over her shoulder, tried to keep her voice light as she didn’t look at the other girl while they walked through the filthy, busy streets of Flea Bottom, and said, “Of course. I’ve neglected them for far too long, already.”

She knew that wasn’t what Alla was objecting to; the girl was smart, and Margaery had hardly kept herself above drowning, these past few months. She knew that something was terribly wrong, even if she hadn’t quite worked out what it was yet, and she worried as all of Margaery’s ladies seemed to, these days, despite her young age.

Margaery would have spared her that, if only she had been thinking a bit more clearly, after Joffrey’s death, but she could spare her that worry, now, if only Alla would let her.

And besides, she was quite determined.

The walls of the Keep, great though they were, seemed to be closing in on her, these days.

Sh had thought, that with the move out of Cersei’s chambers and into Joffrey’s, where nothing could truly harm her again, she would feel safe from the nightmares, now.

She didn’t.

Oh, they weren’t quite so bad, in the knowledge that she slept in the bed of a man she’d killed, but they were no longer just of the son she would have, these days.

Now, she dreamt of her brothers, the ones she had failed just as she feared that she would fail this child.

She had needed to get out of that place, needed to feel the fresh air on her face for only a little while, needed to know that there was still a world beyond the Red Keep, and so she had insisted on coming here, despite the objections of everyone who knew about it, including Septa Unella.

Septa Unella may want her to repent of her sins, but she seemed to have no interest in Margaery’s going out amongst the people.

Margaery supposed that ought to tell her how dangerous it was for her amongst them these days, but she didn’t care.

She had already suffered her husband’s wrath, as they had. She was quite certain that anything else they could do to her would pale, in comparison to that.

After all, they hadn’t managed to defeat her husband.

She felt a flash of guilt, the moment the thought came to her, and stepped over a puddle in the alleyway with particular gusto.

Alla sniffed, eying her with something like wariness. “Yes, but…You could just send them some food, Your Grace, you shouldn’t have to go yourself, especially with the way that-”

Alla clamped up abruptly, and Margaery closed her eyes, knowing what she was going to say even if Alla was too cowardly to finish the sentence.

Especially with the way that the people of King’s Landing hated her, just now, almost as much as they had once hated her husband, she suspected.

She sniffed, stepping over a puddle as they walked through a familiar street, the smallfolk hurrying out of their way as they did so, heads down, not a one of them smiling at Margaery, like they always used to.

And she knew that she shouldn’t expect them to, after the things that she had done, but she felt guilty, all the same.

She hadn’t truly loved them, then, though she had pretended to, and they had pretended to love her in tun, because she brought them food and clothes and other things that the Lannisters never once considered for them.

And now, she was only bringing them these things to atone for her own guilt, in the part she had played of late in their suffering.

She forced that thought from her mind as her guards banged on the doors fo the orphanage, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes, because that was hardly the image she was here to send.

And then she remembered that this wasn’t exactly about images, as the door to the orange opened and one of the septa blinked out at her in surprise.

It was noon day, and yet the woman already looked exhausted. Margaery felt a stab of pity for her.

“Your Grace,” the septa said, looking surprised to see her, and Margaery flinched a little, though she did not think that the other woman was accusing her of anything.

She wasn’t certain if it was because she was faced with yet another septa - told herself that it couldn’t be, when she was facing Septa Unella quite fine, these days - or because she felt guilt for the fact that she had not come to see her own orphanage for so long that they seemed surprised to see her.

She forced herself to smile, all the same, gesturing behind her to her ladies, who were holding the bags she’d ordered brought along.

“I’ve brought some food, and some toys, for the children,” she said. “I thought they might like the…distraction.”

And then, with a pang of guilt, Margaery found herself wondering if this was still atonement, this thing that she was doing, on the septa’s own suggestion, if she was only doing it as a distraction from her own guilty concerns.

Then, was it really atonement at all, or another product of her own selfishness?

She shook her head, walking forward when the septa stepped aside for her with a bright smile; she wasn’t going to turn down food for the children, after all.

The septa was still smiling as she led Margaery through the orphanage, ringing a bell for the children, and stepped into the outer courtyard that she could remember greeting all of these children, of an orphanage she had been patroness to, once before, after the Battle of Blackwater, when so many of their parents had died in that fight, a fight their king had run from.

She’d given them toys and food, and told them that their parents were very brave.

It had been some time since then, and the children all gathering in the courtyard before her were of a similar age to the ones she had seen then; too young, and none of them familiar to her.

She wondered how many of the children here before her were orphans because their parents had died in the Slaughter of the Sept, as she had heard the smallfolk were calling it, these days.

Wondered if any of them had been at the Sept, that day.

She grimaced a little, and turned quickly so that the children would not see it, as she reached into her bag and pulled out the first thing that she could find.

“Hello,” Margaery told the children, and they stared up at her with wide eyes as she blinked down at them, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, despite feeling so confident in this plan, earlier. “I’ve come because I would like to give you some gifts, if you’d like…”

The orphans seemed to have multiplied in number, since the last time that Margaery had been here.

Logic told her that it made sense; the people of King’s Landing wee quite poor, and there ere always orphans, among them. No matter how much atoning she did, she would never be able to stop that.

But she couldn’t help but think that there seemed to be a disproportionate number of them here now, since the last time she had come here, and that had been…before everything that had happened, at the Sept.

She hadn’t had the stomach to go and visit them afterwards, while she was still married to Joffrey. A part of her had known it would be like this.

She wondered how any of this children had become orphans because of the slaughter at the Sept, how many of them were here because of her, specifically.

She pulled out a loaf of bread, and found herself staring at it in lieu of the children, which was rather disconcerting, because she had always enjoyed talking to children.

It was one of the things that had once mad her so confident in her own ability to raise a son that would not be Joffrey’s, even if he had his name.

If not his blood.

She shook her head, forced herself not to think about that now, in front of so many people, when she was no longer certain what her face was hiding and what it was not.

The moment the children saw the food, she could no longer feel their prying, judgmental eyes on her, and Margaery remembered to breathe again.

Alysanne, at her side, reached out as if to touch her, before her arm faltered, fell back to her side.

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

She spent as much time as she was able to among them, reflecting on how much harder doing so felt now, when this had been one of the few things that she had actually enjoyed about her duties, as a queen, before.

But then, everything had been very different before, besides just this.

One of the children stepped closer to her, then, and she grimaced as, in response one of her guards moved closer to her side, as if he truly thought that there was some danger from a boy who barely reached up to Margaery’s thigh.

She forced herself to relax as, despite her own irritation with the man, she couldn’t help but think that perhaps there was something to his concern, and forced herself to smile at the boy, as she held a toy out to him.

He took it in one hand, turned it over and over, and then sent her a shy smile.

“Won’t your baby run out of toys, if you give them all away?” He asked her, and Margaery stared at him for a moment, before she bit back a laugh.

It felt like a strange, unnatural thing to do, to not laugh. She couldn't even remember the last time that she had wanted to, and now here she was, trying not to.

“He’ll have others,” she told him, keenly aware of the fact that if it weren’t for her coming here, these children would not, while her child would have whatever he damn well pleased.

The child reached up without warning then, placing a hand on her bulging stomach. “Is it a boy or a girl?” He asked, and Margaery swallowed hard, as she blinked down at the child with his hand on her stomach.

“I…Don’t know yet,” she said, slowly.

The boy licked his lips. “I hope it’s a boy,” he said, and Margaery’s brows furrowed as she blinked down at him.

“Why…why is that?” She asked him.

Of course, she wanted the child to be a boy, as well, but she suspected that it was for very different reasons than the child in front of her.

He shook his head, hand falling away from her belly. “My sister was in the Sept, with our mother,” he said, softly. “She wanted a blessing, after the trial was over. I don’t think…I don’t think she would have died, if she’d been a boy. She wouldn’t have needed a blessing, then. It was about…she was scared of becoming…”

Margaery flinched, staring down at the young boy in something like horror.

He never finished the sentence, because he was staring up into her eyes now, and despite his young age, he seemed to realize how uncomfortable she suddenly was, for he fell silent.

“Jerehn,” one of the septas said, her voice lightly scolding as she reached out to grab the child by the arm, pulling that arm away from Margaery’s stomach, a move she had not thought to consider, herself. “What are you doing? That is the Queen.”

Margaery licked her lips. “He’s all right,” she said, softly, and Jerehn blinked up at her.

Margaery forced herself to smile down at him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your sister. You’re very brave. You…you’ve all been very brave,” Margaery stammered out, when she realized how many of the children seemed to be watching them, struggling not to jump to her feet and run away, as a part of her very much wanted to do, in that moment.

She had been right.

There were more of these orphans here, and they were here because of her. Because of what she had induced her husband to do.

If it hadn’t been for her…

She swallowed hard.

That little boy, Jerehn, the septa had called him, he had lost a sister because of her.

And she still had a child, in her womb, not even brought into this world yet, something her mother had once told her was a woman’s greatest consolation.

She swallowed; she had been convinced of that fact, when she had plotted to murder her own husband. Had been convinced that once she had this child, it would make everything that she and Sansa had suffered all right.

But the people of King’s Landing had suffered a great deal more than she, and over a longer period of time.

What made her child any different from the ones in front of her, the ones who had died alongside their parents in the Sept because of a slaughter she had helped initiate, besides the belly that child would emerge from?

She took a deep breath, and then another, even as she felt blood squishing between the crevices of her toes, like it had on the day her husband had these children’s mothers and fathers butchered alongside the Sparrows, many of them only there for the promise of food and a better life than the one they’d been forced to lead thus far.

These children would never see their parents again; they had lost them because of what she had done.

Her son would never get the chance to know his father. She supposed that with a father like Joffrey, he ought to feel pleased, though he would never know it.

But Olyvar was still the boy’s father, not entirely certain where that thought had come from, only knowing that she had to honor her promise to the other man, a promise that she wanted to honor, but one she wasn’t entirely certain that she could when had first made it.

But she had to, now.

She had to fulfill her promise to Olyvar, because if things had somehow been the other way around, if she had been the peasant girl and he the one in need of an heir, her child might have already been dead.

She sucked in a breath of air, at the thought, at how horrifying it already was, despite all of the dreams she kept having about that child, about the terror he would become because he was Joffrey’s son.

Forced herself to calm down, as she glanced over at Alysanne, where the girl stood beside her, still holding out loaves of bread for the children.

Alysanne’s eyes were very wide, as well.

She didn’t think that her ladies understood her much at all, these days; a part of her wasn’t certain that she knew herself, anymore. But her ladies seemed more and more disturbed, with every new action that Margaery took, as if they thought that if they questioned her on her actions at all, she would explode on them.

She hated having that reputation with them, as well. She knew that, in the beginning of the days after Joffrey’s death, she had been quite…unapproachable, but had hoped that in the months since then, she had seemed slightly more…back to her normal self.

She took a deep breath, and then another.

Alysanne seemed to realize then, that she needed to go, for she abruptly handed the bag in her hands off to one of the septas, and reached out, taking Margaery’s sleeved arm - despite the heat of the hot summer day - in her hand.

Margaery flinched away from the touch so hard, she nearly lost her balance and fell to the ground, and suddenly, if they hadn’t all been before, they were certainly staring at her, now.

“I…I need to go,” she informed the orphanage as a whole, trying hard to infuse her voice with calm because there were so many eyes on her. “But I…I am pleased, that you like the food. I shall have the kitchens bring down more for you, soon enough.”

And with that, she all but fled, her guards struggling to keep up with her as one of the septas called out, behind her.

She made it as far as the outside of the orphanage, the alley she had been standing in before, when she realized that she was still stuck in Flea Bottom.

It might have been different, this feeling like bile climbing its way up the back of her throat, if this were not Flea Bottom.

She felt a hand brushing her arm again, tried to flinch away from it, but her guards were not concerned with her comfort in this moment, as they dragged her away from the orphanage, from the growing crowd around them, all of them too close, just now.

She couldn’t quite remember how to breathe.

She couldn’t remember how to push the guard off of her, because he was so much larger than her, clad in armor, when she was wearing only the thin strips of metal she’d put on this morning around her wrists and chest.

“You!” A voice screeched through the haze descending on her, and Margaery flinched at the sound of it - not because it was particularly loud in the way that it cut through her haze, though that was another reason she wanted to get away from these people, just now - but because she could hear already the accusation in the tone.

She turned, slowly, her guards forming up around her, and Alla pressing into her side. “Your Grace, we should-”

“Murderer!” The old woman that the crowd in the streets abruptly parted for screamed at her, jabbing a finger into the air, in Margaery’s direction.

Margaery froze, sent still by the fury in the old woman’s tired eyes, as she jabbed that finger through the air and Margaery felt it as if it had entered her chest, immobilized her.

“Margaery…” she heard one of her ladies saying, and she was so startled that she wasn’t sure which lady it was, as the old woman in the crowd suddenly lunged forward with a strength she shouldn’t have had, at her age.

Or perhaps Margaery was simply too used to witches, these days.

“You killed my son!” The crone screamed, as she walked forward before the guards moved to hold her back. They did so with relative ease; she was an old woman, after all, and clearly not possessed of any magic, the way that the witch Margaery had once met in these streets, and who had so plagued her since, had been.

She sagged against the guards holding her back, not bothering to fight them off, as her old, yellow eyes met Margaery’s.

“You killed my son!” She repeated, and the words seemed to echo through the streets. She let out a loud sob that seemed to echo louder than that, and Margaery flinched at the sound.

“Murderer,” the woman said, and her voice was softer now, but it seemed to carry through the silent crowd, all the same. “He was just a boy, an innocent boy. He had nothing to do with those fanatics, but you had him killed like one. You murderer!”

She spat at the ground, and the guards grabbed her a bit more roughly, then.

Margaery swallowed hard.

Because she knew, of course.

No one had told her, she suspected, because they already thought her fragile enough to fall over at the slightest breeze, the slightest knowledge that something was truly wrong, but she had known from the moment Baelish told her he had rounded up her husband’s murderers.

And that not only because he had been staring that murderer in the face while he gave the report.

But because the very idea that there were many Sparrows left, let alone enough to amount to a believable number of assassins able to sneak into the Keep, was laughable. She had seen what her husband had done to them, both at the Sept and in the days after, as they fled the city if they could, and fell on the swords of the gold cloaks, when they found that they could not get out of the city.

And it was not as if they could easily hide who they were, with the markings on their foreheads.

Markings Baelish had branded into the foreheads of the twelve young men he had rounded up off of the streets, men he had no doubt promised Sansa would not be missed, so that she would go along with this insane plan…

Oh, Margaery had known that they likely weren’t even fanatics. Had known that Baelish was not the sort of man to be crippled by his conscience, who would care where they had come from and whether they deserved death.

And she had stood by and did nothing, anyway, because if she spoke out, she’d be exposing her own sins.

She shut her eyes, tightly.

She hadn’t asked Sansa whether her suspicions were the case or not, because she knew Sansa thought her in the dark, and she thought it might be a kinder thing, to let Sansa think that.

But she knew.

She knew, and her nightmares had only grown worse, since that night.

When she opened her eyes again, the guards were trying to force the old woman to her knees, and Margaery stared at them in horror.

“Let her go,” Margaery told the guards, and they stared at her in confusion. She could hear the shocked murmurs of the crowd, around them, that their queen was pardoning a woman who had just accused her of murder.

She knew that it only spoke to her own guilt, to let the woman go after such an accusation, and yet.

And yet, Margaery had seen enough evidence of the blood she had shed, today. She’d like to keep the streets clear of a little more, if she could.

She waited, allowing herself a small moment of humor in the thought, _Cersei would never do this_.

Somehow, that only made her feel worse.

Eventually, slowly, as if they expected Margaery to change her mind at any moment, the guards let the old woman go.

The old woman spat to the ground, as they did so, clearly ungrateful, before she stalked away and was enveloped by the crowd.

* * *

“Has there been anything else from Olenna?” Sansa asked Elinor, as she stepped into the other woman’s rooms.

She had taken care to make sure that the child and his father were both gone; the two of them had gone into the gardens with an armed guard, earlier, and Sansa was glad for that, because she very much needed to speak with Elinor alone.

Even if Elinor didn’t want to speak with her, either.

Elinor glanced up, from where she was half-lying across the divan, and Sansa supposed that it must be very tiring, indeed, for her to have given birth to a child and still be needed as Olenna’s spy.

She tried to feel a little sympathy for her, as Elinor sat up and rubbed at her temples.

“I was just about to fall asleep after spending the whole night up with my child,” Elinor said, annoyance bleeding into her tone, but then she saw the look on Sansa’s face, and straightened. “What is it?”

They would never be friends, Sansa thought, not after what had happened, but it felt good, to have someone to come to, when she needed to vent, even if she didn’t trust Elinor very much, anymore.

Sansa swallowed hard. “I need to know when Olenna is coming,” she said. “I can only deal with one headache at a time.”

Elinor blinked at her. “What’s happened?” She asked.

Sansa shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, quietly. “I just need to know, about Olenna.”

Elinor licked her lips.

“You won’t tell me anything,” Elinor accused, and looked like a petulant child, for her trouble. Sansa felt guilty for the thought the moment she had it, for she, too, knew what it was like to be kept in the dark about everything going on around her, but she couldn’t help but feel genuinely annoyed. “And I’m sick of telling you things, telling Olenna things, and not knowing a damn thing, myself.”

Sansa blinked at her. “Are you drunk?” She asked, finally, having only just noticed the slur in the other girl’s voice.

Elinor glowered at her. “And so what if I am?” She asked. “I wasn’t allowed to drink the whole time I was pregnant. I think I’m entitled, now.” She swayed a little, on the couch.

Sansa sighed, moving forward and taking the seat across from her, and decided that perhaps there was something that she could offer Elinor, because she could still see the pain in Elinor’s expression, the day that Elinor had confronted her the first time and told her what had happened to Margaery.

And honestly, since then, they’d been dancing around the subject.

She knew that it was Margaery’s secret to keep, but half of King’s Landing knew it already, and while Margaery might still be furious with her grandmother, and Sansa with Elinor, they had made the mistake of all keeping things from each other, once.

She thought perhaps if she extended the olive branch this time, they might be able to avoid doing so, again.

“She killed him,” Sansa whispered, and heard Elinor’s sharp intake of breath, at her words. She didn’t dare look at the other woman as she kept talking. “It all went wrong…The boy and I, we took too long, and I guess Joffrey…was more of his wretched self, that night, because he…and then she killed him, for it.”

Elinor shook her head. “No,” she said, softly. “It was supposed to be the poison, and when they displayed him at the funeral...he was ripped open, Sansa. His whole body had been absolutely destroyed. So what happened?”

Sansa licked her lips. She wondered if it was as hard for Margaery to think about what had happened as it was for her.

Of course, no doubt it was a great deal harder, but it was not as if Margaery would ever tell Sansa that.

“He…” Sansa felt her breathing quicken a little, just thinking about it. Thinking about the state that she had found Margaery in, that night. Thinking about how if she’d just not had a crisis of conscience about the boy meant to deliver that poison, a boy whom Baelish had murdered for his knowledge of the plot afterwards anyway, she might have been able to save Margaery from her grisly fate, might have been able to shoulder some of the burden for what had come afterwards.

She felt her eyes pricking with tears, and reached up to rub at them absently, still avoiding Elinor’s gaze.

And it felt good, to confide in someone who wasn’t Garlan, even though she hadn’t expected it to feel good to rip open those old wounds at all.

“He was hurting her,” Sansa said. “I saw her afterwards; he hurt her, badly, but she wouldn’t let me send for a maester because she said that she didn’t want to have to kill anyone else for knowing the truth. And then she bashed his brains in.”

Elinor swallowed thickly. “Were you…”

She looked like she didn’t quite know how to finish the question.

“By the time I got there, he was already dead,” Sansa whispered. “And I didn’t quite…I didn’t know what to do, Elinor. She was standing there, looking at me like she’d given up, and I couldn’t lose her to him, not after all of that time of us fighting back, of us trying to outsmart him. I couldn’t lose her.”

She hadn’t even told this to Brienne, to Baelish, hadn’t quite dared, or known how, she supposed.

But Elinor understood not wanting to lose Margaery. Risking so much to keep her from harm, because she had stayed by Olenna’s side, even after Margaery had banished her own grandmother, to keep Margaery safe.

Still, a part of her hoped that this conversation wouldn’t get back to Olenna, that Elinor would keep it to herself or was too drunk to remember it, come morning.

“That’s why Baelish is suddenly so powerful,” Sansa continued, swallowing hard as she sank down a little into the pillows. “Because I didn’t know who else to turn to, just then.”

Elinor gulped, and then pressed her lips together. “You’re right,” she whispered. “It was my fault. I didn’t want to be responsible for killing that boy, when I was pregnant with a child of my own. I thought perhaps the gods might…that I would be punished, for doing that. So I told you that my husband was sick, so that I didn’t have to do it.”

Sansa eyed her. “I know,” she said, gently.

And dear gods, as much as she had been trying to convince herself that she did, she couldn’t quite bring herself to hate Elinor for that, either.

Elinor swallowed hard, glancing over her shoulder as if to be sure they were alone, when Sansa never would have had this conversation if they weren’t. “I’m sorry. It is my fault. If I’d done it, you wouldn’t have that on your conscience, and the boy would have gotten to Margaery, earlier.”

Sansa licked her lips. “It isn’t your fault, Elinor,” she said. “You were the one who wanted to go along with Olenna’s plan, to wait.”

“And if we had?” Elinor asked, voice scathing in a way that made Sansa flinch. “If we had, perhaps he would have taken to raping her every night. Perhaps we wouldn’t have been prepared if she did snap and kill him. Perhaps we’d all be dead, now, too, and Joffrey would have won, anyway.”

Sansa sucked in a deep breath; they weren’t foreign thoughts to her, everything that Elinor had just voiced, after all.

Joffrey had been going mad, in the end; she had seen it. She had no doubt that if he had lived, if Margaery had meekly stood by and let him rape her, which wasn’t something she thought Margaery capable of, eventually, she would have snapped.

Eventually, he would have died, and they woudln’t have been prepared for it, in the same situation that they were now, but worse.

“It’s nor your fault,” Sansa repeated, and the words felt heavy, on her tongue, as Elinor turned to her with wide, drunk eyes. “It’s not anyone’s fault, well, except his. And I’m sorry I’ve been treating you as if it were.”

Elinor stared at her for a moment, and then let out a bitter bark of laughter. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

Sansa shrugged. “You don’t know what Olenna’s planning, do you?” She asked, gently, and Elinor’s eyes met hers. “She hasn’t told you.”

Elinor swallowed hard, looking suddenly very small. “No,” she admitted, in a whisper, and Sansa bit back a sigh.

“Okay,” she said, and Elinor blinked at her.

“I know that she doesn’t like Baelish,” Elinor said. “She doesn’t like the power he suddenly has. And I know that she’s up to something…with Varys, but I don’t know what.”

Sansa blinked at her. “Varys?” She repeated, surprised by that.

Elinor shrugged, looking smaller still. “Yes,” she said. “Varys is her other spy, here, but I don’t know what he wants, and I don’t know what she wants. I just know that she doesn’t like Baelish, and she doesn’t like how vulnerable House Tyrell is, at the moment.”

Sansa hummed. “All right,” she repeated. “I suppose…I suppose I can work with that. But I want to know the moment you do, when she’s coming here for the funeral. I think it might be a good idea to make sure she, Margaery and Cersei aren’t left in a room together.”

Elinor smiled a little, at that. “I think it might,” she said, softly.

* * *

Sansa’s next stop was Lady Nym’s chambers, and she would be lying if she said that, despite the migraines that accompanied having to deal with…all of this on her own, juggling so many things at once didn’t make her feel a little bit powerful. 

A reminder that she wasn’t just Sansa Stark, the little prisoner of the Lannisters anymore, but that all of these people were actually listening to her.

Even if it meant having to outguess Baelish at every turn, and still feel like she was losing the war against him.

The moment lasted up until she opened Lady Nym’s door, unannounced, as the door was unguarded, and got a very…full view of Lady Nym and Megga, in bed together.

She flushed, contemplated walking out, but all of this had to be timed very carefully, and if Cersei was about to depart the Rock for the funeral, it had to be now, this new plan that she needed Lady Nym for.

She took a deep breath, and stepped forward, face flaming.

“Lady Nym,” Sansa said, stepping into the room, ignoring the loud squeal that Megga let out before she reached for the blanket and covered her lower half with it, leaving Lady Nym conspicuously bare.

Sansa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. No wonder Megga hadn’t seen fit to warn her about where Margaery was going.

Lady Nym sat up in the bed, looking for all the world very comfortable in her skin, something that Sansa couldn’t help but envy her for, just a little.

“Lady Sansa,” she greeted, lips twisting up into a little smirk. “Something I can do for you, or are you here to watch the show?”

Sansa realized that she was flushing the same crimson that Megga was, only then. She turned away, slightly. “We need to talk,” she said, biting her lip. “And I didn’t realize that you would be…indisposed.”

Megga let out another little noise.

Lady Nym shrugged, getting to her feet and reaching for one of the robes on the floor. “Then, talk,” she said, tying it around herself in Sansa’s peripheral vision, and Sansa forced herself to turn back to face the other woman, as Lady Nym sat back down on the bed and reached out to run a hand through Megga’s hair.

Megga swallowed hard, glancing between the two of them. “Maybe the two of you could…talk somewhere else?” She asked, tone dripping with annoyance, and Sansa smiled, despite herself.

“All right,” she said, and motioned for Lady Nym to lead the way into the outer parlor.

Lady Nym rolled her eyes, but walked out, anyway, and Sansa felt relief spread through her as the door shut behind them, leaving Megga alone in the bedchamber.

“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you,” Sansa said, as they both sat down. “You’ve been teaching me how, after all.”

Lady Nym limped over to the other couch, and raised an eyebrow at Sansa. “You wouldn't be able to kill me,” she said, coolly, and Sansa rolled her eyes.

“She’s been through a lot…” she began, but Lady Nym cut her off.

“And we were…in the middle of something,” Lady Nym said, and Sansa bit her lip to fight down a smirk, “so what do you want?”

Sansa swallowed. “There’s…something very important, that I need from you,” she murmured.

“You?” Lady Nym asked, leaning forward now, her interest obviously piqued. “Not Margaery?”

Sansa shrugged. “Margaery has enough to deal with, at the moment. And besides…” she eyed the door that they had just shut. She lowered her voice. “I think you’ll like this. It involves the chance to kill a few Lannisters.”

Lady Nym’s eyes brightened, as Sansa had known they would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!


	15. Dorne

_“My darling, I love you,” Mellario whispered, as she pressed a kiss to Arianne’s forehead. “I love you so much. Never…never forget that.”_

_Arianne swallowed hard. “I don’t understand, Mother,” she said. “Where are you going?”_

_Mellario sniffed, glancing up at Doran, and then back down to Arianne again, and her eyes were filled with tears._

_Arianne felt an odd sense of jealousy, for the few scant moments that her mother had not been looking at her._

_“I…I am going home, Arianne,” her mother told her, and Arianne shut her eyes tightly, because…she didn’t understand._

_“Back to the Water Gardens?” She asked, because even at her age, she understood that her mother liked the Water Gardens better than she ever had Sunspear. There were no politics there, only their family, and…less shouting, always._

_But her mother was already shaking her head. “No, my love,” she said, and a single tear slipped down her cheek, as she pulled Arianne close again, and Arianne breathed in the scent of her mother, swallowing hard._

_“No, I am going to Norvos.”_

_Arianne swallowed, blinking away tears of her own. “But…” she whispered. “I don’t understand. Why?”_

_She knew that her mother had been born in Norvos, that her father had brought her back from that strange place to marry her, but Norvos was far away, from what Arianne understood of her lessons. One had to take a ship to get there, at all._

_“I…” Mellario let out a long sigh, pulling back so that she could meet Arianne’s eyes. “I need to go away, for a little while,” she said. “To…make sense of some things. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”_

_Arianne swallowed hard. “But can’t you come back?”_

_Mellario’s body sagged, a little._

_“I wish that I could take you with me, my love,” Mellario told her, softly. She reached out, running her hand through Trystane’s curls. “Both of you. But your place is here. As a princess, with your father.”_

_Arianne swallowed; she loved her father, but she didn’t want to lose her mother for him, either._

_“I…Why can’t you two just make up?” She asked, and behind her, she heard her father clear his throat, but she hurried on before he could tell her to stop talking. “Uncle Oberyn and his paramours fight all the time, but he and Ellaria always make up.”_

_Her mother sniffed. “It’s…it’s not about that, my love. I don’t…It’s hard to explain,” she went on, running a hand through Arianne’s hair, “especially to one so young, but I promise you, that I’m doing what I have to do. And it is not an easy decision, but I am doing it for you, my love.”_

_Arianne sniffed. Beside her, Trystane was openly crying, because he was still a baby who didn’t understand this situation at all, beyond the fact that their mother was leaving them, getting on a ship and going somewhere far away._

_Quentyn wasn’t there, because he had already been sent to be fostered, and Arianne knew that, at the heart of all of this, was her mother’s decision to leave. That something in their family had irreparably been broken, when Quentyn had gone away, something that couldn’t be fixed._

_Mellario leaned close. “Take care of your brother, Arianne. Promise me, that you will keep him safe.”_

_Arianne swallowed hard, choking on her tears too hard to utter a word in response._

_And then her mother was walking away, without ever offering a real explanation for why she was leaving, and Arianne crumpled the moment the other woman was gone away on the ship, where she stood at the harbor bay, watching her go._

_She did not look back._

_Arianne fell to her knees, and suddenly her father was there, pulling her up with a strength she hadn’t known he still possessed, pulling her around to face him, and Arianne buried her face in his chest, crying openly, even though Oberyn’s children were all there to see her, even though her father had never seen her cry before, because she had always wanted to be strong for him._

_Doran held her as she sobbed in his arms, squeezing her so tightly that Arianne almost found it difficult to breathe, but it felt nice, to be held. To know that even if her mother had left them, her father would not let go of her, as well._

_It was the last time that he ever embraced her again._

* * *

“Your Highness?” One of the guards asked, and Arianne forced herself to look up from the scroll she was reading, taking a deep breath.

“Open the doors,” she said, for she was late, on purpose, of course, and the guards dipped into a bow before they opened the doors for her.

She glanced out at the crowd; her father might have thought her quite incompetent enough as to support her brother over her, perhaps, but one thing that Arianne knew well how to do was to host a good party. The nobles, by now, would all be satisfied with their meals and with the company she had made sure was available to them, even if the fact that her mother was also there might still be strange, to some.

And she needed her guests quite contented today; she was going to figure out how many of them were loyal to her, and how many of them were loyal to Gerold, tonight.

And how many of them might still be loyal to her father, or to Quentyn.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, as she stepped through the great doors and into the ball room, and the whole room erupted into clapping for her. She smiled, nodded to several of the more prominent lords, and then, of course, her eyes sought out her mother’s, at the feasting table.

She knew that she should not be surprised, by the sight of her mother here; she had made her presence more than known, since her arrival in Dorne, much to Arianne’s annoyance, though she had yet to try and seek Arianne out.

Though perhaps that was what annoyed her even more, that her mother had come all of this way for some unknown purpose and had yet to have an actual conversation with her own daughter.

Mellario had never quite fit in, when Doran first brought her back to Dorne to be his wife.

She had always been a firestorm, like the ones that happened out in the desert sometimes because children were messing around and there were no wells nearby; the sand would glisten, and it was the sort of thing you couldn’t look away from, not until it was over and the sand had become glass.

She was a firestorm, and half of Dorne had feared her as much as they had loved Doran, in the beginning.

So she did not settle in easily, once she had returned to Dorne, this time, either. Every time she entered a room, the whole room seemed to still, waiting with bated breath.

Arianne did, as well, but that was for a different reason, she suspected.

After that first dance, when Mellario had left to go to chambers that were no longer hers, Arianne had remembered to breathe again.

She had spent half the night awake, after she had fucked Gerold Dayne, laying beside him in the bed and wondering how long it would be before he tried to turn against her. Wondering when her mother would reproach her for what she had done in overthrowing her own father, wondering why she was here at all.

Her mother had refused to ever return to Dorne, and now, she was here.

It had to mean something, and it was infuriating that she didn’t know.

Worse than that, her mother hadn’t tried to come and speak with her alone since then, and it had been some time, since then.

She hadn’t said anything; not when it was clear that Doran was imprisoned and that Dorne didn’t seem to care, not when Obara and Tyene had laughed about it at the feast, and her husband had laughed about it when he was the first to tell Mellario the news.

Arianne was still annoyed at her husband for that, for his clear lack of caring. Most of Dorne knew about the way that Mellario and Doran had parted ways being less than civil, but Arianne thought that her husband could have been less of a complete child about the whole thing.

But none of that mattered, today. She wasn’t about to let her mother distract her from what she was here to do; she’d already let enough people do that already.

Arianne walked forward, took her seat at the head of one of the long feasting tables, beside her husband.

Spread her arms, encouraging the nobles to begin the feast, as she took her seat, and ignored the displeased look on her husband’s face as he leaned over and whispered, “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been waiting forever.”

One of the nobles sitting nearest to them glanced up sharply at the whisper; clearly, Gerold had not been as quite as he thought he was. Idiot.

She leaned close, forcing a smile as she murmured through it, “Is that any way to speak to your Princess?”

Gerold gave her a dark look, and reached for his wine glass.

Arianne ignored him; she was nervous, yes, but nothing was going to bring down her good mood, at the moment.

She was stuck in a room filled with nobles who depended on her hospitality, tonight, and that was one thing that she could do well.

And the feast went even better than she had anticipated, despite her lateness, as all of the nobles pandered to her in a way that they had never done when she had thrown these gatherings in the past, though they had pandered to her then, too.

And she thought that perhaps she understood a bit of the reason for her husband’s mood, when none of the nobles seemed particularly interested in pandering to him, tonight.

Arianne bit back a smile, as she reached for her glass of wine, and a noble asked her, “Your Highness, we thank you for the invitation, and praise your good health. We wondering about your thoughts on the Southern Marshes, and whether or not there might be a chance of Martell swords coming south to help us defend?”

Arianne sighed as the request continued.

She had heard of these pirates, raiding and pillaging along the coastline; they were the reason that Margaery Tyrell had ever come here, after all, and she had heard that their raiding had gone as far as the Reach, where the treatment of their victims was even worse, then.

Already, she had sent several of their fastest ships to try and fight off the pirates, or take them prisoner, and it had not…gone well.

The pirates seemed to have only grown more brazen, since then, burning the fields closest to the coastlines, in the Reach, and making slaves of the farmers they found there. She heard that Olenna Tyrell was having difficulty dealing with them, herself.

“Of course,” she promised the man. “We will do whatever it takes to protect our borders from these…filthy pirates, I assure you.”

The man dipped his head. “You have our thanks, Your Highness,” he told her, and Arianne forced a smile.

The rest of the feast went on like that, though Arianne found that she didn’t mind. It felt…almost nice, to be needed by her people, especially when she knew that it was only binding them to her further.

Her mother did not speak up once, during the feast, for all that she had been laughing with many of the women before it, Arianne thought, with some annoyance.

She did not even glance over in Arianne’s direction once, during the meal. Did not when it was over and the food was cleared away, and not when the nobles all gathered in little groups, after that.

Arianne glanced over at her husband; he sighed and moved away from her, and Arianne wanted desperately for a drink.

For a moment, Arianne considered going over to her mother herself; her mother had not bothered to seek her out since her arrival here, but that didn’t mean that Arianne couldn’t approach her.

She was the Princess of Dorne, after all, and she had a right to know why her mother had finally come back, even if her mother seemed content to leave her in suspense.

Instead, she glanced over at her mother, saw her standing in a group of ladies near her own age, all of them laughing amongst themselves as if it weren’t a strange thing at all to be carrying on a conversation with a woman who had been absent from Dorne so long, and Arianne faltered.

Walked over to one of the servants carrying around trays filled with glasses of Dornish Red, instead. The servant handed a glass to her delicately, and Arianne gave him a look as she reached for a second before she had finished the first.

He glanced down sharply, and Arianne bit back an amused smile as she handed him back an empty flute, and kept the second to sip on.

She blinked, and suddenly there were two more nobles in front of her. She eyed them; Lord and Lady Pellin did not live near the Southern borders, at least, so she would not have to promise them reinforcements that she was keeping on standby for an attack that she was no longer even certain her brother was going to stage, at this point.

Hells, at this point, she was beginning to wonder if it would be more prudent to worry over her husband doing so, even if tonight, with the way he was glowering in the corner, he had proven himself more than a little inept.

Good.

She needed his soldiers, not his wits.

“Your Highness, we are more than honored that you thought to invite us…”

Arianne held up a hand. “Of course,” she said. “You have proven yourselves to be dear friends to the Crown.”

She wondered if her father had even known their names.

They dipped into another bow at her words, the woman taking a step forward to murmur gently, “Oberyn would want it, of course. He would be proud.”

She smiled, pretending that the mention of her uncle didn’t cause her to want to reach for another drink. “Thank you,” she said. “That is…most kind. I know that my uncle believed strongly in this cause, and it is good to know that there are others willing to take it up, even after his death.”

They nodded, and she didn’t think that they had a deceitful bone in their bodies, but then again, this was as close to court as many of the lords and ladies of Dorne would ever come.

So she offered, still looking at her mother out of the corner of her vision, “In fact, from what I understand, Obella is just old enough that she ought to be fostered, soon. I wonder if…”

They exchanged glances. “Your Grace, we would be most honored, indeed,” they said again, and Arianne had to resist the urge not to roll her eyes.

Well, at least with these two, she would not have to worry about Obella being raised to hide her true feelings.

“I would like to give it some thought, of course; Oberyn’s daughters are all near to my heart,” Arianne told them, laying a hand on the woman’s arm. “But remind me, soon, and we shall speak of it more.”

She felt something like guilt, at the thought of fostering out Oberyn’s children without first consulting Ellaria, especially when her mother was here now, a potent reminder of how the threat of fostering had nearly broken up her own family, as a child, but Arianne knew it was something she was going to have to give consideration, sooner or later.

And it would be better to do so now, she thought, while she could use the fostering to her own advantage, in convincing the nobles to remain at her side, than later, when she was given little choice in the matter.

She didn’t think that her husband was quite smart enough to come up with a similar plan on his own, but she wasn’t about to give him the chance.

She sighed; she would go and talk to Ellaria, she decided, before she agreed to foster out any more of her children. The other woman had the right to know that as much, at the very least.

And to say goodbye to them, the way that even Arianne’s mother had done, Arianne thought, biting back another sigh.

Oberyn would be proud, Arianne mused on the words the two nobles had just said to her, as she stepped away from the couple and onto the next group of nobles whom she had to woo.

It was funny; she hadn’t been doing any of this for Oberyn, not really. This had started out as an attempt to keep Dorne; if the princess of Dorne could deliver the Seven Kingdoms, in the form of Myrcella as the Queen, then surely, she had thought, her father would have to realize what a formidable ruler she could become.

He would have to take her seriously, she had thought, and she had not been able to think much beyond that, too hurt at the knowledge that her own father thought her unfit for the throne, when she had only ever wanted to make him proud.

She loathed the Lannisters as much as the next Dornishman, but that thought had been far from her mind when she had first learned of how the Golden Company had abandoned Myr, conveniently around the same time that her brother had traveled East.

And then Margaery Tyrell had come along, and Arianne had started to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t far more that she could reach for, in the same way that the Tyrell Queen was reaching for it.

She wondered if Oberyn would be proud of her for that. For grasping for more than she had thought she could ever have, when this had started out as merely an attempt to defend her right to the throne.

She didn’t think he would. If this had started out as some way to avenge her aunt, to restore Dorne to its former glory, perhaps…

Arianne pursed her lips.

She didn’t like the thought that he too, wouldn’t understand what she was doing here. Wouldn’t approve of it, just as her father didn’t, just as her mother obviously didn’t, either.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and her eyes sought out Myrcella, where the other girl stood near the back of the room.

A part of Arianne was surprised that the younger girl had not gone back to her childish refusal to attend these gatherings at all; for some time, she had refused, after she had been brought back here and realized that Arianne had not also sent for Trystane, as if she thought that her refusal to attend would force Arianne to do as she wished.

Arianne supposed a part of her understood the logic; if no one ever saw the Baratheon princess, no one would believe that she was still a hostage to be used against the Tyrells, or the Lannisters.

But Arianne was more than happy to keep her out of sight of the Dornish nobles who already loathed her, if that was what Myrcella had wanted.

She shook her head; Myrcella had stopped her childishness, after a few weeks, and was now attending the gatherings with a sort of forced calm that she didn’t often display when alone with Arianne.

These days, though, she did not attempt to be around Arianne for very long.

Arianne took a deep breath, walking over to where Myrcella was leaning against the wall, one hand on her pregnant belly, and forced a smile at her.

“Is this spot taken?” She asked her, and Myrcella eyed her with the sort of forced annoyance that she had when the septa told her she had neglected her prayers, most days.

Arianne tried not to let it get to her.

Myrcella pursed her lips. “Do we have to pretend to be civil, even in public?” She asked, and Arianne felt a pang of something that she told herself was not hurt, at the vitriol in the other girl’s voice.

She had caused that, even if she didn’t entirely know how. Myrcella, the sweet young girl who had first come to Dorne a lifetime ago, was gone now, and yet, Arianne still loved her.

“I…suppose not,” she said, slowly, though it pained her. “Though we should at least try not to look like we hate one another, if we’re to keep the peace in Dorne.”

Myrcella scoffed. “Peace,” she said. “I’m not sure that peace is something Dorne wants.”

Arianne gave her a scalding look. “Myrcella…”

“You know, it’s hard enough, when you’ve swollen with child, not to drink, when you are the captive of those who have made it clear they only want you for your political use, but when they pretend to be friends with you as well…”

She reached out for one of the wine glasses passing by on a tray, and Arianne deftly reached out to pluck it from her fingers, taking a sip of it, herself.

Myrcella made a face. “Anything else, Your Highness?” She asked. “I assume, if you sought me out in the crowd, it was to speak of my husband. Have you figured out a way to get him back, yet?”

Arianne bit back a sigh. “Myrcella…” she said, and gave the girl a long, searching look. “Where did I go wrong, with you?”

Myrcella eyed her. “I wonder sometimes, if your heart isn’t made of stone,” she admitted softly, and the words surprised Arianne.

Surprised her, because a part of her had still thought that perhaps there was a way to win Myrcella back, that perhaps there was a way to salvage this relationship, as she badly wanted to, when there were so many others that she could not, anymore.

“You only had me brought back here so that I could be of some use to you,” Myrcella went on, her voice perfectly flat. “Either as hostage to keep the Lannisters in line, or the Tyrells. You couldn’t even be bothered to bring your own brother back here, though. That is where you, as you said it, went wrong with me.”

Arianne eyed her. “You believe I don’t care about you,” and she had already suspected as much, but the accusations still stung, all the same.

Myrcella lifted her chin, meeting the other woman’s eyes. “I’m not sure you care about anyone,” she said, harshly.

Arianne raised an eyebrow, annoyed at the other girl’s hypocrisy, annoyed that she had taken to blaming Arianne for merely capitalizing on what the other girl had inadvertently given her.

“Then why did you come back?” She shot back, annoyed at the self-righteousness in the other girl’s voice, when the guards told her of Myrcella’s nightmares, every single night.

Myrcella fell silent, at those words.

“If you really think me so heartless, why would you come back here?” Arianne asked, a certain deadness entering her voice as she tried not to look down at Myrcella’s stomach, found herself wondering if the child within would be born with her brother’s dark locks…or blond.

Myrcella shook her head. “I…I didn’t,” she admitted, softly. “I gave up something, something I might never get back, to come back here, because I thought you were better than my mother, better than what I was leaving behind. But it’s been…months,” she swallowed hard, “and you don’t really want Trystane to come back at all, do you? Because he might challenge you, like you think Quentyn will.”

Arianne stared at her. “Where the fuck did you hear that?” She demanded, but Myrcella only sent her a cold smile.

“Perhaps I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” she muttered, and Arianne sighed.

“I’ve never thought that,” she said softly, but Myrcella only blinked back at her, unflinching. Arianne took a deep breath. “Myrcella…”

She didn’t get the chance to finish whatever it was she was about to say, not before a scream split through the air, and Arianne glanced up sharply, saw her mother looking at her with wide eyes.

Saw the assassin, who looked remarkably like the one she had once sent after Margaery Tyrell, in order to spur her into finally acting on her thoughts, rushing towards the two of them, she and Myrcella, the only ones hiding at the back of the room.

The assassin’s hand was raised, and Arianne saw a glint of a knife, as the guards rushed forward in an attempt to stop the man, as her husband shouted out in something that sounded remarkably like concern for her, but they would be too late, Arianne knew.

And in any case, the assassin’s sharp blue eyes were not on Arianne; they were on Myrcella.

He slid the last several paces across the room, then got up on his knees, and raised the knife as if to plunge it into Myrcella’s stomach-

Arianne didn’t think, she just moved; diving in front of Myrcella, pushing the girl out of the way.

“Arianne!” She heard someone shout, and she thought it might have been Myrcella, but her vision darkened before she could be sure.

* * *

When Arianne awoke, she was lying in her husband’s bed, and it was still such a strange thing to her, that she jumped up a little, startled.

“Don’t try to move,” a voice spat out, to her left. “The maesters worked hard on those damn stitches.”

Arianne grimaced, leaning back as she glanced down at her stomach, which was bared from below her breasts, and bound up with bandages.

She then glanced over at Obara, where the other woman was sitting in a hardback chair in the corner. She was scowling, and it was no more a pretty sight than the bloodied rags on her stomach.

Arianne grimaced. “How bad is it?”

Obara eyed her, gritting her teeth. “You’ll be fine,” she muttered, and Arianne released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“And Myrcella?” She asked. “Is she…is she well?”

Obara closed her eyes, breathing out slowly. “She’s fine. Not a scratch on her, even if the girl doesn’t have the decency to seem the least bit grateful,” she said, and Arianne smiled.

“Good,” she said, because she remembered running in front of the other girl, but didn’t remember much else.

Silence; Arianne was already cringing as she glanced up at the other girl.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Obara demanded, as Arianne blinked wearily up at her.

“I…” The truth was, she hadn’t thought, she had just acted. Had run forward the moment she saw the assassin going for Myrcella, because he was aiming that knife towards Myrcella’s stomach, and as much as the girl seemed to hate her at the moment, she knew that she had to do something.

Because Myrcella…Myrcella was different. Someone whom Arianne could love without having to worry about trusting her, and that was not someone that Arianne had ever encountered before.

Obara let out a long sigh. “You’re an idiot. You could have gotten yourself killed, and then what would have been the point of…any of this?”

Arianne sighed. “Yes, I understand.”

“Your mother was crying over you,” Obara continued mercilessly, and Arianne flinched. “The whole time that the maesters were tending to you, she wouldn’t let you out of her sight.”

Arianne closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make her worry. I didn’t mean to make any of you worry.”

“Yes, but you are the princess now,” Obara pointed out. “You have to think about these things, no matter how much you may…care for that girl.”

Arianne looked away.

“Gerold is plotting against me,” she said, quietly.

Obara’s head jerked up. “You think he sent that…assailant?” She asked, and there was something strange and measured in her tone.

Arianne bit back a sigh. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “Only that I know he is eager for a war, regardless of whom that war is fought against, and he is furious that I have not given it to him, yet.”

Obara hummed; her eyes were hooded. “Many people in Dorne are eager for war, Arianne,” she said, softly.

Arianne shrugged. “But not everyone is in a position to do something about it,” she argued. “Gerold is.”

Obara pressed her lips together. “If he was plotting against you, he could have Myrcella strangled in her sleep,” she pointed out. “And besides, Myrcella is not even that important in the grand scheme of things, not anymore. You’re not still planning to crown her, after all.”

Arianne eyed her. She couldn’t deny that the other woman was right, that if Gerold had wanted to kill Myrcella, he could have done so far more easily than at a busy gathering like this one, where there were so many others who hated Myrcella.

“It’s not as useful, anymore. She makes a much better hostage, to keep the Tyrells in line in case they try to turn against us,” Arianne pointed out, because she didn’t like the question still in Obara’s eyes.

The other woman, alongside Tyene, had been very vocal, once, about wanting to crown Myrcella, and she’d made no secret of the fact that she disliked the way that Arianne had folded, under the agreement she’d made with Margaery, after Obara and Tyene had been imprisoned by their own uncle.

Arianne did not entirely know what Obara wanted, now.

“Question the assassin until he gives something up,” Arianne ordered her. “I want to know who sent him, and anything else that he will spill.”

Obara raised an eyebrow. “I thought that torture was something the kingdom of Dorne frowned upon.”

Arianne snorted. “Officially, perhaps. But I must keep my kingdom safe from all harm, even if it means torturing an assassin.”

“But it’s not the kingdom you’re keeping safe,” Obara pointed out, and Arianne’s eyes narrowed. “It’s Myrcella.”

She bit back a snort. “Do you really think that if Margaery Tyrell and her tyrannical grandmother realized we had gotten our hostage killed, that their last reason to trust us is gone, they will just sit by and do nothing? I was protecting the kingdom as much as everything else that I have done since I became the reigning Princess.”

Obara grimaced. “Arianne…” a pause, a hesitation, and Arianne had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like what the other girl had to say. “I am your cousin, and I have always seen you as a friend. Have always agreed with the things that you have done, without question, without comment.”

Arianne lifted her chin. “What is it?” She asked, something like annoyance welling up inside of her.

“You know that I would support you in all things,” Obara said, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Arianne nodded. Obara seemed to notice the hesitation, but didn’t bother to comment on it. “But…You have to face the possibility that it was the Tyrells themselves who sent this assassin after Myrcella. Cersei claimed that her son had been attacked, and that was why she named him a king. Perhaps…perhaps there was some truth, to her words.”

She said it like she was sucking on a lemon.

Arianne grimaced. “If the Tyrells wanted Myrcella dead, they would have a good reason for it. They haven’t one.”

“Unless they think that we might break our promise and attack them,” Obara pointed out, sharply.

Arianne sighed. “I would think that our allies would at least afford us the same chance for negotiations they offer even an enemy, in Cersei.”

Obara looked more than a little annoyed, at those words. ”Yes, but you promised us a war, Arianne. And…I don’t know if it is because you simply do not confide in me, or you’ve changed your mind, but I think…I think that the people of Dorne have a right to know what it is you’re planning. And I think it’s a mistake, keeping anything hidden from them. We’re not the Lannisters, or the Tyrells. Our people are proud to call us their liege lords.”

Arianne stared at her, licked her lips, a little startled by her cousin’s honesty. It told her far more than perhaps even Obara knew.

“I…You’re right,” she said, and then sighed. “The truth is, I entered into this alliance with the Tyrells because I thought that my brother was going to attack us, and try to take what rightfully belonged to me. So I took it first, and I prepared for war.”

Obara nodded; she knew all of this.

“But now…” she thought about her mother, about the fact that she had returned now, of all times, when she had sworn never to do so again. Her brother had not been heard from. The Golden Company had left Myr, but her mother had seen her brother in Norvos.

It didn’t make sense.

“Now, I’m not so sure that is the thing we should be fearing.”

Obara reached out, put a hand on her shoulder. “The Lannisters are weakened, now, Arianne,” she pointed out. “That was what Margaery Tyrell promised us, and dear gods, did that girl deliver. But now…now, they’re sitting back and offering negotiations. We don’t owe them anything, at this point. That was the nature of your agreement, wasn’t it? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

Arianne pursed her lips. The nature of her agreement had been that she would help Margaery if Margaery helped her, that they would eventually seal the deal with a marriage, though she had not gone into much detail about that with Obara and Tyene.

But…the nature of their agreement had also been that Arianne very much intended to go back on it, the moment she had the chance, and it was infuriating now, to have a crisis of conscience when she least needed it.

“The Lannisters are weakened; if we attacked them, we would be forcing the Tyrells to attack them, as well,” Obara continued, a light entering her eyes that she had not seen since they had overthrown Arianne’s father. “They’re clearly hesitant, but together, we could take them now. Easily.”

Arianne sniffed. “The heir to the throne, according to the Tyrells, is a child who isn’t even born yet. I can understand their hesitation.”

“But I cannot understand yours,” Obara bit out. “What does it matter, what the old laws of succession say about who should be king and who should not, in the end? No one cares. The smallfolk don’t care. The nobles don’t care, so long as they get something out of it, in the end.” She scoffed. “Robert Baratheon’s claim to the throne came through his grandmother’s Targaryen blood. But no one gave a damn about that. He put a sword through Rhaegar Targaryen, and he became king. That is all that matters.”

Arianne pressed her lips together. “I’m hesitating,” she said, because it was infuriating, not being able to trust who she could explain herself to, and Obara was, after all, her cousin, “Which is so unlike me, because…Because I made this agreement with the Tyrells, and it’s not…it’s not that I feel the need to honor my word.”

It wasn’t, which was strange; she felt a strange guilt, at the thought of breaking her word to Margaery, when the other girl, in her mad quest for vengeance, had been so bright eyed at the thought of them bringing the Lannisters down together, but that wasn’t the reason she kept hesitating.

Because she had already been thinking about how she might break her word, when she and Margaery came up with their plan in the first place, and Margaery Tyrell was no fool.

Arianne knew that a part of her must have been plotting her own betrayal, in that moment.

And a part of her feared awakening that betrayal, the moment she enacted hers.

She licked her lips. “The Tyrells are the most powerful House in the realms, at the moment,” she said, slowly. “The Lannisters have a claim to that, as well, but the Tyrells have the Iron Throne, just now. I…worry what changing our plans might cause them to do, when Dorne is already splintered.”

Obara put her other hand on Arianne’s shoulder. “Arianne,” she said, slowly, “Dorne has never been overtaken, not by any Targaryens, not by Lannisters or Tyrells, who have tried the longest to try and steal from us. They have no reason to turn against us, if we agree to help them destroy the Lannisters, and…after that,” she said, a slow smile crossing her features, “I think we might even find an even fight.”

Arianne rolled her eyes. “There’s always a first time to lose,” she said. “And I do not want to be the princess who did so.”

Obara sighed, giving her a long look. “Sometimes, Arianne, you have to take a risk. I would have thought the girl who tried to crown Myrcella Baratheon would have known that.”

Arianne eyed her a moment longer, and then smiled. “I suppose you may have a point,” she admitted. “And besides, it’s not as if we’re trying to do that, now. The Tyrells will have to accept whatever help they can get, at this point, whether they want this war or not.”

Obara smirked. “Glad to hear it,” she murmured. “Your Highness.”

* * *

“Arianne,” Mellario said, and she sounded startled to see her, as if she hadn’t come all of this way to seek her out, and then come to Arianne’s chambers, after that, even if perhaps she hadn’t known those chambers to be her own. 

Her doe eyes looked Arianne up and down, and then her face crumpled, a bit. “Is something wrong?”

Yes, Arianne wanted to say. Yes, something was wrong. She had taken her father’s throne because he was too weak to do what needed to be done, and then had found herself in the exact same position.

And now, her people were demanding a war that she wasn’t sure she should be entering at all.

Something was terribly wrong, and Arianne felt like her control was slipping through her fingers, but telling her mother…

That wasn’t the sort of relationship that the two of them had, not after her mother had left her like she had, when Arianne was too young to understand why her own mother didn’t want her anymore.

So she didn’t say any of that.

Mellario let out a sigh, as if she had heard all of the things that Arianne hadn’t said, and then gestured for Arianne to sit, in her own chambers.

Arianne bit back a smile, amused despite herself.

Mellario, at the very least, did not offer her tea, waving a hand for the serving woman who had followed her from Norvos to leave them in peace, and the other woman gave Arianne a long, harsh look before she walked out, shutting the door behind her.

“I’m glad that you’ve come to see me,” Mellario murmured. “I…I’m sorry that we could not speak earlier.”

Arianne did not bother to point out that her mother had been the one to keep away from her, for so long.

“I’ve found that this position is…very busy,” Arianne said, not willing to admit, even to herself, that perhaps she had been avoiding her mother, as well.

Mellario hummed. “Your father thought so, too,” she said, and Arianne straightened up in her chair, stiffening.

“Did he?” She asked, because she could remember the fights that her father and mother had always had, but found it difficult to remember much else, from that time, though she should have been old enough.

Mellario eyed her. “Arianne…”

“If that’s why you’re here,” Arianne interrupted her, “It’s not something that I want to talk about. You’ve been gone so long…”

“I saw your brother, in Norvos,” Mellario said, and her eyes were soft and wet, and Arianne closed her own, unable to look at the other woman, her mother, who had clearly been so pleased by the visit of her son, a son that Arianne was even now intending to overthrow, if he tried to take her throne.

A son that she was even now trying to find.

Mellario didn’t seem to notice. “He...told me his mission, to the East,” she said. “Told me what his father had sent him to do, and told me that he had not forgotten me, in all of the time that I have been apart from him.”

Arianne did open her eyes then, wanting to rail at the other woman, to remind her that it had been she who had left, not them. That she had left all of them, not just Quentyn, just because she couldn’t cope with the thought of being separated from her children.

A contradiction in all of its forms.

But the words felt like disapproval, like a chastisement, that Arianne herself had not accompanied her brother.

As if she had the ability to do so. As if Arianne had even known that Quentyn was leaving in the first place, much less stopping along the way to...wherever the fuck he was going, to say hello to a mother that neither of them had spoken to in so long.

Mellario sighed, reaching for the bottle of chilled wine when Arianne did not immediately offer it to her. She poured some into the nearest glass, which Arianne herself had drank from last, long, and Arianne found herself simply staring at the other woman, uncertain how she was meant to react to...well, to any of this.

Her mother had returned to Dorne, after years of refusing to come back because she disagreed with the way that Doran was raising their children. She had returned, and her first private words to Arianne were of Quentyn, because of course they were.

Her parents had always favored her younger brother to her.

“I haven’t heard from him in some time,” Arianne murmured. “He’s been gone a while.” She cleared her throat. “Was he…did he seem well, to you?”

Mellario eyed her. “He seemed…lost,” she said, and there was something about the way she said it that made Arianne think her mother was not speaking of Quentyn, not at all.

Arianne straightened up a little taller, in her seat. “I’m not lost,” she gritted out, but her mother’s eyes were sad, as they met hers.

Mellario pressed her lips together tightly. “I think…” she said, slowly, “I think that you should speak with your father about this, Arianne. I think that there are some things yet that you do not understand.”

Arianne licked her lips. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’d think that would be the last thing you might advise me, given how you never let him have a chance to explain himself,” she said, and hated herself instantly for thinking the words, much less saying them aloud, because she had spent a lifetime wanting to see her mother again, to speak with her again, where her father had ignored her for so long, but the words were out there, now.

A reminder that as much as Doran had neglected Arianne for so much of her life, Mellario had been the first parent to abandon her.

Mellario flinched, as though she’d been struck. “Arianne…” she said, reaching out for her daughter, but Arianne flinched away from the older woman, the thought of her touch burning against Arianne’s skin.

“No,” Arianne said. “No, you don’t get to come back here, after all of these years, and lecture me like a child.”

“Arianne,” Mellario said, and her voice was more gentle than Arianne had ever heard it, more gentle than it had been even on the day she had said farewell to her children, in the Water Gardens, and Arianne had cried for the last time as a child, because she had thought that she would never see her mother again.

“Do you remember what it was that I said, when Doran tried to take my son away from my arms and foster him to Yronwood?” she asked, and Arianne closed her eyes.

Mellario cleared her throat, and, just like that, Arianne found herself opening them again. She was like a moth to the flame; her mother was some exotic thing, something she could not look away from no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times Mellario mentioned Quentyn.

“I told him that he was selling his own flesh and blood to cover his debts,” she said. “I did not understand then, nor do I now, the idea of sending your own child away to someone else, to let them raise that child and let your child think of them as father. As...as mother,” she faltered, then.

Arianne swallowed hard.

She knew that that argument over Quentyn had been, if the not beginning, the catalyst for the end of her parents’ marriage, even if divorce was not acceptable to the two of them and they had merely spent these last decades apart, rather than with a marriage that had truly been ended.

Mellario had thought her child far too young to be sent away to be fostered by some lord who held no great love for the Martells, and Doran had disagreed. It was one of many disagreements between the two of them, these two who had married for love and knew little really of one another, but in the end, Doran had ended up sending Quentyn to Yronwood, anyway.

Mellario had never forgiven him.

“Your father wanted to send you to be the Archon’s cupbearer, in Tyrosh,” Mellario continued, and Arianne’s eyes flew open then, because she had only a distant memory of that affair.

That her father had wanted her fostered out when she was younger, but relented and changed his mind about after long, was something that her family never spoke about. She knew that he had wanted to foster her out from Oberyn, and sometimes, Arianne wondered if her father blamed her for the fact that she had not been fostered out. If he had wanted her to be fostered because he had not known how to be a father, and had thought that sending her away would make him love her more.

After all, he had been happy to keep his distance from her throughout her life, whether she lived in Sunspear or not.

“I threatened to kill myself,” Mellario whispered, and Arianne felt her jaw dropping open, at those words. “I told your father that I would have Areo Hotah lay me on his sword, if he tried to take you away from me the way that he had taken my son.”

Arianne’s breaths were coming quick now, and hard.

“And I saw,” Mellario whispered, and she sounded near broken, now. “I saw my husband for what he was, then. I knew the anger that drove your uncle, Oberyn; I had not seen how it possessed your father until that day, when I threatened to lay on Areo Hotah’s sword and he looked at me as though I had told him that I would drag you with me.”

Arianne shook her head, taking a step back from the other woman, wanting, like a small child, to reach up and cover her ears. She couldn’t. She was spellbound, as Mellario reached out and gently placed a hand on her wrist, and Arianne found that she couldn’t pull away from that, either.

“He didn’t foster you out, but I lost you that day, all the same,” Mellario said. “Just as I lost him. He looked at me, and he saw yet another uncertainty, an unstable thing that might steal the last of his happiness away from him, if he allowed me to. And I cannot say that he was wrong. That I wouldn’t have stolen you and Trystane away onto a ship if I had to, if I thought that you would not be with me.”

Arianne’s lower lip quivered. “But you left us anyway, in the end,” she said. She wanted to rail against her mother, to demand to know why, after all of that fighting for her, for her brother, she could leave them anyway, in the end, but the words came out a quiet whimper, one that she hated herself for.

She reached up with her free hand to find herself wiping at her wet eyes.

Mellario nodded, sadly. “And I am sorry for it, but I left you because your father asked it of me,” she said, and Arianne felt her stomach sink. “We could not agree on anything, by then, and I think we both feared the effect that it would have on you and Trystane. I left because I had threatened to kill myself, through Hotah, if you were not raised the way that I wanted you to be, and Doran did not want you to lose a mother like that, did not want to lose his children to my hot temper.” Her smile was bitter. “So I left, because I could not stand the thought of raising you in this world, with your father, nor of raising you alone in Norvos.”

That pit in the midst of Arianne’s stomach tightened. “So it was Father, who sent you away,” she whispered, and Mellario shook her head, violently.

“No,” she said, and there were tears in her own eyes. “No, Arianne. I left, because your father was right. Gods, I am not explaining this well.” She sent Arianne a gentle smile. “I left because, in the end, I thought it to be the best thing to do for you. Because I did not want to raise you in a home where your parents could never agree that what you were doing was good, and right.”

Arianne scoffed. “Well, that happened anyway.”

Mellario pursed her lips. “Gods,” she whispered, reaching up to wipe the wiry hair from her eyes. “I am not explaining this well. Arianne, the day that I decided to leave Norvos, I was going to take you with me. I wanted to take you with me, because Trystane was just a child and would not understand if I took him away from the only home he had ever known, but you...you were my daughter, my oldest girl, and the thought of leaving you behind made me sick. You may have been a Princess of Dorne, but you were my daughter, first and foremost.”

Arianne’s stomach clenched again. She swallowed hard, rapt.

Mellario sighed. “I got you as far as the harbor, before Doran dragged us both back to Sunspear,” she said. “And demanded to know what I was doing. I...I am surprised, honestly, that you do not remember this yourself.”

Arianne shook her head.

Mellario’s other hand reached out, so that she was holding both of Arianne’s wrists in her hands, and Arianne did not feel trapped by the touch. On the contrary, she felt...comforted, strangely, for she had never been one to enjoy the feeling of another against her, save for in the bedroom.

And even then, it had more to do with pleasure than comfort.

“Your father looked at me,” Mellario said, quietly, “And he demanded to know why, if I was to leave and deprive him of one that he loved so much, I must take another that he loved with me. Why I must steal you away, and leave him with only pain. And...I found then, that I could not do it. I could not steal you away from him, and I am sorry if that has left you with some measure of pain because of me. I truly am.”

Arianne’s breath caught in her throat. “Areo Hotah,” she said, softly, “He was meant to protect us, my brothers and I, wasn’t he? That’s why he remained.”

“Your father loves fiercely. He loved your aunt fiercely. He loved me fiercely. He just does not know how to show that love, not in the best of ways. But he loves you, Arianne,” Mellario said, her hand searing on Arianne’s arm, as she nodded in answer to Arianne’s question. “So I think that you will be surprised by whatever his answer for all of this is, if you just give him the chance to explain himself.”

Arianne did manage to pull away from the other woman, then, drawing in deep breaths. “I...I need some time alone, I think,” she said, softly.

Mellario nodded. “Think it over,” she said. “Your father loves you Arianne, and he only ever wanted what was best for us, as a family.”

From the story that her mother had just told her, Arianne had gotten a different impression, but she didn’t bother to argue with the other woman, just nodded absently and started to move away from her, plotting already how she was going to deal with the fact that her brother had apparently had the time to go to Norvos, during his travels.

Had seen their mother there, and she had said nothing of him trying to raise an army against her, but at the same time, she didn’t know if she could trust her mother enough to tell her if he had been.

After all, her own father had thought her an enemy, and become one to her, himself.

“Arianne?” Mellario said, in the doorway. “Take it from someone who has experience with these things. If you hold on too tightly, you’re going to lose the thing you cling to so hard, anyway.”

Arianne dragged in a deep breath through her nose, nodding.

She thought her mother was right, but she had a feeling that she had learned the sort o lesson that her mother hadn’t intended her to.

* * *

“What did your mother want?” Gerold asked, gently.

Arianne turned, then, pressing herself into her husband’s chest and leaning hard against him, trying to pretend she didn’t notice how odd he found this, when she had never really sought comfort from him before.

But the feel of him, strong and tall and pressed against her, almost taught Arianne how to breathe, again.

After a moment’s hesitation, she felt her husband’s arms wrap around her, pulling her close, and Arianne breathed in his scent and found it strangely calming.

“She…” Arianne honestly wasn’t certain how to explain what had just happened. “She wanted me to speak with my father again.”

Gerold’s hold on her tightened. “Why?”

Arianne shook her head, where it still rested against him. “She thinks that I am wrong about him. She thinks that I am wrong about…” she let out an incredulous scoff, gesturing vaguely around their room. “About all of this.”

Gerold did not speak for several moments. Then, “Do you believe her?”

It was the first time that Gerold had expressed any sort of doubt in their plan, and the thought brought Arianne up short, for her husband was not the sort of man who put much thought into doubts, once he had made up his mind about something.

She knew that they did not have the traditional sort of marriage, knew that, while it had been a marriage of convenience and that was traditional enough, neither of them had invested much into this marriage by way of trying, beyond the occasional fuck, as they had already done before they were married.

Both of them were far too concerned with what was to come.

Hells, the only reason that Gerold had married her in the first place was because Arianne had promised him a war against her brother, had promised him that he would sit on the throne by her side. Because the men of Dorne wanted blood for all that they had suffered in silence, and Arianne could promise that where, for whatever reason, her father could not.

But if she was wrong...If she was wrong, then she knew this marriage would mean nothing. Her father could just as easily have it annulled, and marry her off to some old lord like he had always threatened to do when she was younger, that she could not interfere in his plans again.

His plans that somehow included sending her brother to the East at the same time that the Golden Company was moving West.

She licked her lips, aware that she needed to be very careful, in how she presented this to her husband, lest she lose him - and his support, his armies - for good.

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.” She sat up a little, leaning over her husband. “I believe in what we can accomplish, now that we finally have the chance to do so. I believe that now we’re here, we shouldn’t waste our chance.”

Gerold’s eyes widened a little, at the fervor in her words. “You’ve said this before,” he said. “And still, here we are.”

Arianne hummed. “Because I’ve been afraid. Afraid of what my father might think, afraid of destroying this kingdom when I am trying to save it,” she told him. “But I was wrong, to be afraid. And I know what I have to do, now.”

Gerold stared up at her, as she moved between his legs, stood before him. “What?” He asked, and his voice was almost breathless.

Arianne pressed her lips together, as she reached up and ran a hand through her husband’s hair. “I have to find my brother, wherever he is. And I have to kill him.”

Gerold stared at her, and Arianne lifted her chin, forced herself to sound a little more certain, at the very least.

“Before he can drag this country down with him.”

Gerold kissed her.

* * *

She waited until she was sure that her husband was sound asleep, before she snuck out of the bed and reached for her robes, slipping them on before she padded her way out other husband’s chambers and into the hall.

She knew that in the morning, it would not matter, because her husband would wonder where she had gone anyway, but Arianne would have an explanation for her absence, by then.

She glanced back one more time, at her husband, where he lay still on the bed, and her heart clenched a bit.

No matter what she thought about Gerold personally, she couldn’t deny that the man was a good lover, passionate and obsessed, almost, and had once been a confidante and a friend.

It was a shame that this had to happen the way that it would.

She turned to the guards, where they stood outside her door, and pressed a finger to her lips.

“Not a word,” she warned them, and they bowed as one to her.

Her men may think that Gerold was just as powerful as Arianne now, an assumption that, as their reigning Princess, she would need to soon disabuse them of, but they would not disobey a direct order from her, she was certain of it.

“And I need you to do something else for me,” she whispered, into the silence.

Her men straightened. “Whatever you wish, Your Highness.”

Arianne forced herself to smile, cocking her head at them. “My brother. While he has been…overseas, endangering the future of this kingdom, he was in Norvos. I need you to send one of your best scouts, and find out where he is. Understood?”

They glanced at one another, and then nodded.

“As Your Highness commands,” one of them said, and Arianne swallowed.

“No one is to know of this, do you understand? Not my husband, not anyone.”

The guards exchanged those nervous glances again.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” they said, and Arianne gave them another long look before starting to walk down the corridor.

“Ah, excuse me, Your Highness,” one of the guards interrupted. “But your husband has ordered that, due to the attack on Myrcella, you should not be alone at any time.”

Arianne cocked an eyebrow, wondered if perhaps there had been some truth to what Obara had warned her.

“I am your princess,” she said, coldly. “And I understand the concern, but I will be fine.”

In fact, she supposed, it would be strange if she were not accompanied by guards, wherever she went, but Arianne had no intention of anyone knowing where she was going.

If they did, their tongues would wag, and Arianne could no longer trust that the things she did in secret would not be used against her - by anyone in her court, not just her husband.

She had seen the look in Obara’s eyes, when the other girl had all but questioned the reason for her to not crown Myrcella.

She took a deep breath as she passed around the corner of the corridor and realized that the guards weren’t following her, and then quickened her pace, through the castle and out of it, ignoring the way that the guards outside called out to her, going to the stables where she could not be detained, because, after all, she was the Princess.

In the end, it was all too easy to sneak out of her own palace.

It was slightly harder, sneaking into the tower where she was keeping her father as a prisoner, and convincing a guard whom she had explicitly told never to allow anyone but himself to enter, to let her in.

When she was still her father’s daughter, he would not have allowed her in.

Now, he simply did so with a raised eyebrow, and Arianne stepped through a door that she had not walked inside of since she had put her father here in the first place, and she didn’t know if it was because of the guilt that she felt for keeping him locked away, or because she couldn’t stand the thought of having to deal with him, after the way he had made it clear he didn’t give much of a damn about her.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to remember that she had been the one to usurp her father, not the other way around, and either way, he should not elicit such emotion within her.

She was better than him.

She was still moving slowly, unfortunately, but still, she was better than him. Stronger. She had had the guts to do the thing that he could not.

She would make Dorne as great as it had once been, back before it had ever bent the knee to the Targaryens for a marriage, back when the world over had known Dorne as never bowing to anyone.

Her father glanced up, from where he sat in the chair by the single window in his cell, and his eyes widened a little, at the sight of her.

He looked older, though it had only been a few months since his imprisonment. She supposed it must be difficult, to be locked away for so long.

“Hello, Arianne. I didn’t expect to see you again.”

Arianne licked her lips, shutting the door behind herself. “Hello, Father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to comment!


	16. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief mentions of forced abortion, rape. Also, guys. You have no idea the deep recesses of reddit I found myself in, trying to figure out if Ser Robert Strong could still...you know. Sorry. I mean, it was...implied in the show? But...anyway.
> 
> On another note, I actually...split this chapter in half. *Looks at the word count and runs away screaming*

_“How is she?” Sansa asked, softly, annoyed that she was now reduced to interrogating Margaery’s ladies outside her door in order to make sure that she was all right._

_She shot the guards a glare, where they stood in the corner of the hallway, of course trying to leave them to their privacy, because no one seemed to understand what Sansa’s place in this new world was yet, but they did understand that she was not to be trifled with, while they guarded the Queen’s chambers._

_She took a deep breath, trying to remind herself that it wasn’t Margaery’s fault that she was being so…standoffish. After what she had been though, Sansa didn’t think that she could blame her for much of anything, these days, even if Baelish was infuriated that she didn’t seem to be…responding well, to Sansa’s manipulations._

_In truth, Margaery wasn’t responding well to anything, but Sansa was managing to get certain things done, whether she wanted to do them, or not._

_The gods pity them if Baelish ever found that out, of course._

_But it meant that Margaery was not forced to do things she did not want to do, at the moment, and at the moment, she seemed quite content not to do much more than make a single daily appearance, and then disappear into Cersei’s old chambers for the rest of the day, seeing no one._

_Which was why Sansa was reduced to making her plans with Garlan, rather than Margaery, and interrogating Margaery’s ladies just to make sure that Margaery was eating and sleeping._

_Alla grimaced, shutting the door behind her so that they wouldn’t be overheard. Not that Margaery seemed to be enticed to come out of her inner chambers, but Sansa supposed it was better to be careful._

_She had a feeling, these days, that Margaery wouldn’t like the thought that she was being spied upon._

_“She…won’t come out of her bedchambers,” Alla confessed, eyes downcast. “At all. And she won’t eat anything. If any of us try to come in, she orders us out.”_

_She sounded incredibly sad about it, and Sansa felt a stab of guilt, that none of Margaery’s ladies seemed to know the full story about what had happened to her, and none of them could._

_Sansa took a deep breath. “I see,” she said, biting back a sigh, because she certainly didn’t want to be the one to intrude on Margaery, not with the way that the other woman seemed to be avoiding her, these days._

_But she had to make these attempts at meetings most days, regardless, because Baelish was convinced that she was persuading Margaery as to their plans at the end of each day._

_He had no idea that Sansa had no more control over Margaery, these days, than Margaery had had over Joffrey, near the end of her marriage._

_She was just working around the other girl, and that was not an easy task, either, when one was not the Queen. Nor, even, anyone of consequence, besides that of a traitor’s daughter being kept prisoner here._

_If she was even a prisoner anymore; of that, Sansa was no longer entirely sure, and it occurred to her that she ought to be more concerned about that, and yet._

_And yet, these days the only thing she found herself worrying about, save for the damnation of all of King’s Landing in flames when she came to the inevitable conclusion that she was incapable of ruling on her own without even control of the Small Council, was Margaery._

_Alla sighed, and she blinked up at Sansa with wide eyes. “Sansa, what…what happened to her?”_

_Sansa flinched, quickly looking away._

_It had been only a week since that day, and Sansa…Sansa could still feel how difficult it had been, to take the knife in her hands and twist it, over and over again, as blood poured out over her fingers and Margaery stared at her with deadened eyes…_

_Sansa took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. The image faded, but the sensation, that slow spurt of blood that had followed removing the knife, remained._

_And if she wasn’t all right…then dear gods, she couldn’t imagine what Margaery must be feeling, at the moment._

_Of course, she also couldn’t imagine it because whenever she did manage to meet Margaery’s eyes, the other girl looked at her like she thought was going to blurt out her greatest secret then and there, in front of half the Small Council, or the court._

_And if she didn’t want to tell any of her ladies about it, that was fine by Sansa, who would rather not relive any of it again, thank you very much._

_So she treaded carefully, asking, “Has she…what has she told you?”_

_Alla scoffed, making a face of disgust. “She doesn’t tell us anything. She won’t.” A pause. “I’m worried about her.”_

_Sansa took a deep breath. “Alla…” a pause, and Sansa took another deep breath, tried to decide how she wanted to word this._

_Because of course, she could see the worry in Alla’s eyes, knew that it was cruel to keep the other girl in the dark, to keep any of the girls in the dark when she knew how they cared about Margaery, but it was not her secret to tell._

_And if Margaery wanted no one to know, there was nothing Sansa could do about that, even if something like sourness filled her tongue._

_“She watched her husband be killed, right in front of her,” Sansa said, slowly, and tried to pretend that she didn’t see the look in Alla’s eyes, the disbelief, there. “By the fanatics. And…by the time that I found her, she…well, I think that they…Attacked her, before I got there. Before Ser Meryn killed some of them, and they him.”_

_She grimaced; that was yet another part of the lie that sat uncomfortably in her stomach, the idea that Ser Meryn was able to kill off some of the fanatics, before his untimely end. That he was some sort of hero, in the end, when Sansa had never seen him as such._

_But Baelish had insisted that it wouldn’t be believable, otherwise._

_Of course, the fanatics had carried off the bodies of their friends, before anyone else could get to the Queen in time._

_“Joffrey,” Alla repeated, and Sansa stared at her blankly._

_“What?”_

_“Her husband was Joffrey,” Alla said, and there was something like anger in her voice; she knew that Sansa was lying, and she was calling her out on it._

_Sansa closed her eyes._

_“She hated him,” Alla continued, and there was something cold and merciless in her tone that Sansa had never heard from her before, the one of Margaery’s ladies who had always seemed like such a child, to Sansa. “She might not have let on about it all the time, but I know her. She loathed him, and he was loathsome for a good reason. I can’t imagine that even his horrific death should have upset her this much.”_

_Sansa stared at her, mouth opening and closing, truly struck speechless by the other girl, by what she’d just said._

_And it was strange; Sansa hadn’t thought of the situation like that once, not since Joffrey had died. Hadn’t thought that it was strange that Margaery ought to be mourning him at all, even as she tried so hard to spin the story for their audience. Hadn’t thought it was strange that Margaery might want to mourn her own dear husband because, after all, he had been her husband._

_The whole world over might know how she truly felt about him, but she would be the worse of the two, in their minds, should they ever know the truth._

_And yet._

_And yet, she knew why Margaery was acting the way she was. Knew that the violation she had endured had…changed her, inherently._

_But she couldn’t help but think of this from Alla’s perspective, couldn’t help but think, in this moment, how it did almost feel like Margaery was mourning Joffrey._

_She had killed him, and she had every right to feel whatever the fuck she wanted to feel about that, but Sansa wasn’t mourning Ser Meryn._

_And Margaery walked about like a ghost these days, like a person who was barely there, in spirit, like someone who wanted to be anywhere but there._

_And when she was done for the day, she locked herself away in her chambers and refused entry to any of her ladies, or to Sansa._

_Sansa swallowed hard. She was about to open her mouth, about to reprimand Alla, because surely this meant the other girl was getting far too close to the truth and she needed to be put in her place, when a servant walked up with a covered bowl._

_Sansa turned on her, glad of the distraction, suddenly, because she didn’t know what she could say to justify all of this, without telling Alla the truth. Not when Alla seemed insistent on finding it out for herself._

_“What are you doing with that?” Sansa asked, lifting the cloth without thinking, because after all, they were originally going to poison Joffrey._

_Perhaps she was paranoid, but if Cersei ever found out the truth about what they had done, she was certain the other woman would find such a revenge ironic enough to enact._

_“I…The kitchens sent this, my lady,” the serving girl said as she dipped into a curtsey, rather awkwardly with the tray in her hands so full._

_Sansa hummed. “Did you have someone taste it?” She asked, and Alla squinted at her suspiciously, but the servants had already been informed of this extra chore, after all._

_And Sansa might not have believed that they had done so, when the serving girl nodded obediently, if she hadn’t been the one to threaten them herself, should they fail and anything happen to the Queen Regent because of it._

_Sansa nodded, then, impulsively, because it would mean getting away from Alla and that she could taste the food herself, if she had to, “I’ll take it for her. You’re dismissed.”_

_The serving girl squinted at her, this time, and then dipped into another curtsey, gratefully handing over the bowl and all but disappearing down the hall in the time it took Sansa to blink._

_When she looked back at the shut door of Margaery’s chambers, Alla was still staring at her._

_“What’s going on?” Alla asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared into Sansa’s eyes. “Why are you having people taste Margaery’s food, and why won’t she talk to any of us? And don’t for a moment think you can make me believe that it’s because…”_

_“You’re dismissed, Alla,” Sansa interrupted her. “And you ought to have some more compassion for your Queen. No wonder she won’t tell you anything about how she feels.”_

_The guards, behind them, shifted uncomfortably; Sansa abruptly remembered that they were all Tyrells, now._

_Alla lifted her chin, dipping into a defiant little curtsey before she walked off, and Sansa released a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding as she turned and walked into the Queen’s chambers._

_She hadn’t been in them for some time, and they seemed strange, now that she was back here. As the door shut behind her, the air felt cloying, like there was some presence here, bearing down on all of them._

_Which was strange, because she thought if anything, the presence would be next door, in Joffrey’s chambers._

_Sansa swallowed hard, stepping further into the rooms. Margaery had dismissed all of her servants, and that was strange too, because eSansa could think of only a handful of occasions when Margaery was not surrounded by her servants._

_Usually, it was because the two of them were trying to find some time alone, and Margaery had told all of her ladies that she had a headache and they needed to leave her be._

_Sansa smiled wistfully at the memory, before she took a deep breath and stepped further inside, into Margaery’s bedchambers, calling out softly to announce herself before she stepped within, because she had a feeling that Margaery woudln’t appreciate being surprised._

_“Margaery?” She called, as she pushed the door open. “I’ve brought you some foo-”_

_She paused, in the midst of kicking the door open a little further._

_Margaery was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, and she looked up sharply, as Sansa entered the room, a look like a startled animal on her face._

_She hadn’t been crying, Sansa noticed; her cheeks were bone dry. Just…sitting there, unmoving, and for some reason that Sansa could not quite put a name to, that was the more disturbing fact, in her mind._

_She swallowed, stepping further inside and pretending that all was well, because she knew that if she pretended otherwise, Margaery would push her away again, like she’d been doing since all of this had started, and Sansa couldn’t bear that._

_“I brought you some food,” she repeated, with a forced smile, and Margaery eyed the tray in her hands suspiciously._

_She swallowed. “I…I’m not hungry.”_

_Sansa moved forward regardless, setting the tray down on the little table beside Margaery’s bed and pulling the cloth the rest of the way loose._

_“I’ve had the servants taste it, to make sure that it’s all right,” Sansa assured her, struck by the oddity of this situation. Of her, trying to convince Margaery to eat the food._

_Margaery snorted, hugging herself a little tighter, as Sansa moved closer to her, and Sansa faltered._

_“You think Cersei couldn’t bribe a few servants, if she wanted to?” She asked. “Even from Casterly Rock?”_

_Sansa pursed her lips. “I think she’s got more important things to worry about now,” she pointed out, because the rumors that Stannis had successfully taken the Rock were no longer just rumors, now._

_Margaery snorted again. There was no humor in the sound. “More important than avenging her child?” She asked, as if Sansa were foolish for thinking that anything would be more important than that, to Cersei’s mind._

_Sansa supposed she had a point._

_“You need to eat,” Sansa said gently, recognizing the irony in her own statement. She wondered if this gnawing feeling of powerlessness, of worry, was what Shae had often felt, in trying to get Sansa to eat a little more._

_She thought of the way that Margaery had kissed her just to cram food down her throat, once, the way that a mother bird fed its young, and grimaced._

_Margaery kept her back turned to Sansa, not bothering to respond at all to her words._

_“Margaery…” Sansa tried not to let her frustrations bleed into her voice. After all, she could hardly blame Margaery for what she was feeling, just now, when she herself had done the same thing to her own body._

_Instead, she sat down, on the other side of the bed from Margaery, because she couldn’t ignore the way that Margaery had flinched away from her, and held the bowl out to her._

_Margaery didn’t try to meet her eyes, but Sansa didn’t blame her for that. She’d noticed that particular quirk, as well, besides the hands that shook when she thought no one was looking, but far too many people were._

_As if Margaery thought that if anyone looked her in the eyes, her secrets would be laid bare._

_Sansa wanted to tell her that with the way she was acting, people would find out her secrets long before that, but she knew it would only alienate the two of them further._

_And right now, she’d do anything for Margaery not to beg her away._

_She wondered if it stemmed out of the thought of punishing herself for Margaery as well, and the thought was suddenly quite unbearable. She didn’t want that for the other girl, didn’t want her to have to face such a thing, in her state._

_She’d done nothing wrong, to Sansa’s mind, even if Margaery didn’t seem to agree with her, on that assessment._

_They’d been planning to murder Joffrey that night, anyway; things had just gone a bit awry._

_Margaery was silent, and suddenly, coupled with the cloying presence pressing down on Sansa’s chambers, the silence was unbearable._

_“Margaery, please.”_

_Margaery glanced up at her finally, eyes bloodshot. “I’m not hungry,” she said, softly, before glancing down again, at her entwined fingers. “I…I’m really not hungry.”_

_Sansa thought this was a rather strange feeling, asking Margaery to eat because the other woman refused to, as she thought of how a year ago, it had been the other way around._

_And Margaery had been only moderately more successful than Sansa felt, now._

_“You have to eat,” she whispered, holding the bowl out enticingly. “Before it gets cold, yes?”_

_Margaery’s eyes were bleary, as they stared down at the bowl in front of her._

_Slowly, her hands moving as if through water, Margaery reached for the bowl, brought the spoon to her lips._

_Sansa watched her with rapt attention, and thought how strange it was, to be on the other side of this situation, for once._

_Margaery ate as if she thought she would choke on every bite, but she did eat, and Sansa supposed there was something like victory, in that._

_Even if none of this had felt like a victory, yet. Or, if it was a victory, a rather hollow one, with Joffrey’s ghost hanging over them, at every moment, in every word that Margaery didn’t say, in every opportunity that she refused to take._

_Sansa watched Margaery eat, in silence, and hated the silence a little more each moment, even as she resolved not to leave until Margaery asked her to._

_She didn’t think she could bear it if she left of her own accord, and didn’t know when next she’d get a moment alone with Margaery again._

_When Margaery did finally speak, the words felt loud in the silent room, for all that Sansa had to lean forward, across the bed, causing Margaery to flinch again, in order to hear them._

_“Do you think that…some things,” Margaery said, and her voice was slow, measured, “Do you think that some things tarnish the soul beyond repair?”_

_Sansa eyed her, out of the corner of her gaze._

_She knew exactly what Margaery was talking about, of course; even if she didn’t believe that Margaery’s every waking thought, these days, was about what she had done that day, it was obvious enough._

_“I…I don’t know that I believe that at all,” she said, which wasn’t quite the truth, but the question had so surprised her that Sansa didn’t know how to answer it._

_Margaery swallowed hard, cocking her head at Sansa. “At all?” She asked, and her voice was incredulous, as if she couldn’t imagine how Sansa couldn’t feel guilt over what they had done, even to one as horrible as Joffrey._

_And Sansa…Sansa supposed that she shouldn’t be so surprised by Margaery’s reaction. Sansa had once spent months beating herself up over her part in Oberyn’s death, and it was a death he had all but volunteered for, when he declared that he would fight the Mountain in single combat._

_She had blamed herself for that as if she had wielded the blade herself, had pushed her fingers into his eye sockets as the Mountain had done, and now…_

_She still felt the faint stirrings of guilt, over what had happened to Oberyn, just as she felt them for her father._

_But she had killed Ser Meryn without a second thought, and if the opportunity arose again, if she were forced to repeat her actions of the past year, she might have made sure Joffrey died when she finally poisoned him, rather than making herself so nervous she drew out the poison too long for it to have a killing effect._

_Because he was dead now, and all she felt was…sad. Sad, for Margaery, not for him, but there was no guilt, there._

_He had been horrible, and as horrible as things might be between them now, they were still better._

_Because Joffrey was dead, and Sansa preferred him as a ghost than as a living, breathing monster._

_It was what she had to believe, that she felt no guilt at all for his death, that this cloying feeling overwhelming her was because of what Margaery felt, because sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she still saw the shock on Ser Meryn’s face, as he turned to her._

_And she had justified killing Joffrey, had justified what had happened to Oberyn._

_Meryn Trant might have beat her at Joffrey’s orders, but they had been at Joffrey’s orders, whether or not he had enjoyed it._

_She had no reason to kill him, and she felt far less guilty about it than Margaery did over the death of a man that she had every reason to kill, Sansa knew that without Margaery even having to explain it to her._

_“Maybe some things,” Sansa allowed, shrugging, as she thought of the Freys and what they had done to her brother and mother. As she thought of her father’s head, falling down the steps before the Sept._

_Margaery sniffed, and Sansa hurried on, “But not this. You did what you had to do,” she said. “He…He was hurting you, and he was…horrible.”_

_In her mind, that was enough._

_It had to be enough, because otherwise, there was no excuse for what Sansa had done._

_Ser Meryn Trant had hurt her, yes, had beaten her, time and time again, on Joffrey’s orders, and worse than that, he had enjoyed it. She knew he had, from the look in his eyes as he hit the flat of his sword against her bare back._

_None of the knights have ever refused to beat her for Joffrey, but none of the rest of them had seemed to enjoy it, either._

_She could feel the knife again, twisting between his ribs as she pushed it in further, further than she thought she was supposed to to kill a man, but she had wanted to make sure that he was really dead._

_He was a threat, and he had to die, and that had been reason enough to kill him, even if it hadn’t been entirely unsatisfying, watching the knife plunge into his ribs, and knowing that she had done that._

_No, she thought, willing the remembrance away. It had been terrifying._

_Not exhilarating, not pleasing, not empty, not any of those other words, because that would mean things that Sansa did not want to consider._

_She glanced over at Margaery, whose hands shook even as she held the spoon to her lips, grimaced at the texture of the gruel that Sansa had brought her because Alysanne didn’t think that Margaery would be able to stomach anything else._

_“Do you…” Margaery bit her lip, and Sansa leaned forward, because at least Margaery was talking to her, just now. “Do you regret it?” She asked. “Killing Ser Meryn.”_

_Sansa closed her eyes, because she had known this question was coming ever since she had looked up from Ser Meryn’s twitching corpse and caught Margaery staring at her with wide, dead eyes._

_And if she lied, she didn’t think that she would ever gain back Margaery’s trust in these days, when Margaery was already so…fragile._

_A word that Sansa had never thought she would have to use for Margaery, not once._

_She swallowed. “No,” she said, because that was the truth, and because she thought that Margaery might be helped, in hearing it._

_When she opened her eyes again, she didn’t know what Margaery thought of her answer, because Margaery was making a concentrated effort to stare down at her soup, in lieu of Sansa._

_When she spoke again, Sansa found herself listening to the other woman with rapt attention, because, for all that Alla was frustrated that Margaery would not speak about what had happened to her, Sansa had seen how it pained the other woman, to recount the tale for her and Baelish, just the one time._

_She had never spoken about it, again. Had spared no details of that night when she first told them, so that she would not have to speak of it again, Sansa knew._

_“He said that he was going to…” Margaery bit her lower lip, hard, and Sansa’s jaw tightened, for she thought she knew what the other woman was going to say, before she fell silent. Had a horrible feeling that she knew exactly what Joffrey had throated her with, for her to look at Sansa like that, for her to refuse to meet Sansa’s gaze._

_“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”_

_Sansa closed her eyes._

_She thought she knew what Margaery had been about to say. Thought that she finally understood what had caused Margaery to snap that night, when she had endured her husband for so long, before that._

_He had been getting worse, in the end, it was true, but she had endured him, all the same._

_Until something happened that meant she couldn’t, anymore._

_“Is…Is the food all right?” Sansa asked, in lieu of anything else to say, because she didn’t think there was anything else to say, after that._

_Margaery shrugged, her lips curling. “It’s fine,” she said. “I know…the maesters say that the nausea should have passed by now, but I’m never very hungry, these days.”_

_Sansa eyed her. “You’re not…getting sick still, are you?” She asked._

_She wasn’t making herself sick, was what she wanted to ask._

_Margaery shrugged a thin shoulder. She had been thin, when she first returned from her strange little trip to Highgarden, and Sansa worried that she hadn’t gained enough of that weight back, even with the pregnancy._

_She was still far too thin, but with a bump, where the child was._

_Sansa looked away from it._

_Margaery was biting her lip, flipping her spoon over and over in the broth of her bowl, staring at it intently. “I’m fine, Sansa. You don’t have to worry about me, so much. I know that you do.”_

_Despite her words, she didn’t even look fine as she said them, Sansa thought._

_And that thought prompted her to reach out, despite all of the times that Margaery had flinched away from anyone who tried to touch her since that night, because surely…_

_She knew that Margaery had suffered a violation, but she wanted the other girl to know that she was here for her, that she would always have her, close enough to touch, if that was what she wanted._

_Her hand made it as far as the edge of the bowl, before she faltered at the sound of Margaery’s breath catching._

_The other girl blinked up at her with wide eyes, and Sansa let her hand fall, onto the sheets._

_They sat like that, for Sansa didn’t know how long, before Sansa pulled her hand back to her side._

_“Sansa, I…” Margaery flinched away from her, the same way that she had done that first night after murdering her husband, and every night since._

_Sansa paused, flinched, pulling back._

_“Sansa, I can’t…” Margaery said, looking down at her hands, in lieu of the other girl, and Sansa forced herself not to react at all to the rejection, small though it had been._

_“I...ever since that night,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely. “I haven’t been able to think about...not without…”_

_Sansa swallowed hard, forcing down the bile at the back of her throat._

_Gods, she hadn’t meant…She hadn’t meant that she wanted that from Margaery, and she would have thought that the other girl would know she wouldn’t ask for that, not after what had happened…_

_Sansa cleared her throat. “Oh,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say, in the face of the hurt swimming in her own eyes, and her voice was soft, but there was a fury in her eyes that for a moment, a fury that she forced down because it belonged to Joffrey, not to Margaery._

_When she looked up at Margaery again, she thought that she had not been able to force it down quickly enough._

_She swallowed hard. “Of course. I’m sorry, I…”_

_“No, it’s all right,” Margaery said, even if her voice was dead._

_“I didn’t mean to…”_

_Margaery reached out to her, and then paused, going very still before she snatched her hand back and lowered it to her side, once again. Her fingers idly traced around the spoon._

_Gods, this was torture, Sansa thought._

_And then, because she couldn’t help herself, or perhaps because she wanted to suffer for the lack of guilt she felt when Margaery seemed so riddled with it, she asked, “Have you been sleeping?”_

_She knew the answer already, of course, in the bags under Margaery’s eyes, and the concern on Alla’s face. Still, she asked._

_Margaery looked away from her. “I…No,” she said, and her voice was whisper soft, and it was on the tip of Sansa’s tongue, to offer to stay with her while she slept._

_Not…for anything more than sleeping, but even as she had the thought, she knew that Margaery would not accept it. She would not even touch Sansa, and here Sansa was, trying to invite herself into Margaery’s bed again._

* * *

“I want to abolish drawing and quartering,” Margaery announced, as she flounced into the Small Council chambers with more energy than Sansa had seen from her in some time. She sank down at the head of the table, frowning at her Small Council when there was no response from them.

Sansa glanced around; they were clearly blindsided by the abrupt decision, as Sansa herself was, but as the Regent, she supposed that Margaery had the right to suggest such a thing.

Even if it was the last thing they should be worrying about right now, with far many more problems taking precedence, at the moment.

Margaery was undaunted by the lack of a reaction, it seemed.

“It is one of the most cruel forms of execution that are available to the Crown, and there are…far quicker methods, after all.”

Drawing and quartering, Sansa knew, was one of the worst forms of execution that was outlined to the Crown, typically assigned to commoners, and among those, the ones who had done the worst treasons. Even if it was not one of the worst that the Crown had employed.

Technically, the pretend sparrows could have been executed in such a way, but Margaery, perhaps because she knew that they weren’t really sparrows, Sansa thought, something like worry rushing through her at the reminder, had insisted that they merely be hanged.

But of course, there were other cruel ways to kill a man, ways the Crown had indulged in before, even if they were not clearly outlined in the law.

The Mad King burning her grandfather, came to mind.

But having a man pulled apart by horses and then ripping out his intestines and cutting him into quarters was rather a close second, she thought, and wondered where Margaery had gotten the idea to abolish it.

Unless, of course, she was doing so precisely because it had been suggested to her, when the men who had supposedly killed her husband had all been rounded up.

Silence met the Regent’s words, as she took her seat, and Sansa glanced nervously around at the other occupants of the table.

All of them, save for Trystane, who looked rather amused, looked shocked by her words. And Baelish was looking at Sansa as if this was somehow her fault.

The men blinked at her.

Then, clearing his throat, Kevan, who had strangely become something like a voice of reason in these meetings, despite his ultimatum to Sansa and Baelish to get Margaery under control lately, said, “Your Grace…”

“My husband executed more than his fair share, during his time as king,” Margaery said, calmly, and Sansa closed her eyes.

Ah. So this was about her guilt. Again.

For a moment, Sansa found herself wondering if it was the form of execution that Margaery found so repugnant, just now, or the idea of execution altogether.

She closed her eyes, and saw Ser Ilyn Payne taking off her father’s head.

Any other time, she might have even found herself agreeing with Margaery, even as she understood the necessity of being able to kill, but right now…right now, they had far too many other issues to deal with.

The Boltons, Cersei…

She let out a sigh, and did not fail to notice the annoyed look that Kevan Lannister sent her way, no doubt because of her silence.

“I can’t imagine why you should have a problem with my wishing to…temper down such a thing,” Margaery went on, and Sansa found herself wishing that she could take on the other woman’s guilt, if it would keep her from making decisions like this.

“Your forgiveness, Your Grace,” Baelish sat forward, a patient smile on his face, as if she were a child and he a… “But it did not sound like that was what you said. And executions, distasteful as they are, are a good deterrent to the smallfolk, to keep them from acting against the Crown, and to-”

“Well, they don’t seem to do a very good job of that,” Margaery said, and her voice was hoarse. “The people are only more furious with the Crown in the days since the Slaughter of the Sept, after we killed so many of them for their…treason. I think that…this sort of law might go some way in convincing them that we are not their enemy, here.”

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that old woman, who had accused her of being a murderer, and knew that she had no defense for that accusation, no matter how many times she prayed to the gods for forgiveness.

The Small Council fell silent.

“I understand that you think this is…a strange order to give," Margaery said, lifting her chin, “in light of everything else going on at the moment, but the goodwill of the smallfolk is important, too.”

The Grandmaester licked his lips. Out of all of them, Sansa wondered when he had become something like the voice of reason, but he was certainly insinuating himself into many of Sansa’s own decisions, these days.

“That is…an admirable wish, Your Grace,” he informed her, “but it is just not possible. If the smallfolk hear this, they will take it to mean that they can get away with anything.”

Margaery eyed each of them in turn, raising a single eyebrow in clear disbelief.

For a moment, Sansa’s breath caught; the woman in front of her looked like the one that she remembered.

She wondered if the rest of the Small Council, fools though some of them might have been, understood what Margaery wasn’t saying but Sansa thought she was hearing, as well. If that was why they were protesting it so greatly, or if it was merely because they disliked the idea of Margaery making such a decision when she had hardly displayed a keen understanding of her position, of late.

“Do you know anything about the people, Grandmaester?” She asked him, and the man fell silent, gaping at her like a fish. “My husband, may he rest in peace, knew nothing of the people, save for the times when he was cruel to them. I understand when cruelty, when making a hard decision, is important, but I also understand that there is no need to treat the smallfolk as if they are criminals merely for existing, when we too, have wronged them. My son will not be that sort of King. And if you will not accept my proposal, as my son’s _subjects_ , then perhaps the people should know of that.”

Trystane, who was always silent during these meetings, spoke up, then. “I think it sounds like a great idea,” he said, and the whole room blinked at him, as one. He didn’t back down. “She’s got a point, and in Dorne, we don’t practice such cruel methods of torture. We kill a man with honor.”

He said it like he didn’t think King’s Landing understood the meaning of the word; Sansa rolled her eyes.

Randyl Tarly cleared his throat, then, always faithful to taking Margaery’s side of things. “The Regent’s point is well made,” he said, sending a nod in Margaery’s direction. “Even in Highgarden, we try to avoid such things, save for the worst of treasons. And even then…” he grimaced, and Sansa thought of the rumors of the things that he had done to his own firstborn son, before he had sent him to the Wall.

She wondered if there had been such concern on his face, then.

Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. “ _Her Grace’s_ suggestion has merit,” he said, fixing Trystane with a scolding look, though the boy didn’t seem to react to it at all. “But…”

Margaery clapped her hands together. “Well, I’m glad you agree, Lord Hand,” she said. “You’ll see that the people are informed of it, as well as the soldiers, who I hear from the Septa Unella have been…less than kind to the smallfolk, patrolling the streets, both Tyrell soldiers and Lannister.”

Sansa stared; as strange and…disturbing as Margaery’s sudden passion was, she had to admit, it felt almost…nice, to see a hint of the old Margaery before her, again.

And then, Lord Kevan was trying to mention something else, something to do with the conditions at the Rock, something to do with the fact that also, the Freys had been wiped out, and Margaery held up a hand, quieting him.

“That’s all for today, gentlemen,” she said, calmly, and stood, walking out.

Kevan cleared his throat. “But, Your Grace…”

The door had already shut behind her.

Varys grunted. “Well, Lord Hand,” he said, quietly, “I’m sure there are some things in that long list you have before you that you can do without the Regent’s permission?’

Sansa sighed.

“Get her under control,” Baelish hissed in her ear, as he walked past her as if he had said nothing, and Sansa swallowed hard, watching him leave the Small Council room.

* * *

Septa Unella and her ladies were waiting for Margaery, as she stepped out of the Small Council chambers, and Margaery forced a smile that she didn’t really feel. Her ladies fell in line behind her as she started to walk away, but Margaery gestured for the septa to walk alongside her.

She had told them to wait for her, of course. That she didn’t intend for the meeting to take very long, because she had other concerns, at the moment.

Her husband, for all that he had never been a terribly astute man, had spent half of his reign fearing the return of Dragons, only to be told from every side that he was a fool for doing so, that they should be dealing with far more pressing concerns, every time he brought it up.

And perhaps he had been a little obsessed with Targaryens, Margaery knew. But he hadn’t necessarily been wrong to focus on the things the Small Council did not want him to.

They were men, after all, most of them, and men could be remarkably shortsighted.

Margaery did not know if her husband had been right, to focus so much on the damned dragons, but she did understand the importance of keeping the people from trying to rebel again.

Cersei woudln’t care if they had a revolt on their hands, when she brought her army to King’s Landing for her son’s funeral. She would see it as an opportunity to take advantage, perhaps even to attack.

Margaery had no intention of giving her any such excuse, which meant keeping the smallfolk in line, somehow, even if that seemed to be the last of her Small Council’s concerns.

She had seen the way they had all looked at her, as if they thought her unhinged.

Well, perhaps they would think otherwise soon enough.

And even if they did not, at least they would not look at her so pityingly, would not spend all of their time underestimating her.

Even Sansa, who had been sitting at that table, staring at Margaery the same way that the rest of the Small Council had been.

“What’s wrong?” The septa at her side asked her as they walked along, and Margaery was almost surprised that the other woman cared enough to ask.

But of course, Septa Unella had been trying to insinuate herself into every facet of Margaery’s life since her arrival here; for a woman who had grown up a pauper, she seemed to have a remarkable grasp of court games, which was one reason that Margaery thought perhaps she might be right, about some things.

She judged them all for the same sins, and she was right to do so, clearly.

“I told the Small Council that I wished to abolish drawing and quartering,” Margaery said, annoyed. “They think me weak for it. They think I am doing it for nothing more than the kindness of my heart.”

The septa sighed. “I suppose they are merely greedy men,” she said, seeming to notice the way that they were being watched, out here in the open hallway.

“I don’t just want to abolish drawing and quartering,” Margaery said, as the septa blinked at her. She swallowed hard, admitting to the other woman what she had not quite been brave enough to admit to the rest of her Small Council. “Eventually, when the fighting is over and my son sits on the throne, I want to show the people of King’s Landing that they don’t have to fear the Crown.”

She left the rest of what she meant unsaid; Joffrey had killed enough of the peasants for two lifetimes.

If she cold manage it, she would like to do something to make up for that.

One of her ladies; she thought it might be Megga, who was always second guessing her decisions these days, choked behind her, but she ignored the other girl.

“I think that’s a good idea, Your Grace,” the septa said, staring at her. Clearly, she had heard what Margaery hadn’t said, as well.

Margaery lifted her chin. “Do you?” She asked.

She hadn’t announced it because she wanted the septa to tell her that it was a good idea.

…In truth, she was not entirely certain why she had announced it, the moment she got the other woman alone. She had just felt the need to, and Margaery felt something like shame blossoming across her cheeks, as she wondered if that was indeed the reason why she had brought it up.

If she had wanted the other woman to tell her that it was yet another step towards absolution.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“I’m not doing this for some…some point system,” Margaery said, softly, into the silence, not sure why she felt the need to explain herself to the septa.

When she turned to look at the septa again, the woman’s eyes were intense, and shining. “I believe you,” she said, and she said it as though it were a good thing, rather than a bad one.

Margaery’s brow furrowed in confusion, but she didn’t bother to correct the other woman.

She supposed it was all right that she didn’t, if Margaery herself didn’t know why she was doing it, either.

And then Sansa Stark was standing before her, clearing her throat rather loudly and seeming annoyed by the septa’s presence at Margaery’s side. Or perhaps that was just her annoyance over Margaery’s unconventional meeting, today.

“Sansa,” Margaery said, smiling softly at the sight of her, and something within Sansa seemed to come back to life a bit, at the look on her face. The pure happiness to see her there, where she had not seen that expression on Margaery’s face for some time.

Perhaps…Perhaps there really was some way to claw their way out of this, Margaery thought, heart skipping a beat.

“Your Grace,” Sansa said, because they were surrounded by people, after all, knights and ladies and…Septa Unella, Margaery supposed.

“We need to talk,” Sansa said, glancing sideways at the Septa. “About the decision that you just made.”

Margaery frowned. “Whatever you have to say about that, you can say it in front of the septa,” she said, and Sansa’s eyes widened a little, clearly surprised by the declaration.

And…gods, Margaery wished that she could explain herself to Sansa, could explain why she was cleaving herself so close to the septa these days, but she knew that Sansa would only hear excuses, in her explanation that she thought it might be the only way to keep the smallfolk on their side, again.

Sansa would hear all of those words, and would only think that this had something to do with Margaery’s shock, and perhaps it did, to some extent, but that was not all.

She needed the septa; she only wished that Sansa could understand that, eventually.

“You do realize that if you outlaw executions, there’s no impediment for any number of these smallfolk who hate you so to come into the Keep and kill you the way they did your husband,” Sansa gritted out, sounding angry now.

Margaery sighed. “I’m not going to outlaw prisons, Sansa,” she pointed out. “And I didn’t say executions.”

She’d meant it, though; they both knew that. She’d seen the moment Sansa had understood that, in the Small Council meeting.

Sansa sighed, her eyes flitting over to the septa before they returned to Margaery. “Perhaps we can have this conversation in private,” she suggested, again, and Margaery bit back a sigh.

“Perhaps later,” she agreed.

Sansa raised an eyebrow. “You have some pressing engagement?” She asked, and for a moment, Margaery blinked at her, reminded, somehow, of Tyrion Lannister and his sarcasm.

She cleared her throat, and the vision vanished. “I…I am going out amongst the smallfolk, again,” she informed Sansa, and flinched at the worry that flashed on Sansa’s features. “It went…well, last time, and I wish to let them know that they have a friend in the Crown, and not an enemy. Don’t worry; this time, I am taking guards with me, I promise.”

Sansa gritted her teeth. “Perhaps if Your Grace had told me ahead of time, we might have been able to arrange for the outing to go…”

“I don’t want to arrange anything,” Margaery interrupted her, calmly. “I want things to go well because they are, and if I have to wait for some time for that to happen, I shall.”

Sansa sighed, again. “Then perhaps I ought to go with you,” she suggested, the words sounding very forced, but Margaery just shook her head, reaching out and taking the other girl’s hands in her own.

It was an instinctive reaction, a way to calm Sansa down that had always worked in the past, but Margaery froze the moment she realized what she had done.

She couldn’t remember the last time that she had voluntarily touched anyone, and just the feel of Sansa’s hands against her own…

She shivered.

Sansa’s hands fell away of their own accord; Sansa had clearly noticed her dilemma, and decided to fix things herself.

As she was always doing, these days.

Margaery sniffed. “You have things to do here, Sansa,” she said, gently, because she might not be the most astute in what was going on in her own kingdom, these days, but she did know that Sansa was a large part of why it was still standing.

And Margaery…Margaery couldn’t take over those duties herself, these days, but she could at least try to put on a front for the smallfolk. She could manage that, she thought.

Sansa lifted her chin. “I could put them aside,” she said, but Margaery was afraid that, even if it looked like she was pushing the other girl away, she was going to have to insist.

Because Sansa wouldn’t like what Margaery was about to do, would, she was sure, try to stop it, if she was there to do so.

“I can’t ask that of you,” Margaery said very softly, resisting the sudden urge to flinch, because she had thought that the two of them had promised to stop doing this thing to each other, and yet, Margaery couldn’t stop.

Because Sansa would try to stop her.

“I’ve already asked so much of you, lately.”

Sansa flinched; Margaery thought she heard the septa suck in a breath, beside her, and realized that they were being rather too obvious. She pulled away from Sansa, giving the other girl a tremulous smile.

“I really should go and get ready,” she said, before all but fleeing the other girl’s presence. Her ladies poured after her, but she could feel the septa’s eyes burning a hole in the back of her head, where she could not feel Sansa doing so.

When she made it back to her chambers - her husband’s chambers, actually - the septa did not excuse herself, and neither did Megga, as the rest of Margaery’s ladies did, following her into her bedchambers.

The septa stared at her in knowing, judgmental silence.

Margaery swallowed hard, turning to Megga. “Why don’t you…”

“I’ll just go and grab your dress then, shall I?” Megga muttered, sounding terribly bitter.

Margaery gave her a nod, and Megga huffed before she turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Margaery alone with the septa.

The septa, who had not stopped staring at her the way she was now, like she thought that Margaery was already damned to the seven hells, since Sansa had intercepted them outside of the Small Council chambers.

And Margaery thought she knew exactly why.

Margaery opened her eyes, turning to the other woman, feeling pained as the septa’s gaze looked over at her in such grievance.

Grief, as if she thought that Margaery’s decisions were somehow her own.

Septa Nysterica had once thought so, as well. Margaery wondered if they were taught such things, as septas.

She almost didn’t want to bring it up at all, didn’t want to hear whatever explanation that the septa had, because everything that the septa had said since Margaery had met her in the sept that day had started to make sense, and she didn’t want this thing to make sense as well, not if it was what she thought it was.

But she did, anyway, keeping her eyes open even when she wanted to squeeze them shut and hide away from the other woman’s sharp gaze.

“You…you want me to stop,” she said, slowly. “With Sansa.”

She wanted to tell the other woman that there was no need to worry over that. That there was no need to worry that Margaery and Sansa were still living in what the Faith could not agree upon being sin or not, because the thought of touching anyone again, not just Sansa but anyone at all, with even the most innocuous touches, made her feel ill.

And she knew that there was something horrible about that, in the way that Sansa’s eyes died inside a little, every time that Margaery came into contact with the other girl and flinched back from her.

Knew that the thing that crawled its way up her throat, every time she turned her back on Sansa because she couldn’t stand the guilt in the other girl’s eyes, as if Sansa had anything to feel guilty for when Margaery had been the one to insist, over and over again, that they do things her way, that her way was the only way…Was a guilt that she would never stop atoning for, because she was the one who ought to feel guilty, not Sansa.

And it killed her a little more, each time she had to see that look in Sansa’s eyes, in the moments after Margaery flinched away from her and Sansa remembered why things couldn’t go back to the way they had always been Before, so Margaery was not ashamed to admit that she avoided the other woman every chance she could, in order to avoid seeing that look in her eyes again and knowing that she was the cause of it.

Because she wasn’t certain that she ever could. Go back to the way things had been Before, that she would be able to touch Sansa again like they had always done before without a shred of doubt, even if there had always been fear.

Margaery swallowed hard.

She didn’t tell the septa any of that.

That she and Sansa had actually…stopped their sinning, if indeed this woman considered it sinning, since Margaery had killed Joffrey.

So, in a way, Margaery killing her husband might have done some good towards her soul.

She bit back a snort, at the idea, knowing better than to word it aloud.

The septa would hardly find it to indicate that she wanted to atone for her actions, after all.

She sniffed.

The septa gave her a long look. “Your Grace,” she said finally, and her voice was almost patient, “I believe that you have made great strides, in your progress. I…I see that pain in your eyes, these days, the pain that goes along with a sinner’s remorse, and you may not believe it, but that is the first great step. The first step towards finding forgiveness.”

Margaery licked her lips.

“But the Seven must see some…proof, of your atonement,” the septa said. “It need not be as great and mighty a thing as to atone for all of your sins at once, but some show of your repentance…must be done.”

She said it almost as if she understood exactly what it was that Margaery had given up, but then, she supposed, the other woman would.

Unlike anyone else, she had been there, when Margaery had been given her ultimatum, by the High Sparrow. She knew, as no one else did, what had ultimately caused Margaery to do the thing she did, to make Joffrey kill all of those people.

She knew who had inspired that, in Margaery’s mind. The one thing that had caused Margaery to react, sitting in that cell, where all of this woman’s annoyances had not.

She knew what Sansa was to her, and Margaery had been a fool not to realize that the moment she saw this woman again, but she felt…terribly alone, these days. And perhaps that was a result of her own choosing, but still, it hurt.

And this woman’s judgment, the promise that perhaps there was a way to come back from the things she had done, was at least better than the silence of her own mind.

She supposed that she ought to be more horrified by this realization that the septa, who was hardly a friend, for all that she had offered her help, knew the truth about her and Sansa.

But she was so fucking tired.

Margaery swallowed hard, glancing down at the floor instead of the septa’s eyes, and saw her husband’s blood staining the floor.

It had taken the servants four days to get the blood out, Margaery remembered. Four days.

“The Seven Pointed Star says nothing about two women laying together,” the septa said, sighing. “You’re right about that.”

Margaery lifted her head, staring at the other woman with wide eyes.

The septa’s eyes were hard. “But there is a difference between following a faith to the letter of the law, and following it in spirit. You and Sansa Stark can never marry, and she is the reason that you allowed the Slaughter of the Sept to happen, in the first place.”

Margaery flinched, swallowed hard. “I…”

“Do you know why the High Sparrow was so popular amongst the smallfolk?” The septa asked, and Margaery blinked at her.

“Because…because the Lannisters have been cruel lords,” she said, softly.

She understood that. A part of her had not even ben able to blame the smallfolk, when they rose up against her husband. A part of her had almost wanted them to kill him, because then they would all be free of them.

But she had needed him alive, and so she had forced them to live with him, too.

She grimaced, thinking of every common girl that was dragged before Joffrey’s throne, beaten like he had his Kingsguard beat Sansa, chopped into pieces and fed to the smallfolk, because Joffrey thought it would be funny and because the girl had come begging for food.

Every idiot who thought that if they just went before the Iron Throne and pled their case, it would be different. The king would have mercy on them if only he truly understood their plight.

Thought of the girls who didn’t make it before the Iron Throne, because they were pretty…or worse, because they were ugly.

She had pretended to turn a blind eye to all of them, because the thought of what her husband had done to Sansa, that night, when he had told Margaery to beat her with a crossbow, the thought of what he had done to her, only a couple of times, but causing enough bruises to make her brother grit his teeth and reach for his sword…

Margaery took a deep breath.

During her pregnancy, she knew that the girls had gotten more numerous in number. Her ladies had informed her of those numbers, the number of girls who went into Joffrey’s bedchambers when Margaery could not, because she had told him that they couldn’t fuck if she was pregnant, and who never came out again.

She hadn’t told Sansa about the girls, because Sansa was…Sansa was not well, she thought, even if Sansa was having the same thought about her, and she was terrified that Sansa would get it into her head that it was her own fault, somehow.

Her husband’s appetite had been ravenous, and Margaery had done that, too, by getting pregnant with another man’s child.

Oh, she understood well why the smallfolk might want to rise up against their mad king. Why they might grow tired of king after king, mad or not, not giving a damn about their needs.

But the reminder of the High Sparrow, a man who had been no kinder to her than Joffrey had ever been, and just as devious, made her flinch.

The septa shrugged. “The nobles are always cruel,” she said, shortly, with a wisdom that went beyond her years, and Margaery grimaced, not bothering to deny it.

“But the High Sparrow promised the smallfolk something more,” the septa went on. “He promised them freedom.”

“He promised them suffering for their sins,” Margaery whispered.

Septa Unella gave her a dry laugh. “The smallfolk are always suffering,” she said. “But there is a freedom in choosing what you shall suffer. And a freedom in knowing that we all might suffer equally, for the same sins.”

Margaery sniffed, reaching up to wipe at her nose.

She thought of Joffrey, of the way he had touched her that night, of what he had done to her, and thought perhaps the septa was right. Thought perhaps that had been a kind of choice.

But she had made it, just as she had made the choice to destroy the Sept, and everyone in it who did not pledge their loyalty to House Lannister.

The septa pressed her lips together, as if she knew already Margaery’s thoughts. “The nobles follow the Faith only in what they wish to,” she said. “Only in the bare minimum. They do what they do because they think of the Faith as a way to control the smallfolk, and not as what it truly is.”

Margaery closed her eyes, gritted her teeth. “I am not doing this because I want to suffer,” she whispered. “I’m not trying to follow some…set of rules to make myself feel better.”

 _But you are, aren’t you?_ A cruel voice that sounded far too much like Loras’ whispered in her ear, and Margery flinched. _You’re doing this because she is the one person who will tell you that what you did was wrong. Everyone else is too afraid to._

She blinked up at the septa. “And I need your help. I thought…I thought that you would help me, when I brought you here.”

The septa hesitated a moment longer, and then murmured, “When we were in the Sept, all of those days that I sat with you and asked for your confession, and you refused to grant it, I knew that you did not see the Faith, no matter what you said. Do you know how I knew?”

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek.

“I could see it in your eyes,” the septa continued, calmly, and Margaery shivered. “There is a…sort of unrepentant guilt there, in all unrepentant sinners. The ones who don’t believe that they have anything to atone for, who look down on everyone who does. They see themselves as innocent of any wrongdoing save what they might condemn in their own minds, reveling in their own sin.”

Margaery licked her lips. “And that’s…what you saw in my eyes, then?” She whispered, and even as she asked it she knew it was the truth.

Even in the Sept, knowing that she’d come back to a kingdom that was hardly still hers, knowing that what she and Sansa had done together could have gotten them killed…even then, she hadn’t felt a shred of guilt for the things that she had done.

She had felt guilt for marrying Joffrey in the first place, which she knew had only gotten her brothers killed, in the end, but she didn’t feel guilty for a thing she had done with Sansa, for the things she had done in order to keep Joffrey satisfied, as a wife.

She swallowed hard.

She felt guilt for the things she had done in the Sept, though. For getting her husband to kill all of those people, for the people she had sat by and not helped, while Joffrey had played his sick little games with them.

Silent, on the chair beside his throne, as he ordered death sentences and mutilations, as he laughed in the face of people’s pain.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathed in deeply.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, not opening her eyes, because doing so would only remind her of who she was talking to, and she didn’t think she would be able to force out the words, in that case. “I’m afraid that no matter what happens, I will never be able to atone for my sins.”

The septa gave her a long look. “And laying aside the sins of the flesh is only one small gesture of your penitence, Your Grace. One small thing to give up, in order to prove your true wish for atonement.”

Margaery swallowed. “To the gods, or to you?”

When she opened her eyes again, the septa was looking at her sharply. “The gods did not force you to kill those people, Your Grace,” she said, coolly. “Did not force you to manipulate your husband into doing so. Did not force you to believe that you were greater than your husband, that you could so easily manipulate him once you married him. You did all of that. It was not Sansa Stark, though she represents your hubris, in thinking you could get away with all of that without consequence.”

Margaery flinched, her whole body jerking at the septa’s words, here, where they stood in the middle of the chambers her husband had raped her in…

Consequence.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Sansa thought that the reason she was so…changed, by what had happened that night, was because of what Joffrey had done to her. And perhaps that was part of it, though that was not the part that haunted Margaery’s nightmares, every single night. It was not the part that made her flinch, every time someone reached for her, every time she thought of what had happened, that night.

Yes, her husband had raped her, and it had been horrible, but it was something that she had known him capable of from the moment he laid lusty eyes on her, in the throne room, from the moment she sat with her grandmother and Sansa Stark in the gardens and the younger girl told her that Joffrey was a monster.

He had been one, and Margaery had gone into her marriage fully aware of that, and desperately hoping she would be able to hold him at bay.

But she had also gone into that marriage with a full understanding of what she intended to do to stop that from occurring…of who she was.

She had never expected to become the monster, as well. To turn around and bash her husband’s brains in like some sort of…

She took a shaky breath, and then another.

Sansa didn’t understand that; it was the reason she was avoiding spending too much time alone with the other girl, because she knew that it would come up again. Because Sansa couldn’t understand; she had been filled with guilt, after Oberyn Martell’s death, after her father’s, but she had gutted Ser Meryn Trant that night like he was a fish, and Margaery hadn’t seen a hint of guilt in her eyes since then.

She wouldn’t understand why it was worse for Margaery, to realize that she had killed her husband, than that he had raped her.

She swallowed hard.

She was a noble, of course, and she understood what that had meant from a young age, perhaps even younger than Sansa ever had; the smallfolk were their sheep, but they were also going to die, at some point or another, because of choices that she made.

Soldiers would die, as well.

But she had never thought she would be the one wielding the knife.

She shook, hard.

But to hear the septa bring up those sins, to call them a consequence…

She sucked in a breath, and then another. “I…”

My rape was not a consequence of my actions, she wanted to whisper. There had been no way to know that it would even happen, that night.

She squeezed her eyes shut, thought of that little boy in the orphanage, who had told her that he hoped her child was a boy, so that it would not be killed the way his sister had been. Thought of the blood that had squished between her toes, on the day of the Slaughter.

Remembered the same distant sensation of blood between her toes, as Joffrey’s blood spread across the floor, staining her bare feet.

The door to her bedchambers flew open then, Megga’s eyes very wide as she held out a dress, and Margaery wondered how long she had been standing outside the door, listening in.

“Your gown, Your Grace,” Megga announced, and the look that she sent the septa’s way was blistering.

The septa lifted her chin, appearing totally unbothered by the look. “I shall leave you to dress, Your Grace,” she said, and then turned, walking out of the room, leaving her and Megga alone.

Neither moved, for several long moments.

And then, hesitantly, Megga whispered, “She’s wrong, you know.”

Margaery swallowed hard, snatching the dress out of Megga’s hands, reaching up to unfasten the gown she was wearing on her own, because she had gotten used to dressing herself, of late.

She couldn’t stand the feel of anyone else’s hands, touching her.

“You’re not at fault for what happened to you,” Megga continued, undaunted. “She shouldn’t have implied that.”

Margaery let out a tired bark of laughter. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Megga crossed her arms over her chest. “I think we should.”

Margaery let the gown she was wearing drop to the ground, stepped into the next one. “Well, I am still your Queen, and I don’t want to.”

Megga swallowed. “You seem to want to with the septa,” she accused, and Margaery balked, at the anger in those words. “Is it because she tells you what you want to hear? That you’re guilty, that you’re at fault for all of this?”

Margaery flinched. “I told you we’re not talking about this, Megga,” she snapped, before turning and stalking past the other woman, towards the door, as she awkwardly did up the ties to her gown behind her back.

Megga stepped forward as if to help her, and then hesitated. She was standing in front of the door, now, the only way out now that Baelish had sealed the door they claimed the fanatics had gotten through to kill her husband, and Margaery grimaced, reaching up to rub at her arms, not liking the sudden feeling that she was trapped.

“Margaery…”

“Megga,” she snapped, reeling on the other woman. “If you bring this up again in my presence, I swear by the gods I’ll have you sent back to Highgarden. Do you understand?” Her eyes were wet, suddenly, and Margaery didn’t know why. “I…I can’t talk about it. I can’t.”

“She’s using you,” Megga whispered, hoarsely. “She’s playing some sick game with you, Margaery, because you’re…you’re vulnerable, right now, and she can see that. You need to…you need to get rid of her.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I’m not getting rid of her, Megga, just because she says things you don’t like to hear,” she muttered.

Megga gritted her teeth. “It’s not just that, and you damn well know it,” she snapped. “The things she’s saying…gods, Margaery. Is that how she always talks to you?”

Margaery swallowed. “I’m supposed to be out amongst the smallfolk just now, Megga. You’re keeping me from that.”

Megga swallowed hard, moving as if to step away from where she blocked the door, and then hesitating. “If I was Elinor, you would listen to me.”

Margaery pushed past her, somehow managing not to touch the other girl. “Yes, well, Sansa has made sure that Elinor isn’t serving me, hasn’t she?” She asked, and tried not to sound too bitter about that.

* * *

Margaery forced herself to smile, and stopped thinking about her damned septa, who had refused to come along on this little trip once she realized exactly where Margaery was going, as she walked towards one of Baelish’s better known brothels, her ladies fidgeting, at her sides.

Septa Unella had not approved of Margaery’s newest idea for outreach, but she had left the other woman in charge of getting together baskets of toys to bring the orphans, once their new orphanage was completed, and that had kept the other woman occupied, while she did her work.

She wouldn’t approve of this, but it was something that Margaery knew she needed to do, with or without the other woman’s approval.

“My lady…” Alysanne began, as the doors to the brothel were flung open and two Kingsguard stepped in before them, “Perhaps this is a bad idea. If anyone saw that you came in here…”

“Make way, for the Queen Regent!” The Kingsguard shouted, their voices booming through the small brothel, and Margaery bit back a smile at the shouts and curses of the people holed up in these rooms.

“Make way for the Queen Regent! She demands that any…carnal relations cease immediately, and every whore in this brothel be brought before her!” The Kingsguard continued, and then suddenly, emerging half-naked into the corridor, was Olyvar, staring at her with wide eyes, looking shocked by the sight of her, here.

She supposed she understood why.

He didn’t normally sleep with the clients, he had told her, once, not unless they were particularly wealthy, or particularly useful to Baelish. She found it surprising that he was sleeping with one here, in one of the lesser known of Baelish’s brothels.

But then, she supposed, perhaps that did make sense; no doubt, this was where the lords who didn’t want to be found out went to fuck their whores, after all.

There were more startled screams as the Kingsguard walked through the brothel, throwing open doors and letting the lords within know that they were no longer welcome, until Margaery was standing in the middle of an open parlor, several girls in various states of undress standing before her, looking shocked at the sight of the Queen in front of them.

One of them reached for the nearest available blanket, sitting on the divan, and threw it over herself, and Margaery bit back a smirk as her ladies blushed behind her.

And then Olyvar was there, standing beside her and hissing, “Your Grace, what are you doing?”

She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Fulfilling my end of the bargain, dear,” she said coolly, in a soft whisper that only her ladies could hear, but she knew that the girls would never spread what they had heard.

She waited until all of the girls had been brought into the brothel; she was being as careful about this as she could, though she knew how dangerous it was, to address so many of Baelish’s women at once.

But she had made sure that Baelish wasn’t here, that he was busy with matters for the Crown, and this was, after all, the lowest paid of any brothels that Baelish owned in King’s Landing, in the worst part of Flea Bottom.

They would listen to her.

“I imagine it must seem strange, for me to come here and visit you,” Margaery said, into the silence that followed the last few stragglers.

The girls were silent.

Olyvar was staring at her as if she had a second head; she ignored him.

“You have been in service to Lord Baelish for a long time, many of you,” Margaery said, where she stood beside Olyvar in the middle of Baelish’s least popular brothel, but where all of them knew who Olyvar was.

Where all of them must have seen the significance, of Olyvar standing beside the Regent, when Baelish wasn’t here.

She knew that this was a risk, but after what Olyvar had told her about Ros, it was a very calculated one, and one that she thought it worthwhile, to take.

Baelish already knew that she didn’t approve of him; he had to, even if she had made that deal with him.

And after all, they had to have an excuse for Olyvar to suddenly be serving as Garlan’s pageboy.

She swallowed, glancing out at the girls. They looked tired, all of them, in varying states of exhaustion and undress, and having spent too long in this life to feel at all ashamed about their nakedness.

They had spent long enough in this life, she thought, that they ought not be staring at her fancy gown, at the jewels around her neck, as if they had never seen such finery. But she knew that Baelish kept the girls as poor as he could, while still enticing them to work for him.

That was how he kept them in this life until they no longer served a purpose, and ended up diseased and dead, in a back alley in Flea Bottom.

They all knew that. They all knew what had happened to Ros; they would listen to her.

And perhaps, she could give them back a little of the agency that she was seeking, herself.

“And I know Lord Baelish well,” Margaery continued, as the girls shifted, still looking confused about her presence here. “I know what sort of master he must be, to you.”

They exchanged nervous glances; Olyvar was staring at her now with something like fear in his eyes, but she ignored him.

She didn’t want to be afraid, anymore. Of Baelish, of herself, of some new threat, come along to take away everything that she had worked so hard for. Didn’t want to be blindsided the next time someone who thought he was entitled to what she had snuck into her chambers and demanded that she pay up.

And she and Sansa, right now, they were doing their best.

Well, Sansa was doing her best, but Margaery intended to remedy that, now, as best she could.

She just wanted to get back up on her feet again.

She cleared her throat. “So. I have come,” she gestured to the ladies behind her, “To bring you some gifts. Food, and some…representations of the Crown’s thanks, for the many things that I know you have overheard in order to help the Crown remain upright”

The girls blinked at her, and Margaery bit back a smile at the thought they were at least listening to her.

She didn’t need to convince all of them, today, to give her much attention. Just needed to persuade them to keep this little meeting from Baelish for long enough to consider what it was that she offered. Just needed them to remember this, the next time that Baelish ordered them to do something that they weren’t particularly fond of.

And she thought, with the way that some of the younger ones were looking at the food and clothes she had brought them, that they were already listening to her.

Oh, she knew about what Baelish could do to them. She remembered when Cersei had butchered one of her ladies, Reanna, and pretended that she had nothing to do with it. She remembered the servants whispering about the whore whom Joffrey had done exactly the same thing, to, the whore that Olyvar had brought up, again.

And she knew that it was not going to be easy, stealing Baelish’s whores away from him, when they all feared him so. But it was worth a try.

After all, if things went the way she wanted them to, Baelish was not going to be around forever, and she would rather know that she had these girls’ loyalty sooner rather than later, rather than have to earn it then.

The girls went quieter still, if that were possible. Behind Margaery, her ladies shifted nervously; she knew that they hadn’t expected this, when she had told them that she wanted to go to one of Baelish’s brothels.

Because she hadn’t said outwardly what it was that she wanted from these girls, but the fact that she had brought up Baelish was telling enough, for the older whores, she knew.

Margaery closed her eyes.

Cersei had taught her son that it was fear, which made the people stay in line. He had clearly learned the lesson, the day that he had slaughtered so many of those people, in the Sept.

But Margaery hoped to prove her wrong, and perhaps this way, as the septa had suggested, make amends for her own part, in that horrible day.

And for what she had done to Olyvar, in asking something of him that perhaps she’d had no right to ask.

They all turned, looking at Margaery expectantly.

The girls looked at each other, all of them nervous.

She knew that was one thing they all wanted. However they had found themselves in this life, it had been in the hopes of making a little money, of surviving, and she was offering them something more than that, something they must have been disillusioned of the idea of ever receiving from Baelish some time ago.

And she was perhaps the one person who could be taken seriously, in offering it.

“And if you ever need anything,” she said, as the girls hesitantly took the gifts she had brought them, accepting her thanks, “I want you to know that you can come to me. Nothing is too small, I can assure you of that.”

One of the women dipped into a curtsey before her.

One by one, the confused women followed her, and Margaery cleared her throat, pursing her lips.

“Here,” she said, reaching back to take one of the bags of goods she had brought with her from Megga, handing it to the first woman who had curtseyed.

It felt…strange, even knowing that she was the Regent, to watch them all curtsey before her like this.

Margaery didn’t know how she felt about it.

She knew that Baelish at the very least provided for his whores; he made sure that they had a roof over their head, that they were kept healthy so that they did not gain a reputation amongst his clients, but she also knew what sort of man he was, as she had told them.

Even if the gifts were not much, she thought at least they were a step in the right direction. And at least the girls would remember this, one day, when it came time for them to make a choice.

And the gifts were not just food and nice clothes, either. She had made sure to visit the Grandmaester, ignoring the curious way he had looked at her, and asked for a dozen potions, to make sure that a woman who had been active of late would not get pregnant.

That had been a horrifying detail, from Olyvar, back when they were still trying to make a child together.

It seemed that Baelish was the sort of man who cared more to make sure that the girls did not keep their children, rather than ensuring that they did not get pregnant at all.

He used to be less strict on such things, as well, apparently, before the Queen had ordered that all of the children that could have been her husband’s bastards were slaughtered. Now, there were no children here.

Margaery knew one to be the lesser of two evils, provided the women had a choice at all.

She stepped outside of the main room, about to leave, her ladies trailing in confusion after her, when Olyvar hurried after her, clearing his throat.

“How was that?” Margaery asked Olyvar, at her side.

He eyed her. “Whores are not trusting women, Your Grace,” he warned her, and Margaery rolled her eyes, for she didn’t need him to tell her that. “But I think…I think that one day, they will remember your kindness.”

He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, before he offered, “In the interest of…disclosure, I should warn you that they would be far more amenable to your words if I weren’t here.”

He said it like he was expecting her to order Megga to cut him down, then and there, nervously fidgeting.

Margaery let him wait in suspense for a few moments, but she wasn’t cruel, and she could hear the sound of rustling behind the curtains at the end of the hall, knew that this was meant for an audience.

“Well, they’re going to have to get used to that,” Margaery said, lightly scolding. Then, she raised her voice, “After all, if I broke my deal with you, they’d hardly have reason to trust me at all.”

Olyvar stared at her like he didn’t quite know what to make of her. “They…don’t know about the deal, Your Grace,” he reminded her, and Margaery smiled at him.

“Of course they don’t,” she said, far too knowingly, and Olyvar blinked at her in obvious confusion. “Now,” Margaery said, “How do I get out of here without half of King’s Landing finding out that I’ve just spent a significant portion of my day inside a whorehouse?”

Olyvar grinned at her. “Luckily, my lord has gone to a different brothel to conduct business today, Your Grace,” he said. “He should be back soon enough, but I think that King’s Landing will not know you were here, all the same.”

Margaery smiled at him. “Olyvar,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “We should…we should talk about that deal we made again, soon. I know that Garlan’s latest page was just sent back to Highgarden for an…indiscretion.”

Olyvar stared at her, his eyes widening, before his lips pulled into a smile. “I…I would like that, Your Grace,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Now, I’ll see you soon, yes?” She asked, and she didn’t miss the way that his eyes dipped down to her waist, before they raised to meet hers again.

When she stepped out of the doors to the brothel, however, Margaery realized how wrong he had been, that half of King’s Landing would not know that she had been at Baelish’s brothel.

There was already a large crowd of confused looking smallfolk standing outside the door, and she grimaced a little as she remembered the last time she had been out amongst them.

They all stood there, not moving, as her guards stepped out ahead of her, intent on leading her back to the Keep, but Margaery cleared her throat, because she wasn’t quite done yet.

If she had an audience, she might as well make a use of it, she supposed.

“I wish to go to the Sept, next,” she informed one of the guards, who blinked at her in obvious concern.

“Your Grace…”

“I won’t take ‘no,’ for an answer,” she told him, calmly, and the man looked at her a moment longer, before letting out a long sigh, and communicating the order to the rest of his fellow guards.

Megga was glaring at her like she would very much like to drag Margaery back to the Keep herself.

The crowd, growing stronger as they moved, followed them to the Sept, as Margaery had expected they would.

It was hot, and her ankles felt swollen; she was sweating, which she supposed had to do with the many layers that she was wearing, and she barely made it to the steps of the Sept before she suddenly felt rather ill.

She wasn’t wearing a metal gown, today, because that was not a message she wanted to impart to the smallfolk today, but the pink flower covered black gown covered far too much of her skin.

Knowingly, Megga handed her a jug of water, and Margaery drank from it greedily as her people watched her.

She handed it back to Megga, ashamed to realize that her hands were shaking again.

She stared up at the great outer walls of the Sept, aware of her audience, and forced herself to breathe, to decide exactly how she was going to do this.

She was not certain if the breathing came so difficultly, these days, because of that ever present terror welling up inside of her breasts, or because of the child constantly sucking at her hips, but she supposed that either way, it hardly mattered.

Her Small Council had made no secret of the fact that they disapproved of her plan to abolish the death penalty. That they had thought it yet another display of her weakness, of her stupidity, as she had grasped at power and flailed for control from the very moment that her husband had died.

None of them thought she knew what she was doing; to them, she was nothing more than a child, despite all of those years she had spent manipulating Joffrey, and as long as she allowed that, she knew that view of her would not change.

Not until she forced it to.

She turned back around, forcing herself to face so many of the people that she had unthinkingly wronged, that day.

“I wish to make an announcement before the people,” Margaery informed the men, and the guards exchanged glances.

“Your Grace…” they said, but she heard only the disapproving voices of her Small Council, saw only Sansa’s concerned eyes, as she looked on her these days, and saw nothing more than this broken thing.

Margaery lifted her chin. “I am their Regent, and I have every right to make an announcement to them,” she said, coldly, and felt Megga going stiff, beside her. “Or are you trying to tell me that you want to keep me from my people?”

They were not her people, she knew the soldiers wanted to say. Many of them had only been brought here in recent months, and had no idea what had happened to cause all of this, but they knew that the people cared very little for their current queen, just as they had cared very little for their late king.

That might have been different, once, but it was very true, now.

“The last time that I appeared before so many of you,” Margaery said, as she stood on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, and reflected that perhaps even this had been too bold for her.

She swallowed hard, glancing behind her, at what remained of the Sept.

It was still standing, of course; Joffrey’s soldiers had not quite been that wicked with their deeds, but there was something about it now…It felt like nothing more than the burnt husk of what it had been, once, because none of these commoners had dared to step inside, while she had been near, and it looked so…blank.

There were cracks in the walls, which had never been there before.

“The last time that I appeared before any of you, it was on the steps of the Keep,” she said, and as she kept talking, she felt her voice rising, could see the way that the smallfolk were slowly giving her their undivided attention. “As I presided over the executions of those responsible for my husband’s deaths. Or, those whom I thought to be responsible for my husband’s deaths.”

Megga shot her a look of pure horror that Margaery forced herself to ignore.

Margaery thought of the mother who had accused her, the last time she had gone out amongst the people, and wondered if she stood in this crowd, as well.

She almost hoped that she did.

The thought lended a bit of strength to Margaery’s next words.

“The truth is, we know that at least some of those men were responsible for Joffrey’s death,” Margaery continued, looking away from Megga, looking out into the murmuring crowd, which shifted and started, before her.

She supposed none of them had expected her to say that, after all.

“And my men shall conduct a thorough investigation into whether that was the case with all of them,” Margaery went on, calmly. “Or whether a mistake was made. I will not lie to you; in the months after my husband’s death, I have been…beside myself.” She took a careful breath, knowing that if anything about this was wrong, she might find herself standing in the middle of a mob, instead of before an interested people. “I have not been myself, and because of that, I have failed my people. The investigation into my husband’s death was placed in the hands of others, and those that I trusted, but because of that, I do not know if mistakes were made, along the way.”

Now, the restlessness had gone completely silent; for the first time since her husband’s death, the feeling of so many eyes on her did not make Margaery completely uncomfortable.

None of them had expected her to say that; they were all surprised that their Queen was so openly admitting wrong before any of them, after the way the King had refused to accept any wrongdoing of hers, the last time that she was here.

She took a deep breath; it felt exhilarating, their absolute shock.

“And I promise you,” she said, as she went on, “That I shall take responsibility for any other actions done under my regency for my son, from this moment forward.”

Utter silence; she thought she could have heard the sound of the first child being cut down, at the Slaughter.

She shut her eyes, tightly.

Opened them again; when she did, Megga was stepping a little closer to her.

“My son’s reign is important to me. To all of us; it is a chance to start anew, and one that I do not want to see wasted. One that I am sure that none of you wish to see wasted, either.”

That was the absolute truth, Margaery thought, and somehow, it made her words more believable, as they boomed out over the crowd.

“And because I cannot trust the executioner to make sure that the men that are being killed in my son’s name are guilty, because I do not want such a mistake to ever be made again, and for that mistake to lay on my son’s head, I hereby decree that there shall be no more executions in my son’s name. Ever again.”

A pause; she licked her lips, could see that the entire crowd was hanging on her every word.

“Any who are found guilty of an offense worthy of death will have a punishment meant to fit their crime, even if that means they shall be imprisoned in the Black Cells for the rest of their days, but there will be no more deaths when such a thing can be prevented, here.”

She thought of blood, squishing between her toes. Thought of her husband, screaming at his men to kill them all.

Thought of the triumph she had felt, at the look of shock on the High Sparrow’s face, as he realized that she had beat him. The feeling that it was his fault that this was happening, not hers, because he had threatened someone dear to her, and that made it all right.

“I cannot promise you peace,” Margaery continued, because she knew that it needed to be said, if any of them were going to believe her, one day. “There is a war coming, and there will be sorrows to come, but what I do promise you is that I have come here today, against the advice of my Small Council, to make this promise to you; that sorrow will never come at your King’s hands.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, wondered if she felt like a king, yet.

“That, I promise you,” Margaery continued, and felt as if she were laying her own head upon the block in that moment, with so many ears bearing witness to that promise. “Until the end of my days.”

For a moment, that awkward, shocked silence prevailed. She could see it in their faces; none of them knew how to react to her words. No doubt, they thought that she was lying to them, or that she didn’t know what she was saying; she meant to disabuse them of that notion, eventually, but she thought that she understood their distrust.

It was the same distrust that she had just seen in the eyes of Baelish’s whores.

And they were right not to trust her; the Crown had hardly proven to care much for the smallfolk and what they wanted, in years past. Not when the Mad King wished to burn them all, not when Robert spent their money on whores and wine, not when her husband thought that it would be funny to drag a couple of them in front of him a day and watch them be flayed alive.

The Crown ruled them, but not because it had their best interests at heart.

The Crown was the reason that Margaery had slaughtered so many of them, at the Sept.

So she stood there, hands folded neatly in front of her swollen chest, trying to tell herself that eventually, she would be able to convince them. That even if they didn’t believe her now, they wouldn’t dare say it, and that would hopefully give her the time that she needed.

For it was a promise that she fully intended to keep, regardless of whether or not anyone believed her capable of it.

She had felt already the effects of having so much blood on her hands, whether she had been the one to do the killing, or not.

She would not have that blood on her child’s, one day.

And then, slowly, a noise swept out over the crowd.

Slowly, they began to cheer.

“Long live the King!”

“Long live the Queen Regent!”

Slowly, Margaery smiled.

And then her guards were reaching for her, because the people were reaching for her, reaching out like they wanted to touch her, wanted to let her know what they thought of that, and her guards were dragging her off the steps, and shouting for the people to make way for their Queen.

They parted like butter.

“Long live the Queen!” Someone yelled, as they parted into something like a trail for her and her soldiers to walk through, and after that, that was what they all yelled.

They did not call her “Good Queen Marg” as they had once done; she doubted that they ever would again.

But it was enough.

“Margaery,” Megga hissed, at her side, reaching out to snatch at Margaery’s sleeve, and Margaery grimaced, but forced herself not to pull away, because who knew how many eyes were on her, at the moment. “What the fuck did you just do?”

Margaery lifted her chin, meeting Megga’s eyes.

She could see the absolute disbelief in Megga’s eyes, that she had done something so monumentally stupid, and she supposed she understood the shock in the girl’s face, supposed it wasn’t the most sensical thing to do.

But Megga couldn’t understand.

She was yet another one of Margaery’s victims; Margaery had been the one who told her to keep an eye on Cersei, had been the reason Megga found herself in the Black Cells, and then in the Sept, in the first place.

One day, Margaery hoped to atone for that, too.

“I decided what sort of queen I want to be, Megga,” she said, and if she was a little short with her response…Well, it covered the absolute shock she felt, windswept and being dragged away by her own soldiers, that it had worked.

* * *

Sometimes, Rosamund was glad that Sansa hadn’t killed her. Glad that her final memories hadn’t been of pain and suffering and little else, of Cersei’s twisted smile as she told her to find out everything she could about Sansa’s life, now, if she wanted to keep her own.

As if she thought Rosamund would want to, after the things Cersei had let her creatures do to her. That she would ever want to do anything that Cersei demanded of her, when Cersei had been the one to turn her into this twisted…wicked thing, that only wanted to curl into a ball and be run over by the first storming horses she came across.

She flinched a little at the thought, not because it terrified her, but because it terrified her how much her mind still yearned for such a thing to happen, even if it was entirely be accident.

If only it would, then she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her days as an obedient servant to Sansa Stark, waiting for the other girl to fulfill her promise of one day killing her. Wouldn’t have to spend her days scraping and bowing before Margaery Tyrell, because Sansa spent so much time in the other girl’s presence, these days, even if she didn’t spend nearly as much time in her bed.

And a part of her knew that it hadn’t been Margaery’s fault, the things that had happened to her, but Rosamund had had months alone in that cell, with nothing more to do than to overthink every single event of her life, and fear the moments when that maester would send his creature down to hurt her, again and again, or would come down himself, simply because he could.

And Margaery had been the one to send her away in the first place, had been the reason that not a soul in King’s Landing had missed her.

And all because she had testified against Sansa Stark, for something that the girl had done.

Rosamund closed her eyes, breathed out deeply through her mouth.

Gods, she was exhausted.

She was becoming more and more exhausted, these days, with the more chores that Sansa heaped on her, while still expecting Rosamund to be her perfect little spy, to ferret out the information that Sansa didn’t have the time nor the opportunity to figure out for herself, with the way that she was slowly trying to take over the day to day operations of the Keep.

Rosamund almost admired her for that, for the careful, silent way she seemed to be weaving her plans, and perhaps she would have, if only Sansa would have killed her as she had asked the other woman.

She took a deep breath, and walked up to the doorway of Baelish’s most popular brothel, hesitating before she reached out to open the door rather than knocking, not entirely certain how one went about this sort of thing.

She wasn’t used to it, after all.

The door opened, slowly, and a young, scantily clad brunette squinted out at her.

She grimaced, pretending it was a smile; she had just passed Margaery, on the way here, which had been something of a terrifying experience, because she had not expected to see the Regent on her way to this part of the city, at all.

Had just passed Baelish, who had been in the crowd when Margaery had made that…strange announcement, as well.

Rosamund reached into the purse that Sansa had provided for her, and holding out a coin.

Still, the brunette at the door hesitated.

“You don’t look like the sort of person who’d be interested, here,” the whore said, looking Rosamund up and down.

Rosamund forced herself to smile. “Yes, well…” she said, forcing her lips to curve into a pretty smile. “I suppose that could be said of many of the lonely ladies in the Keep.”

The whore stared at her for a moment longer, and then she smiled, stepping out of the way for Rosamund to step inside.

“You have anyone in particular in mind?” She asked, and Rosamund swallowed.

Because this, this was the hard part. Considering what Cersei had done to her in the Black Cells, had her creatures do to her, Rosamund had very distinctive features, and she had no doubt that Baelish would recognize her, if he saw her, or one of his whores happened to describe her to him.

So, she had to be sure to be noticed by as few people as possible.

A part of her wondered why Sansa didn’t send Pod to do this sort of thing. After all, he was a regular fixture at Baelish’s brothels these days, though Rosamund couldn’t imagine how he made enough money to spend so much time there, when he was nothing more than Brienne’s squire, these days.

He had been Tyrion’s, but Tyrion had been the Hand of the King, at one time. Brienne was a lady, but she was also Sansa’s meager guard.

Still, he would have been a better fit here, would have been able to explain away his presence here far better than Rosamund ever could.

She supposed he just wasn’t trusted enough to be Sansa’s spy, which was…annoying.

“You seem pretty enough,” Rosamund said, reaching out to take the other girl’s hands in her own. She was older than Rosamund, by several years, Rosamund thought, and she wasn’t nearly as pretty as the types that Rosamund might usually go for, but that hardly mattered, now.

She needed to keep this contained, after all.

The girl stared at her for a moment longer, before her lips pulled into a grin. “My room’s this way,” she said, and all but dragged Rosamund along behind her.

Rosamund allowed herself to be led, and then paused, when she heard the sound of rather familiar voices coming from across the hall.

The walls of a brothel were thin as paper.

“What about this one?” She asked, pointing to one of the doors on that side of the hall. Risky, of course, but everything about this was risky.

The whore blinked at her. “Those aren’t my rooms,” she said, more wary, now.

Rosamund forced herself to smile, reaching out and touching the girl’s cheek. “Yes, well, they’re empty, aren’t they?” She asked.

The woman sniffed, and then shrugged, allowing Rosamund to lead her into the room, then.

The door shut behind them, and already the whore was reaching for Rosamund’s cheek, for the elaborate scarring that ran down her face.

“What happened here?” She asked, sounding more curious than disgusted, and Rosamund bit back a flinch.

She saw the way people looked at her, now. No one said anything, certainly not any of the ladies that she had once been friends with, because they didn’t know what had happened to her and were likely too afraid to ask, but she saw their looks all the same, mixtures of pity and revulsion.

And sometimes, she wondered if Margaery’s ladies, her former friends, thought that she deserved what had happened to her, for betraying her mistress in such a way at all.

Sometimes, Rosamund found herself looking in the mirror, and wondering if she recognized the woman in front of her, wondered if the fact that she didn’t was because of the scars covering her skin, or because being down in the Black Cells for so long had made her into something other.

She licked her lips; it was fascinating to have someone look at her without that sense of revulsion, without that pity, for once.

She swept forward, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, and kissed the other girl, hard, wanting.

Rosamund couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten anything she wanted.

The whore melted against her, knowing her craft well enough to at least fake enthusiasm if she didn’t feel it, but Rosamund kept her eyes open, waiting for the other girl to close hers.

After several moments, she did, and that was the moment Rosamund struck.

She reached out with her free hand, tightening it into a fist as she wrapped it around the whore’s back, and then slammed it into the back of her head.

The whore let out a cry of surprise, stumbling backwards, but Rosamund didn’t give her the chance to cry out, reaching into her pocket with her other hand to pull out the rather large rock she’d found outside of the brothel, slamming it into the girl’s temple, this time.

Rosamund watched the girl crumple to the floor, expressionless, watched the blood trickle down her forehead, down the lips that Rosamund had just kissed.

She swallowed hard, and thought that once, what she had just done would have terrified her, would have sent her into shock.

She felt nothing, watching the girl crumple to the ground, felt nothing as she knelt down beside her and felt for a pulse, and, feeling none, walked over and latched the door, before moving to the wall that she had heard Baelish’s familiar, whispering tones from.

Sansa had told her to come here, to find out what she could about any plans that Baelish might be keeping from her, and Rosamund had a feeling that the other girl might disapprove of her methods, but Rosamund genuinely could not bring herself to care.

If Sansa disapproved of her methods, she ought to kill her, as Rosamund had originally wanted, and find some other servant to do her bidding.

She took a deep breath, determined to hold it to make sure that she heard everything, and leaned her ear against the wall, waiting.

She did not have to wait long.

“I see the Queen was here,” Baelish said, and he did not sound pleased by the observation.

Silence.

“What did she want?” Now, he sounded impatient, and Rosamund almost smiled, glad that someone was still able to upset him, these days.

A cleared throat. “She…passed out gifts, amongst the whores,” a familiar voice said. “That was all. It was…strange.”

Baelish sighed. “Yes, she’s trying hard to be noticed amongst the smallfolk for being good again, I suppose.”

Silence.

“Lord Kevan is going to be a problem for us,” Baelish was saying, and Rosamund took a careful breath, careful not to breathe loudly enough to be overheard, from her hiding place.

She knew that Baelish was up to something; he’d gotten awfully chummy with Sansa, after the late King’s death, had amassed quite a bit of power for a man who wasn’t the Hand of the King, but she didn’t understand Sansa’s obsession with having her spy follow Baelish around, when the other man hardly ever slipped up, and was actually trying to help her.

There were quite enough lords and ladies in King’s Landing who were not being so helpful, and Rosamund privately thought that Lady Sansa’s attention would be better focused on them.

But then, it was not her duty to question her new mistress, only to do as she asked.

And if it was Sansa’s wish to have Rosamund waste her time trying not to be noticed by a paranoid man while he walked about, she supposed that there were worse things she could be doing with her time.

She’d gotten good at not being visible, at not being heard, during her time in the Black Cells. The more attention she drew to herself, there, the more Cersei’s creatures had tormented her.

“Sansa is determined to try to make nice with House Lannister, and she won’t kill him,” Baelish went on, and Rosamund licked her lips, because that sounded rather like…

Perhaps Sansa was right to be paranoid about this man she claimed to trust so well.

“And I don’t suppose that Lord Kevan is…immune, to…womanly charms,” the other voice, that of the blonde boy Baelish used as a confidante, Olyvar, she thought his name was, said.

She’d met him only a few times, had seen him in the palace, there for some clandestine meeting or another with a noble, to recognize the sound of his voice, but still, she was surprised that he was trusted enough to be talking to Baelish, about something like this.

Baelish was silent.

An uncomfortable silence. “Of course,” Olyvar said, looking slightly nervous that his lord hadn’t liked his plan.

Rosamund understood that feeling rather well. She felt it every time she did something stupid and Sansa Stark looked at her in exactly the same sort of way, as if she were nothing more than the dirt beneath her shoes.

“I want you to ensure that all of the girls going to the Grandmaester know how to read,” Baelish said, into the silence, and Olyvar gave a short little bow.

“As you wish, my lord.”

Baelish did not look impressed by that, either. “That means that once they’ve gotten him to knock off, they’re to read anything in his chambers that they can get their hands on.”

Olyvar swallowed. “Understood.”

Rosamund’s eyes narrowed, as she wondered what was so interesting about the Grandmaester, these days. He seemed like one of the least suspicious of the men on the Small Council, these days, in her opinion.

But then, her opinion hardly mattered, these days.

If it did, perhaps Sansa would actually be using her for useful things, rather than spying on men who were already on her side.

But then, her lady was rather paranoid.

“The King’s funeral is in a fortnight,” Baelish went on, and Rosamund’s brows furrowed. “They will not have it until Cersei arrives, lest they instigate a war.”

A pause, and then, the boy was saying, slowly, “I thought…”

“Sa…The Regent believes that a war can be avoided,” Baelish went on, and Rosamund’s eyes narrowed, because she didn’t think that he was the sort of man to make such a slip up, so obviously.

“Cersei Lannister is hardly the sort of woman who needs an excuse to go to war, but we need to ensure that one happens,” Baelish went on, and Rosamund sucked in a breath, and then reached up, covering her mouth with her hands. “She doesn’t care about her uncle enough for it to matter much to her, should he die when she arrives.”

She doubted that Baelish and his whore could hear her breathing, through the wall, but she had spent enough time as the pet of Cersei’s failed maester not to be sure of anything, when listening to things she shouldn’t be.

Olyvar sounded confused. “I thought…” he said again, and Rosamund had no doubt that some sort of unspoken communication went through them, before Olyvar cleared his throat. “And?”

“Cersei has already declared that her son is the rightful heir, because Margaery’s child is not born yet. There is a logical next step to that explanation, before she can have the war that she wants, and she certainly won’t want to pander to the Tyrells like her father did, if a war is possible. She’s too arrogant to think she could lose it.”

A pause.

“I…My lord, please…” Olyvar began, and he sounded disturbed, suddenly, though Rosamund didn’t understand why.

“You know what it is that I need from you. You’re no fool, though your actions of late have given me reason to wonder. Can you do that?” Baelish asked, and Rosamund blinked back her annoyance, realizing that the fact she couldn’t see them certainly wasn’t helping her, here.

“No,” Olyvar breathed, and for a moment, Rosamund was surprised by the sheer emotion in his voice, the desperation there.

“Come now, boy,” Baelish said, and there was nothing of the pretend care she always heard for Sansa in his voice then, when she eavesdropped on them together, only cruelty. “You’ve been in my employ for a dozen years. You know that I know everything that happens in King’s Landing. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

Silence.

Then, “Please…”

Rosamund didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what had suddenly gotten Olyvar so disturbed, but she had a feeling that it heralded nothing good for her mistress.

She held her breath.

“Please, my lord, I…”

“The only reason that you aren’t dead right now,” Baelish continued, in that same cold, calculating tone that he never used with Sansa, “is because I can still see the use for you that I saw the first time I met you, when your useless mother dropped you off on my doorstep.”

Silence.

“What did she promise you?” Baelish asked. “I understood that was where you…drew the line, so to speak.”

And slowly, it sank in, what they were talking about, what they had to be talking about, for anything of this conversation to make sense.

Slowly, her lips mouthed the words she wasn’t stupid enough to say aloud.

_Oh, by the fucking seven…_

Olyvar chose then to speak again, finally. “My lord, if Cersei learns of that, she’ll…she’ll kill that child. You know that.”

Another long silence, and gods, Rosamund hated having to sit here and listen, and not be able to see their faces.

When that false maester had tortured her in the Black Cells, he hadn’t seem terribly concerned with whether or not she saw his face, and Rosamund had spent far too much time watching it, while he tortured her, while he watched her own expressions, in turn.

They were disturbing reactions, the ways he responded to her hurts, but she had been able to read his thoughts, all the same.

It was one of the few things that had kept her sane, down there.

She’d gotten good at reading people, since then.

“And the Regent, along with it, I’m sure,” Baelish went on. “A sad fate for an already tragic woman.” A pause, careful, calculated. “But it will have nothing to do with me.”

Rosamund closed her eyes.

She had seen the interest that Baelish had in her lady, of course. Knew that there was something wrong with the way that he looked at her, like he possessed her already, knew that there was something wrong with the way he looked at Margaery, every time he thought no one was looking at him.

No one ever looked at Rosamund; her time in the Black Cells, and her elevation, so to speak, to becoming Sansa’s servant had made her nearly invisible, to most, even to Baelish.

She knew what envy looked like, when she saw it.

Olyvar sounded…ruined, when he spoke again, and she had a strange picture, in her mind, of him on his knees before the other man. “Please, it’s…its my child, too.”

Another long pause, and Rosamund felt abruptly sick.

She thought of the thing that had grown inside of her, during her time down in the Black Cells, the thing that had grown and made her think that perhaps, just perhaps, the things that the maester did to her might be over with.

That she might gain a little reprieve. That perhaps, if she had something else that the maester wanted to experiment on, he would have at least the decency to wait until it was out of her.

It hadn’t occurred to her to worry about the child itself, to want to protect it. By then, she’d been nothing more than a scared, traumatized mess, and the child within her stomach, if it could even be called that, certainly wasn’t real to her.

But it might serve to spare her a little pain, in this life that seemed to be filled with it. It had been the maester, after all, who had told his…creature to do this to her, in the first place.

He’d watched, too, fascinated, she thought, by this creature he had made.

As it turned out, he hadn’t been patient on that end.

And instead, she had awoken, sometime in the middle of what could either by day or night, because there was no such thing as time down in the Black Cells, to the sensation of the maester cutting into her womb. To the sensation of him cutting It out of her.

She had passed out within seconds, after that, out of sheer shock, because this maester had done horrible things to her in the time he’d kept her down here, but nothing quite like this, but when she had awoken, her stomach had been slim and empty again, a long, thick scar running along her stomach, her waist.

She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and then out slowly.

The first time that the creature known as Ser Robert Strong had taken off his helmet and she had seen…what was left of him, she had been terrified of the thought of…whatever he was, managing to get a child on her.

It wouldn’t be a child, her terrified mind had been convinced. Whatever he was, Ser Robert Strong, as the maester always referred to him, for all that Rosamund knew who he was, he wasn’t exactly human anymore, and whatever he put inside of her, surely, it wouldn’t quite be human, either.

Somehow, the thought of giving birth to something similar to him was worse than the rape. The thought of something living inside of her belly, not quite human.

Not when he looked like that, like something other than human. It would be something worse, something horrible, and Rosamund had tried to convince herself, in the days after the maester had ripped her womb open and sewn it shut again, that perhaps it had been for the best.

Whatever the thing in her stomach had been, it hadn’t been a baby, not really. Couldn’t be.

And yet, in the days after, she’d felt that loss as if she had lost a part of herself.

She couldn’t imagine what it might feel like, for Margaery, to lose a child to Cersei, too.

And while she didn’t feel much for Margaery anymore, after the other woman had left her to Cersei’s devices, even if she hadn’t realized it, by expelling her from her ladies, that wasn’t a fate that Rosamund wanted for the other girl, either.

Especially if that child wasn’t really Joffrey’s. Didn’t really belong to a monster, the way that the thing inside of Rosamund’s stomach had.

“Your child?” Baelish echoed, and now, his voice was dangerously soft, almost to the point of being kind.

Sometimes, the maester had been kind, when he wanted to make sure that he didn’t break her spirit completely.

She hadn’t even known his name, until she’d gotten out of the Black Cells.

“I think you’re confused, Olyvar.”

Rosamund squeezed her eyes shut.

“That is not your child. It’s a tool, to use against the dear queen. To make sure that Cersei Lannister goes to war, and at the right time.” Another pause. “And you? You’re mine. So you’ll do as you’re fucking told. You always will. You should have known that when you let me kill her brother.”

* * *

Brienne, as usual, was waiting outside of Sansa’s chambers, guarding them, so Rosamund thought she should have been forgiven for thinking that Sansa was within.

Sansa hardly ever went anywhere without Brienne, these days. The woman was not a member of the Kingsguard, but Rosamund thought that Sansa trusted her more than any of the knights who had so recently been placed on the Kingsguard.

And she was incredibly loyal to Sansa, for all that Rosamund could tell that a great many of the things that Sansa did these days bothered Brienne.

She didn’t know what sort of bond the two of them shared, but clearly, it was a strange sort of thing, and Rosamund had made sure never to slip up around Brienne’s hawkish gaze.

She stepped inside, and was rather startled to find that, despite her earlier assumption, Sansa wasn’t within, even if a part of her was rather relieved.

After what she had just learned, she didn’t think she could face the other girl, didn’t think that she could face anyone, just now.

A part of her wanted to find Sansa’s chamber pot and be sick into it until there was nothing left in her stomach, the way it had been after that maester had cut her open, the way she had seen Sansa do, the day Joffrey had died, but never again since then.

She needed to breathe. Needed to wrap her mind around this, before she reported her findings to Sansa again.

Because…gods.

She had known that Baelish was up to something, but not this.

And she didn’t want to face something like this, not when it kept reminding her of the things she had hoped to leave behind in the Black Cells.

She almost stepped back out, and asked Brienne why she was still guarding this room, when Sansa wasn’t here, and then she saw her.

Megga, sitting on the divan in the middle of the room, flipping through one of the genealogy books that Sansa was so obsessed with, these days.

This one was about the Lannisters.

Rosamund had a sneaking suspicion about the reason behind that suspicion, but she made sure never to voice it. She had a feeling that Sansa would make good on her promise to make Rosamund miserable, if she ever did.

Megga glanced up sharply from the book, a look of supreme boredom on her features before she realized who was there. And then, her face shifted into one of absolute suspicion.

“What are you doing in here?” Megga demanded, and Rosamund squinted at her, eyes rather wide.

“I…” Rosamund took a deep breath.

She didn’t know what to make of Megga, and every time she came into contact with the other girl, she found herself growing a little more angry.

Angry, because Megga had been through the same things that she had been through, or, at the very least, some of the same things, and yet here she was, back to her regular self, save for perhaps being a little darker, and Rosamund was the one who was defective, Rosamund was the one with the scars, the one who couldn't let go of the things that had been done to her, in those cells, while Megga was…fine.

“I was looking for Lady Sansa,” Rosamund said. “And I have more reason to be here, after all, she is my lady.”

Megga gave her a dark look, not impressed by her indignation. “She’s my friend,” she said calmly, and Rosamund wanted to roll her eyes, wanted to tell her that hardly mattered.

Once upon a time, they had all been friends, Margaery and her ladies.

“Well, clearly, she’s not here,” Rosamund said. “And, as she’s not, I should probably be cleaning this place up.”

She stepped towards the bedchambers, to do just that, determined to ignore Megga’s presence there at all, if that was what was expected of her, but Megga spoke, again.

“Where have you been?” Megga asked.

Rosamund slowed, turned around. “Why?” She asked, and if she sounded a little bitter, Rosamund privately thought that she had a reason to be so.

Megga’s eyes narrowed. “Because Sansa may trust you now, for whatever inane reason, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to,” she spat out.

Rosamund blinked at her. Then, slowly, she smiled. “I’m not sure that matters,” she said. “After all, you may have Sansa’s confidence in some things, but not all. And you certainly don’t have the Regent’s, at the moment.”

Megga pressed her lips together. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she gritted out, but Rosamund was not deterred.

“Imagine it, Megga,” she said. “You and I, we were so alike, in the beginning. Lady Alerie asked us if we were interested in being Margaery’s ladies in waiting, when she was to marry Renly, and we both thought it was the most exciting thing that could happen to us. We might have been friends with Margaery, but that wasn’t why we accepted. We’re both from minor branches of House Tyrell; the best we could hope for was to become mothers to some brainless lord.”

Megga shifted on her feet.

“But Margaery becoming Queen?” Rosamund’s smile was thin, warped by her disfigurement. “That changed everything, for us. We rose so far, and all we had to do was be friends to Margaery…and report everything that she did to her grandmother. You remember; it didn’t seem like that great of a sacrifice.”

Megga’s lips had gone white. “We’ve both grown up, since then,” she spat out, sounding suddenly nervous.

Oh, Rosamund knew that she wasn’t still reporting to Olenna; that was Elinor’s job now, the reason that she was so ostracized by the rest of the ladies, the same mistake that Rosamund had made.

But Margaery might have been a good friend to all of them, but Rosamund doubted she had ever once trusted them, at first, not truly.

That might have begun to change, later, but after what Elinor had done, the same damn thing that Rosamund had, she doubted that Margaery trusted any of her ladies, anymore.

And something about taunting Megga with that realization made Rosamund feel good, after Rosamund had spent so long in that cell and emerged a different person, and Megga seemed exactly the same.

It wasn’t fair; she wanted to see Megga lose her composure, the way that Rosamund had lost so much more than that, at the very least.

“You should know,” Megga said coldly, her eyes sweeping over Rosamund as if she found her quite unsatisfactory, and Rosamund lifted her chin, wanted to ask the other woman what gave her the right to judge Rosamund, now. “That if you do anything to betray Sansa or the Regent, you’ll have me to answer to.”

Rosamund sniffed. She remembered a time, that didn’t feel so very long ago, after all, when the two of them would sit over a nice cup of tea and gossip about boys and about how much they loathed being glorified servants for the Queen.

Rosamund had meant those words, had wanted to find a better life for herself, which was part of the reason that she had done as Olenna asked and testified against Sansa.

She hadn’t known, at the time, that Megga had never meant those words at all.

But now, she knew it quite clearly.

Because Rosamund had one the one thing to try and get herself into a better life, a better existence, as Olenna had promised her, and it had backfired so spectacularly. But Megga was content, crawling back to clean Margaery Tyrell’s sheets and sit and eat with her, and pretend that they were all still the friends that they had been before Margaery had ever married Renly Baratheon.

Was content to have gone through all of that suffering, accused of being a spy for Margaery by Cersei Lannister, forced into the same situation, the same experiments, that Rosamund had been forced to endure, and endure it simply to come back to Margaery and do whatever else had been expected of her.

Rosamund hated her for that.

She hadn’t known, when she was chosen for the honor of being one of Margaery’s ladies, that that was what it would be like. Had thought, as she remembered distinctly being told, that it would be pretty dresses, and having tea with a woman who was also a queen, and finding a good match from the court, as every lady in waiting was promised.

Had thought it would be happiness to get away from her rather dull home life and prospects, and instead, had received only misery for her trouble. And she didn’t understand how Megga could still want that, after what had happened to the both of them, what had happened to Reanna.

She sniffed. “I know my duties,” she told Megga, as harshly as she could manage without tipping the other girl off. They had been friends as children for so very long, after all; Megga had once been able to read her like an open book.

Rosamund would like to avoid that possibility, if she might. Scars and all, she didn’t know how well Megga could still read her, and the terrifying possibility that she had already figured it out…

Megga rolled her eyes. “Do you?” She asked, and Rosamund shifted uncomfortably under the look in the other woman’s eyes.

“Better than you, it would seem, if you’re here bothering Lady Sansa’s servant, rather than attending to your mistress,” Rosamund said, as coldly as she could manage, and that time, Megga did flinch.

Rosamund knew that the Regent, much of the time, ordered that none of her ladies attend to her, unless they were out in public, and even then, it seemed she didn’t particularly care for their company.

Megga lifted her chin. “What happened to you, in the Black Cells, Rosamund? Sansa may not, but I remember the girl that you once were.” She asked, and for the first time since Rosamund had emerged from them, perhaps the first time since Rosamund had been banished by Margaery, she thought she saw pity in the other girl’s eyes, for her.

Rosamund swallowed hard, pursuing her lips. “That girl is dead,” she said, softly, though she had meant her words to be harsh. “She died down there. What I want to know, is why didn’t you?”

Megga flinched. “I…” she licked her lips. “I didn’t spend nearly as long down there as you did,” she said finally, a meager explanation, to Rosamund’s eyes.

Because any amount of time stuck down there as one of the maester’s experiments would have been enough to drive anyone mad, Rosamund knew, and she was not the only girl that he had used for such experiments.

She was just the only one his creature had gotten a child, and so her torment had been particularly worse.

Megga swallowed. “I…that maester, he was cruel, but I think…I think that he wanted me relatively unharmed,” she whispered. “In case Cersei had to use me against the Tyrells.”

Rosamund scoffed.

She could have been that hostage, she supposed, except Cersei had known that the Tyrells wouldn’t pay shit for her, after she had outlived her usefulness to them.

Megga’s eyes were sad. “What did he do to you?” She asked, as if her words had been enough of an explanation that Rosamund ought to share her own experience.

“Get out,” she hissed, and Megga blinked, looking shocked at the fury in her voice, but she didn’t move. “Get the fuck out,” Rosamund repeated, “before I tell Sansa you’ve been snooping through her things. As you said, I have her confidence, at the moment.”

Megga eyed her, but there wasn’t fear or anger in her eyes, only that infernal pity.

Well, too bad.

Rosamund didn’t want her pity.

It had been bad enough getting Sansa’s pity, when the other girl had found her down in the Black Cells, when she was there to save Megga, not Rosamund.

Although, in that case, Rosamund had not been able to bring herself to blame the other girl for that.

Rosamund waited until she was certain that Megga was gone, before she turned and walked to the door.

Brienne was still waiting outside of it, and her eyes narrowed as Rosamund reemerged, her arms full of sheets.

“I…I thought that I would go and have these cleaned, while our lady doesn’t need them,” Rosamund said to her questioning gaze, because after all, it was midday, and if Rosamund was a true servant to Lady Sansa, she would have had them cleaned this morning, after Sansa had actually slept in them.

But instead, Sansa wanted her watching Lord Baelish.

Brienne stared at her for a moment longer, before shrugging, looking incredibly uninterested.

“Of course,” she said, gesturing for Rosamund to go ahead of her.

Rosamund squinted up at her, instead.

“Tell her…” Rosamund took a deep breath, watching the man write the words down carefully, wondering if she would still be able to write on her own, if Cersei’s creature hadn’t methodically broken and unbroken all of her fingers, while she was in the cells.

Sansa didn’t seem to notice the defect; she had no use for Rosamund’s writing abilities, after all, and only checked on the letters that Rosamund was sending Cersei when she knew about them, after all.

And even then, she hadn’t known what Rosamund’s handwriting had looked like, before.

But Rosamund had to be careful, of her next words, just in case.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, as she considered what she wanted to communicate.

It was clear, from what little of that conversation Rosamund had been able to overhear, that Baelish was more than a little worried about the effect that the Lannisters might have, at the moment, worried about what, exactly, they knew about the King’s death.

But it was also clear that he was all but instigating the Seven Kingdoms into another bloody civil war.

Sansa would not like that; she had made her feelings clear, both to Rosamund and to anyone else who would listen, that she did not want a war, did not want one at all, not when it would mean that Tommen would become the target of the entirety of House Tyrell’s army.

She had some feelings for the boy, regardless of who his brother had been, who his mother was, and wanted to avoid a war.

Rosamund supposed she ought to be more nervous about the fact that Baelish very much did, but that hardly surprised her.

Despite his rise to even further power since the King’s death, he seemed to do rather well on his feet.

“Tell her that Lady Sansa suspects nothing,” she said. “That she’s too busy chasing enemies where there are none. Chasing Lord Baelish, whom she doesn’t trust nearly as much as she acts like she does. She’ll…” she sniffed. “She’ll like that, I think.”

In truth, she didn’t know what Cersei would like, but that hardly mattered.

The moment she heard those words, Cersei would reach out to Baelish.

Sansa had promised Rosamund a sad, slow existence as her spy against Cersei, had offered her the chance to make a new life for herself, after everything that had happened to her. Had promised her that she woudln’t kill her, but would simply make her life miserable, if she ever turned against Sansa.

But what she didn’t know, could never understand, Rosamund suspected, was that Cersei had offered her something much better.

Cersei offered her death, and that was something that Rosamund clung to with both hands, because she was too cowardly to take her own life, but Cersei had been the one to do all of this to her; it was only fitting that she be the one to finish it, as well.

And she knew already that Cersei Lannister kept her promises.

After all, a Lannister always paid their debts.

And Rosamund was determined to ensure that Cersei owed her a great deal, when the time came for Rosamund to finally outlive her usefulness.

Rosamund closed her eyes, let her breath out slowly.

When she opened her eyes again, the young man, who had been nothing more than a simple servant while Joffrey was King, but who was now employed as one of the few spies that Cersei had left in King’s Landing, was already sealing the letter.

Rosamund had had to teach him to write. That had been difficult, too, but she had done it.

Because it was better than forcing Cersei to try and read her unreadable scrawl.

She sent the young man a smile. “And make sure that it gets to her quickly, won’t you?” She demanded. “Our lady doesn’t like tardiness, as you well know.”

The boy nodded, looking a little fearful at the implied threat in her words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment, guys!


	17. DORNE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: In which Arianne has a very bad day...

“Father,” Arianne said, softly.

She didn’t like being confronted with the sight of her father, locked away. Seeing what she had done to him was very different than the abstract idea of knowing that she had taken everything her father held dear, and locked him away in a tower the way they said the Stark girl had been, in the last moments of her life.

“I need to know what it is that you’re planning,” Arianne said, tightly.

Doran raised an eyebrow. “I have been able to plan nothing since you placed four deaf guards outside my door, Daughter, and ordered that Ellaria, for all that she is also locked up in here, is not allowed to see me,” he said, voice heavy with disapproval, but Arianne was already speaking over him before he was done.

“Bullshit,” she gritted out. “I meant, I want to know what my brother is doing in the East. Why you refuse to lift a finger against the Lannisters after everything they’ve taken from us.” She pressed her lips together. “Mother said that you wept, when she tried to take me away from this place. I want to know then, why you would conspire with Quentyn to take my birthright from me, now.”

Had she truly disappointed him so much, now that she was grown?

Her father stared at her for several long moments, looking genuinely hurt by her words before he hid the emotion well, before sinking back in his chair. “Sit down, Arianne,” he said, sounding incredibly tired.

Arianne crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t think I will,” she said, the strange feeling that if she did, she would regret it forever.

Would regret a lot of things forever, settling over her.

Doran shot her an annoyed look. “Sit down,” he snapped, and he sounded so much like the father he’d never been to her, in that moment, that she moved to the empty chair, and sat.

He pushed the cyvasse pieces closer to her, and Arianne eyed him, annoyance welling up within her.

When she was little, before her mother had left and while her father still paid some modicum of attention to her, before he gave up on the pretense entirely, he had insisted on such games.

Cyvasse was a relatively new game, but there had been other games of strategy, in the past.

Arianne had never beat him.

But he was beaten now, sitting in this cell in the tower where he had once placed Obara and Tyene.

Funny; it didn’t feel like much of a victory.

Doran gestured for her to go first, and Arianne did so, squinting down at the board for only a moment before she made her move; he had already been halfway through a game with himself.

And she wasn’t here to play games, after all. She wanted to finally hear the truth.

“How is the throne?” Her father asked her, and it was such an unexpected question that Arianne barked out a laugh.

Her father glanced up at her from the cyvasse table, unamused.

She cleared her throat, feeling suddenly like a reprimanded child. “I didn’t realize how exhausting your role is,” she admitted, and it felt good to have someone to talk to about this, where she couldn’t trust anyone else in Dorne with such a thing, didn’t know if there was anyone else at all that she could trust.

She wondered if Margaery Tyrell was exhausted, sitting on the Iron Throne, as her reports claimed.

But there was no harm in telling her father this now, when he was stuck in here and could not use it against her.

_ Do you really believe that? _ A voice inside of her whispered, and Arianne shuddered.

“I found it to be the same, in the beginning,” her father said, and Arianne was almost startled by the admission, by the fact that he was confiding in her at all. She blinked up at him, cyvasse board momentarily forgotten. Doran let out a dry laugh. “Who am I kidding? It never grew less tiring.”

She knew that.

That was why she had dethroned him, in the end.

Something like fear welled up inside of her, that it would never grow easier for her, either, and one day soon, she would face the same predicament.

“Why are you here, Arianne?” Her father asked her, and he sounded so tired, more tired than Arianne felt, these days.

She squeezed her eyes shut; when she opened them, it was with firm resolve. “Why did you want to give my throne to Quentyn? Was I that much of a disappointment to you?”

“I never plotted against you with Quentyn,” her father told her, and Arianne wanted to scoff, but found herself transfixed, instead. “You merely saw shadows where there were none, and so I told you nothing, for fear that you would only find more.”

That time, Arianne did scoff. “Oh, so I imagined the fact that my dear brother went east, and not some months later, the Golden Company broke their first contract?”

Doran did not back down. “You heard two completely unrelated events, and panicked.”

Arianne lifted her chin; she was not a fool. She was perfectly aware of her father’s opinion of her, but she was not a fool. “I’m sure.”

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece, played with it in his fingers without setting it back down. Arianne found herself watching his every move. 

“I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad, in the first place,” he said, and Arianne bit back a scoff.

It had not been difficult, after all, to learn of her brother’s betrayal. Not since she was fourteen years old, and had walked into her brother’s study to find that her father had written him a letter, a letter detailing how he would one day sit in his father’s place, on the throne of Dorne, and Arianne would not.

It was not difficult to imagine betrayal, ever since then. And then her brother had snuck out of the country, without a word to anyone, and at the same time, the Golden Company had broken their contract with Myr.

Arianne had been waiting with baited breath ever since then, and had learned precisely nothing. No attack had ever come, and she was tired of waiting, of being so damn dependent on the Tyrells. 

It was not in her nature.

Her father glanced up at her, then, meeting her eyes, and Arianne suddenly didn’t like the feeling of meeting that gaze.

“Your brother went with Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood’s best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart’s desire.”

Arianne’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes narrowed. “And what is that?” She asked, slightly breathless, and she wasn’t sure if it was with anticipation, or with anger.

“Vengeance,” he said, his voice soft, as if he were afraid that one of his deaf guards might be listening. Arianne might have snorted, if she were not so enraptured by his next words. “Justice. Fire and blood.”

Arianne flinched back at those words, as if her father had struck her.

They pounded, over and over again in her ears, a strange litany of words that didn’t make sense, couldn’t make sense, because her father…

Her father had always been weak, had never cared for vengeance, but merely for the survival of what remained of their family.

It was why she had…

Her heart skipped a beat. She found it suddenly difficult to breathe.

Arianne stared at him, her jaw slackening. She closed it quickly, swallowed hard, reminded herself that she was the Princess of Dorne, now.

All because her father hadn’t even bothered to tell her…whatever it was, he was planning. 

And her next words came out of their own accord, because godsdamnit, she’d had a right to know, and he’d kept it from her, whatever this was, and now, they were all fucked because of it.

Some of that anger might have bled into her next words, as she slammed down the cyvasse piece in her hand, one of the elephants.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” She demanded. “Before I…before I went and fucked everything up, when I tried to overthrow you, why the fuck wouldn’t you say something?”

Doran reached out, touching her cheek. The touch was so soft, and one that she was not used to receiving from her father, after all of these years. Arianne leaned into the touch, and hated herself a little more for it.

Gods, she’d dethroned him. She’d dethroned him because she had thought, as the rest of Dorne had, that he wasn’t doing anything.

“You remind me so much of him,” he said, and Arianne blinked at him, brows furrowing. “Oberyn. He was always fire and fury, and sometimes I wondered if it was a mistake to tell him anything of what I planned. I wonder…” He closed his eyes. “I wonder if perhaps then, he would not have challenged the Mountain, would not have stolen Sansa Stark. I wonder if he would still be here, today.”

Arianne flinched.

Once, she would have loved to be compared to her uncle, a man that she had admired with all of her being, but he was dead now. He was dead, because he had challenged the Mountain, while her father had sent her brother towards dragons.

“You imagine how difficult it was to get him to go along with any of these plans, either,” Doran went on, but Arianne’s heart was pounding, and she thought that she’d heard enough of this, by now. 

Fire and blood.

Justice.

Fire and blood.

A dragon’s roar.

For a moment, she wanted to be impressed by her father’s manipulations. Wanted to be surprised, that he had managed such a feat and she had been silly and stupid enough to not take notice. 

She knew that she ought to be asking for the rest of that plan, now that her father had finally admitted it to her, ought to be asking what that meant for the throne of Dorne, for her, and her brothers.

But as her world shifted, Arianne could only think of one thing, and one thing alone.

It was a simple thing, something her mother had mentioned the last time they’d had an actual conversation, and yet, she could not let it go.

She shook herself, as if waking from a great sleep, and narrowed her eyes at her father.

“Does Mother know?” She asked. “Why Quentyn went East, what your plan has been, all of this time.”

Her father was silent, for several long moments, and Arianne supposed that was answer enough. He did not look shocked, at the news that Mellario was here, and given the way that they had parted, he should have.

But it made sense, she thought, with a sickening sort of clarity. When Mellario had left them, that hadn’t made sense. She had said that she clung too tightly to them, but then she had just abandoned them.

And she had left Areo Hotah, her own guard, behind with Doran, not with Arianne or Trystane or Quentyn, as if she thought that he needed him the most, as if she cared what her husband needed at that point, given how angry she had been when she had left.

Everything about that situation was wrong, and Arianne had never seen it, before this.

“Mother said that she saw Quentyn, in Norvos,” Arianne said, and her voice was shaking, though, at the moment, she could not even bring herself to care. “So I assume you sent him to her, or knew that he would go to her. Why?”

Her father lifted his chin, reached up to wipe his hand across his lips. For a moment, she thought that he was going to remain silent, would refuse to answer her. But then, he spoke.

“Your mother went to Norvos with a purpose, Arianne,” Doran said, and for a moment, Arianne couldn’t breathe.

She had known that purpose her whole life.

Had known it when she came into this world without a cock, and her father had seen her as nothing more than a disappointing first child, a girl when he had so wanted a son.

Had known it when her mother threatened to hurt herself, when Doran’s least favorite child was to be sent away.

Had known it when her mother held her close and kissed her hair, and told her that she loved her, but she had to go.

That purpose had defined the rest of Arianne’s life. Had left her without both father and mother, alone where she had always craved affection, looking for it in all of the wrong places.

It had spurred her towards hatred of her own father, because he had been the one to make their mother leave, after all.

And now…

And now, nothing of the last decades of her life made sense anymore.

Arianne looked up at her father, and there were tears in her eyes. “Why?” She demanded, because she had to know.

Her father’s eyes were sad. “Norvos is much closer to Braavos than Dorne is, my daughter,” he told her, and Arianne closed her eyes. 

Braavos.

The Dragon Queen had been raised in Braavos, before she was sold to those Dothraki animals, Arianne remembered. 

“And it is not usual for a Westerosi husband and wife to live apart.”

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t breathe; it felt like something heavy and warm was sitting on her chest, and Arianne tried to drag in several more breaths, and found herself failing, each time.

He was lying, she tried to tell herself. It was the only thing that made sense, because all of these years, she had lived with the knowledge that she had been the one to drive her mother away; Mellario had all but confirmed it, with that story she had told.

And it had all been only that, a story, so that Doran would have some excuse to weave his webs in the East as well as the South.

“I never intended to steal the throne from you, Arianne,” her father went on, “Because I had a brighter future in line for you. A throne far more powerful than the Dornish one that would go to your brother by default, without you there to claim it.”

Arianne stared at him, felt her heart beating a little faster. “You…”

“There was an agreement, when Rhaella’s children were smuggled out of the Seven Kingdoms,” Doran went on, and Arianne had to remind herself to breathe, lest she fall over dead then and there, “That one day, Dorne would be united with House Targaryen again, when Prince Viserys returned home to reclaim his birthright. You were to marry him, and be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, not just the Princess of Dorne.”

Arianne stared at him.

“But…Viserys is dead,” she stated the obvious, and her father did not look amused.

“Yes,” he said. “And his sister champions her right to the throne, now. But there is another Targaryen. That is why your brother has gone to meet her, in the hopes that we can convince her to see things our way.”

Arianne closed her eyes.

“Because Elia’s son still lives.”

Arianne stared at him. “Elia’s son was butchered by the Mountain,” she breathed, because that was the only thing that made sense just now, the truth that had been parroted to her for years, the fury in Oberyn’s gaze whenever he thought of the Lannisters.

She swallowed hard. “He’s dead.”

Her father met her eyes. “He’s not,” he said, very softly. “He lives, Aegon Targaryen, and he’s on his way here, to meet you.”

Arianne stared at him, for several long moments, and then cleared her throat. “Would it not make more sense for him to marry his aunt?” She asked. “Considering the fact that you sent Quentyn to make her see our side of things, and she has three dragons?”

Her father didn’t flinch. “That would hardly bring justice to Dorne, Arianne,” he said, lightly reproving, and Arianne suddenly remembered how to breathe, enough to snap at him.

“And when exactly was I going to find out that you had bartered me away for justice?” She gritted out. “On my wedding day?”

Her father stared at her; he looked genuinely shocked, by her outrage, and Arianne scoffed, jumping to her feet, moving away from him to pace in the remarkably small cell that she had thrown him in.

Her father watched her, silent.

“Arianne…”

She held up a hand. “What made you think I would want that?” She asked him, and her father blinked at her, bemused. “That I would want to spend the rest of my days chained to a man who reminded me of how our family had been destroyed, that I would never be able to rule Dorne, as my father before me did, when this has always been my home?”

Her life had been defined by the women who had left them; by Mellario, and she had always thought her father blamed her for her mother leaving. After all, it had been Arianne’s fostering which had sent her mother over the edge.

By Elia’s death, which had broken Oberyn as much as it had broken Dorne itself.

And now, her father wanted her to marry Elia’s son, or a boy claiming to be that son, and Arianne felt her heart hammering in her chest.

Wanted her to become Elia Martell, that broken, sad woman who had been forced to live with a husband who left her for a child of a girl, who forgot about his children in his greatest need. Wanted her to become the same woman who had died alone and brutally, in King’s Landing.

She wondered if that was why her father never looked at her closely.

Her father looked at her, now, as if the thought of what she might have wanted had never once crossed his mind, and Arianne shut her eyes tightly, breathed out slowly.

She stumbled to her feet then, stumbled over to the door and banged on it for the guards outside to let her out.

She heard her father calling out for her, but Arianne ignored him as the door opened, as she barely squeezed past the guard and out into the hall, and stood there, stock still. 

Her heart was pounding in her ears; Arianne was aware that the guards were trying to speak to her, were calling out for her, but she couldn’t hear anything that they were saying, not above the sound of drums in her ears.

Couldn’t hear it above the sudden difficulty that came with breathing, as Arianne reached out blindly for the wall and leaned against it, hard.

* * *

She found her mother sitting out in the gardens that she had so loved and tended to, in Sunspear, when she returned from visiting her father. By then, it was early morning, though she was still surprised that the other woman was awake.

Mellario looked up, sending Arianne a tremulous smile, and Arianne promptly forgot any curiosity about what the other woman was doing up at such a time.

“Is it true?” Arianne asked, into the silence.

Her mother bit her lip. “Arianne…”

“Is it true?” Arianne gritted out, shaking the other woman. “Tell me the fucking truth, right now, or I swear by the gods, I won’t be responsible for my next actions.”

Mellario looked startled, by the threat, before she nodded, slowly.

Arianne released her as if the other woman’s touch had burned.

“You know, I expect this sort of thing from him,” Arianne said, jabbing a finger back in the direction of the tower. “But you? You’re my mother. You’re the only real parent I ever had, and here you are, lying to me, just like him.”

Mellario closed her eyes. “Arianne, you don’t understand…”

“Why did you come back here?” Arianne interrupted her. “Was it because I had imprisoned your husband, or to make your reports, after Quentyn came and told you he was finally doing as Father wanted from the start?”

Mellario flinched. She stared at Arianne for several long moments, and, for a horrifying second, Arianne thought that the other woman was going to burst into tears.

She didn’t.

Instead, Mellario clasped her hands in front of her and said, in the gentlest voice Arianne had ever heard from her, but somehow not gentle enough, “I never wanted to leave you, Arianne. I wanted to take you with me, but your father would not allow it. He thought it would draw too much attention.”

“You have family in Norvos!” Arianne cried, the dam bursting, with those words. “Family that you could have asked to send those reports for you, instead of going yourself! Instead of leaving us, if it was so heartbreaking for you to leave your children here!”

Mellario flinched; even as Arianne said those words, she knew that they weren’t true. That for some reason, Doran and Mellario had deemed it important that she go herself, and there had to be a reason for that.

There had to be.

“That wasn’t enough,” Mellario said, gently, but the words stung more than anything that Doran had just said to her. “Arianne, it wasn’t enough.”

She barely heard the other woman.

“I spent my life thinking that my father blamed me for the fact that you left us!” Arianne shouted at her, tears springing up in her eyes. “Spent my life thinking that I was never a good enough replacement for you, because you were gone and I was here, and Father never looked at me the same again.”

Mellario closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “That wasn’t the case at all, Arianne,” she whispered. “But I am sorry that you had to go through that.”

Arianne snorted. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have come prancing back here acting like you blamed me for what I did, after you both purposely kept me in the dark for so long that I felt it was my only choice!”

Mellario flinched. “I…I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I sent my reports to Doran, as much information as I could, but he only sent me the things he thought I needed to know. And then, the reports just…stopped.”

They both knew why that had been.

Arianne lifted her chin.

“Why the fuck did you come back here?” She demanded. “If you’ve been giving Father these reports all of these years, why come back now?”

Her mother’s eyes were shining; she had not imagined that, earlier. Now, a single tear slipped down her dark cheek.

“It’s your brother, Arianne,” she said, and Arianne did not think that she had it in her to endure any more life changing news, today, but apparently the gods did not care what Arianne needed. 

But she knew, in the moments before her mother spoke again, what the other woman was going to say.

She knew it, and still, her stomach twisted, she felt suddenly queasy, she wanted to lift her hands to her ears like a small child, cover them as Mellario spoke again.

“Quentyn, he…I came back, Arianne, because he’s…he’s gone.”

Arianne stared at her, watched two more tears slip down her cheeks in quick succession, trying to find the lie in her eyes automatically, because too many people had been lying to her, lately. 

“No,” Arianne breathed. “No, no, no…” she was already shaking her head, could feel tears slipping down her cheeks even as she reveled in the irony of all of this, that a week ago she had feared that her brother was coming here to kill her, and now, she was crying over his…

His…

Her mother reached out, wrapping her arms around Arianne’s shoulders, and Arianne wanted nothing more than to flinch away from the other woman, but she couldn’t. 

She couldn’t, because Quentyn was gone. Quentyn, who she had thought wanted to betray her, but who had been serving the family far better than she had, in years past.

Quentyn, who had seen their mother last of all, apparently, and who was now…

“How?” She whispered, too shocked to be ashamed by the tears wetting her mother’s gown.

Her mother rubbed a gentle hand up and down her back, the way she had done whenever Arianne came crying to her as a child, the few times that had been.

“That is something you cannot tell your father,” Mellario whispered in her ear, and Arianne squeezed her eyes shut, and the world seemed to halt, for several moments-

“Arianne Martell!” She heard her husband shouting, heard the sound of soldiers’ armor, clanking across sand, and Arianne wanted to scream at him that she didn’t have the energy for this now, that this was perhaps the worst time for her husband to suddenly decided he needed to speak with her.

Still, she knew better than to ignore her husband. To do so would be a rather fatal mistake, these days, with the amount of power that she had handed him, with their wedding.

Arianne stepped back from the other woman, shaken. “What is it?” She demanded, wiping at her eyes.

Blinking at the sight of so many soldiers, standing alongside Gerold. Of Obara, standing at his right hand, her face expressionless as she took in the sight of Arianne and her mother.

And it struck her, then, that Gerold should not be out of the bed she had left him in, hours ago. That he had been sound asleep, when she had left him, and it was barely dawn, now.

Her heart hammered in her chest.

Her mother reached for her hand.

“What…what is the meaning of this?” Arianne asked of them, because they were outside of the palace at a strange time of the night, and surrounded by soldiers, and she had left her husband sound asleep.

Or at least, she had thought he had been sound asleep, when she went to go and finally get some answers from her father.

She closed her eyes, breathed in and out, slowly. 

Obara, at Gerold’s side, shifted, looking distinctly uncomfortable, and Arianne wondered if it was the same look that had been on Lady Nym’s face, when she had gone to their uncle about Obara and Tyene’s treason.

No one spoke.

And then, Gerold reached forward and grabbed her by the arm, in an iron grip, shaking it out of Mellario’s hold, and Arianne stared at him incredulously, and then at the soldiers behind him, who didn’t move, didn’t react at all.

Had known what he was planning.

Obara, at Gerold’s side, silent. Her lips were pinched, as if she weren’t quite comfortable wit the iron grip that Gerold had on Arianne, but that was her only complaint, just now.

Arianne wanted to spit at her, after the way she had confided in her cousin the other day, only to get this in response.

“What is the meaning of this?” Arianne repeated, voice raised, trying hard to pull on Gerold’s iron grip on her arm, and finding herself unable to be rid of his grip. She could hardly think straight, could hardly see for the red in her eyes. Quentyn was dead. Quentyn was dead, and her father didn't even know, because she'd had him locked away.

Her little brother was dead.

The guards shifted, slightly uncomfortable now, but a look from Obara quelled them easily enough.

“You are being placed under protection, Arianne, not arrest,” Gerold told her, the words almost gentle, for all that his grip was not. “We have determined the person who sent the assassin to Dorne, and think that it is not worth the risk, to leave you out where Cersei and her creatures might come for you, again.”

Cersei.

Arianne shook her head; as far as excused went, it seemed a foolish one, when the assassin had been aiming for Myrcella, not Arianne.

Arianne pursed her lips, glancing at her husband’s fiery, angry gaze, and reflected that if she’d just fucked him a couple more times, she might have avoided this situation, entirely.

If she’d just been a little more patient, Arianne thought, and bit back a hysterical laugh.

At her side, her mother had gone very still; she was not trying to fight back, but then, she wouldn’t, would she? Arianne thought, after what she had just told her. 

“Unhand me, this instant,” Arianne snapped at her husband. “I am your Princess, and I will decide what risks are to be taken for my own protection, not you.”

Her husband’s face twisted into a grimace; his grip on her tightened further.

“Patience,” Gerold said. “That is something you ought to take into consideration for yourself, love,” he warned her. “I think, where you’re going, you’re going to need it.”

Arianne glared at him. “You’re nothing but a grasping jackass, the way you’ve always been. And you are not doing this for my own protection, but so that you can take what belongs to me.”

She’d been a fool, to get married at all, she saw that now. She’d been worried about a threat from her brother, when she should have been worried about the threat of the man in her bed.

Gerold shrugged. “And you’re a whore,” he said.

Her mother let out a quiet noise of distress, at the word, but Arianne couldn’t pay attention to her, just now.

“You were a whore the first time you got into my bed, and you were a whore for the Tyrells, when they promised to let you lick the Queen Regent’s cunt, first chance you got to avoid a war, just like your father.” He leaned forward. “I hope it was worth it.”

Arianne tried to pull herself free of his grip, glowering. “Let. Go. Of. Me.” She turned to the guards, surrounding them, already aware that they would not heed her orders.

But if she had learned one thing tonight, it was that pretense was an important thing, indeed.

“I am your princess, and you will obey my commands over that of my husband’s,” she snapped at them. “This is a coup, not whatever attempts of protection he claims it to be.”

The guards glanced at Gerold; other than that, none of them moved.

Arianne gritted her teeth, turning to Obara, then. “And you,” she said. “You’re my cousin. I should have left you to rot in that tower.”

Obara flinched.

Gerold raised his hand, as if to smack her, and Mellario was suddenly there, pushing herself in front of Arianne.

“Please,” she begged, and Arianne squeeze her eyes shut, wishing that her mother did not have to witness this, of all people.

Of all nights, of course Gerold would choose this one, to betray her.

“Please, I have already lost one child,” she begged. “Do not force me to lose another. Not tonight.”

For a moment, Gerold’s gaze softened, under those words, but Arianne was already waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Arianne’s eyes flew open, resisting the sudden, vicious urge to tell her mother to shut the fuck up.

But it was too late; her husband may not be the brightest of warriors, but he was not a fool. “Another?” He asked, glancing between Mellario and her mother.

Behind him, Obara’s eyes widened, turning sharply to Arianne.

Arianne ignored the other woman.

“Quentyn?” Gerold asked, sounding equal parts pleased and sorrowful, at the news. “It could not be Trystane, or we would all have heard about it, by now.”

Mellario seemed only then to realize what she had done, closing her eyes, letting out a slow breath. She dropped to her knees, then. 

“Please,” she begged, and Arianne thought that she should never have had to witness her mother begging, before.

She didn’t want to see another moment of it.

“I am your princess!” Arianne shouted, ripping herself free of Gerold in his shock, and moving back from him, turning her fierce glare on the soldiers in a feeble attempt to guilt them that she already knew would not succeed.

Her heart was not in it.

Gerold stalked forward then, Arianne’s men silent before him as he came to a pause in front of her, reaching out to take her chin in his hand, and holding it gently.

Arianne spit on him.

He grimaced, reaching up to wipe at his face. Then, he smacked her across the face.

“Not anymore, Your Highness,” Gerold told her. “You are to be placed under lock and key for your own protection. In the mean time, I shall serve as Regent to Dorne, in your name. You need not worry. As your husband, I shall see to it that your wishes are granted. That war finally comes to Dorne.”

No, Arianne thought, and she’d realized it before, the first time that Doran had explained things, and then again as she confronted her mother, furious that both of them had kept her in the dark when she was just fucking them all and didn’t even know it, but now, now it felt even more real.

Dorne was about to enter into a war that they could not possibly win, at a time when they should be holding back, waiting for the Dragon to make their mark, whichever damn dragon it ended up being.

Shouldn’t be teaming up with the Tyrells, because the Tyrells were the ones holding the dragon’s Iron Throne, at the moment, and surely the first thing they would do, when either of them got here, was to try and get it back.

And Arianne…

Arianne had been the one to doom them to that fate, by ever teaming up with Margaery Tyrell. There had been a reason her father had refused to speak to the other girl about vengeance, because he already had his plans for it, and they did not include the Tyrells, not at all. 

She lifted her free hand to her hair, wanting to rip it out, in that moment.

Mellario looked just as pained, from where she knelt in the sand, but Arianne couldn’t pay attention to her, just now.

She couldn’t, because she suddenly had far more pressing issues.

“Gerold,” she reached out, panicked, placing both hands on her husband’s arms. “Please, you cannot do this. You cannot. It…”

Gerold shook her off, looking annoyed, and Arianne remembered.

Remembered that she had only ever seen him as someone to bed and to use, for all the time she had known him. Had looked at him in recent months with the same disgust he was now showing her, whenever he tried to get closer to her.

She had brought this on herself.

Fuck.

“Take the Princess to the tower where her father and Ellaria Sand are being kept,” Gerold said, then. “Since she seems so keen.”

Arianne reached out for him again, but soldiers who ought to have been loyal to her were already gripping her arms, pulling her along, and much as she kicked and screamed, she was helpless against them.

“You cannot go to war!” She cried out, a last straw.

Obara’s brows furrowed.

Gerold smiled at his wife. “You have a sharp mind, my love,” he told her, “and ambitions that I have always adored. But when you took the throne, you became as soft bellied as your father. So I will do this for you, and you will thank me for it, one day.”

If she ever saw the outside of a cell again, Arianne interpreted, though Gerold, for all his posturing, was not on good enough footing to make such a claim in front of so many guards.

“You will pay for this,” she gritted out, fully meaning the words as her gaze swept up and down her husband. “I swear it. You will all pay for this.”

Her husband smiled at her. “Words, Arianne,” he said, darkly. “That is all you’ve ever given. Just like your father.”

Arianne closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was standing in one of the cells of the tower she had once imprisoned her own father in, the door slamming behind her, the deaf guards walking away.

Ellaria standing in front of her, shock on her face for only a moment before it disappeared, replaced by the idle amusement of an already resigned woman.

“Well,” Ellaria said, smirking slightly as the door slammed shut behind Arianne, “This is ironic, I must say.”

Arianne scowled at the other woman.

Ellaria laughed.

* * *

“I need to get a message to the Lady Nym,” Obara informed the messenger, who was all but shaking before her. But she didn’t have time for his fear of the threats she had just issued; she didn’t have time at all. It was nearly sunup, and then, the whole of Dorne would know what they had done, tonight. 

“And if you ever speak of this to anyone, to my husband, to my cousins…I will see to it that you die a most horrible death, do you understand?”

The man gulped. “As you wish, my lady,” he said, and she almost reminded him that she was not a lady, but now was not the time.

Obara nodded, slowly. “Tell my sister that Dorne can wait no longer, and is declaring war on House Lannister. And…tell her that this is by no means an act against the Crown. Ask her whether Margaery Tyrell will stand in my way.”

My way, she liked the way that sounded. She wondered what Margaery Tyrell would think of it, of a bastard demanding an ultimatum of her.

The messenger dipped his head. “Yes, Your Highness.”

And then, he was gone.

Obara watched him go with disinterest; it did not matter how long it took the Tyrells to find out what had happened here, just that when they did, it was this version of events, and not the true one.

That should buy them some time, for her sister had always been a very paranoid woman, and she knew that she would be suspicious to be receiving such a message from Obara, and not from Arianne, when she received it. 

Obara sighed, reaching up to rub at her temples.

She prayed to gods that she didn’t believe in that she was doing the right thing, tonight.

She had a feeling that it was all going to come back and bite her in the arse, soon.

She had seen the look on Arianne's face, as her own husband arrested her for her "protection." Had seen the betrayal there, the absolute horror, as if she couldn't believe that they would turn against her after she had so easily turned against her own father. She didn't know what Arianne had been doing, what she had learned from visiting her father, but Obara had a strange feeling that she was missing something horribly important, just now. 

And a part of Obara felt guilty for what she had done, but the truth remained that Gerald would be a much easier to control leader than Arianne had ever been, and that he would do the one thing that Arianne could not afford to, these days, or simply would not; he would crown Myrcella Baratheon, as Obara had always planned for her to be.

It was the perfect time to do so, after all. Joffrey was dead, and the Lannisters - for were the Tyrells anything less than Lannisters now? - seemed to be squabbling too much over who had the right to the throne now to notice, much less do anything about such an act. 

Obara paused, in the throne room.

Gerold, in full battle armor, stood before her cousin’s throne, staring at it with something like awe on his features, now that nothing stood in the way of his gaining it. Staring at it like he intended to take a seat in it himself.

She felt her gut twist with something like nervousness, and hoped that she had not just made a terrible mistake, in handing it over to him so easily.

“Well,” Gerold said, as he sat down in the throne meant for his wife as if he had been born into it himself, and Obara moved forward to stand by his side, keenly aware of the shift in power, now.

Before, she had been the one leading him. Now, with him sitting on her cousin’s throne, there was no hiding what their relationship meant.

She swallowed hard, suddenly nervous that, now that Gerold had gotten a taste for the throne, he would never give it up again.

“That was unpleasant.” Then, he grinned at her, utterly unrepentant. She wished she had his optimism. “But the bitch got what she deserved, either way.”

“Those guards we brought along,” Obara said, examining her nails, “They will have to be killed. The whole of Dorne must think that we did this for her own protection, that she was all right with it.”

Gerold grimaced. “Coups are such difficult things,” he said. “I remember.”

Obara didn’t even flinch. “And there will be more resistance this time, you must realize that,” she pointed out. “Arianne may have overthrown Doran without too much difficulty, but she was still his daughter. Dorne will smell the bullshit, this time.”

Gerold licked his lips. “They all saw that assassin try to murder Myrcella, saw the knife go through Arianne,” he said. “So long as once or twice a month, she lets the world know she still lives and I still operate in her name, we’ll be fine.”

Obara was not so sure, but then, this had not been her plan, not from the start. 

“You’ll need her seal,” she said, handing over the piece of paper that she had stolen from Arianne’s rooms, the moment Arianne had gone to the tower and her husband had “awoken” to find guards loyal enough to him to help arrest her.

Gerold took it, nodding his thanks in her direction, before he smiled at her again. “What do you think? Do I make a good regent?”

“You shouldn’t have lied to her about who you intend to be Regent for,” Obara said, toneless, and Gerold stared at her for a moment longer before he laughed.

“I suppose it would have been funny to see the shock on her face,” he admitted. “But you were the one who warned me that we must take this slowly.”

“Not too slowly; the child won’t be in Margaery Tyrell’s womb forever, and there’s always a chance that it will be a boy,” Obara warned him. “The funeral.”

“Yes,” he agreed, nodding vigorously. “I like that. A queen born out of her brother’s ashes, the way Arianne was born out of Quentyn’s, without even knowing it.”

He laughed.

Obara paled, the reminder that her cousin was apparently dead hitting her like a punch to the gut.

She had never had any particular strong feelings for Quentyn; most of their lives had been spent apart, and Arianne had seen him as a threat to her long before he had gone East to bring back an army.

“Makes you wonder if she made up all of that shit about her brother intending to bring a civil war to Dorne,” Gerold continued, and Obara’s jaw clenched, because she had seen the shock on Arianne’s face.

Had seen how off, she had been.

It had to be a surprise, she had to have not known.

“It gave her the perfect excuse to steal the throne from her father, to string along Dorne because she didn’t know what to do once she got the throne,” Gerold pointed out. “A threat from the East.”

For some reason, those words made Obara feel queasy, as she remembered the look on Arianne’s face, as she all but begged Gerold not to go to war, a war that she had always wanted in the past, after one conversation with her father.

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “It’s very strange.”

“We should have a funeral for him, here,” Gerold went on. “Don’t want to look less than sympathetic to the Martells.”

She didn’t bother to point out that she was also a Martell; Obara knew that Gerold would only remind her that she had been Oberyn’s bastard, not his trueborn daughter.

Not that that had ever mattered, to him.

“Now,” Gerold said, leaning back on the throne, “Where is our new Queen?”

* * *

Myrcella took a deep breath, and stepped into the tower that Tyene had taken her to, in recent days.

It would not look strange, that she was here, she knew, when Tyene had brought her here so many times recently, even if she was alone, this time. Not to the guards at the bottom of the tower, not to any servants who might notice her.

So much was changing, just now, that she knew they had much larger problems than whether or not she was accompanied to this tower, today.

She didn’t know where Tyene was, was only glad that the other woman had not been guarding her in her rooms, during the commotion tonight, because it meant that no one was guarding Myrcella.

Myrcella had the feeling that Tyene had been meant to, but she had disappeared, shortly before Myrcella had gone to sleep, and it had been a simple thing, to convince her already worried guard that Arianne had sent for her, in the night.

She smiled, as she walked by the guards at the tower where Oberyn Martell had always kept his poisons, and slowly made her way up the steps.

She did not have much time, of course, but she also did not want to draw undue attention to herself. The moment someone realized that she was not meant to be here, she knew, she would be dragged before the throne with her enemies demanding an explanation.

And with a vial of poison in her pocket, she knew, that would not go well for her. Not when Arianne was no longer around to forgive everything that she did without question, because she felt bad about the way she treated her, and Trystane.

Say what she liked about Arianne, Myrcella could admit that the other woman was at least predictable in that sense, if no other.

Myrcella swallowed hard, glancing at the vials of poison, all carefully shelved, after the last time that she and Tyene had been here, scanning it for a particular vial, and racking her brain for anything about it that might make it stand out in a hurry.

She heard shouting, down in the courtyard, and Myrcella panicked, hurrying forward to thumb through the vials individually, without the presence of mind this time to make sure that she put them back where she found them, exactly.

And then, near the back of the second shelf she searched, she found it.

Dragon’s Breath.

Myrcella smiled, as she recognized the stuff, even as she prayed to the gods that she would never have occasion to use it, that, despite the power shift in Dorne this night, she and her child would remain safe.

Well, safe as they could be.

A nasty little voice in her ear reminded her that if she just refused to go with Tyene when her party attacked Jaime’s on the way to the Rock, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

But then again, they said that Cersei had crowned Tommen, that she was back at the Rock now, and the thought of having to face her mother again, especially after Joffrey’s death, to have to see the woman’s tears for a boy that Myrcella loathed with all of her being disgusted her just as much as she was disgusted with herself for coming here, and without Trystane, in the first place.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, reminded herself that she was safe so long as she had this extra piece of insurance, that she was doing this with the eventual goal, a goal that Arianne herself didn’t seem to understand at all, despite being his own sister, of getting Trystane back.

Of getting her family back.

Myrcella slipped the poison into her pocket, and remembered how to breathe again.

She had a feeling that fainting during her coronation would be rather embarrassing.

* * *

When he was a boy, Tyrion had always wanted to go to Dorne.

He remembered that Oberyn and Elia had come to visit them, when they were still young children, because back then, there had still been talk of Elia and Jaime being wed, or of Oberyn and Cersei being wed, before Tywin had decided that it was an immortal offense, for Elia to steal Cersei’s rightful place at Rhaegar’s side.

And that had been the last time that anyone had spoken of the Tyrells and the Lannisters visiting one another, especially after…everything that had come after that.

But Tyrion had read much about Dorne, as a child, had thought that it sounded wonderful, and had thought even more as he grew older and learned of their free women and good wine.

Now, as he stepped off the ship they had taken from Essos to Sunspear and stretched his aching muscles, Tyrion thought that the only thing notable about Dorne, from any other city of the many that he had looked at recently, was that it was too damn hot.

“Fucking hells,” Bronn muttered beside him as they stepped off the docks of the harbor, and a dozen merchants accosted them, trying to sell their wares. Tyrion waved them all away in annoyance, reflecting that perhaps they should have found a less notable way of entering the city; after all, he was rather distinguished a character.

He had a horrible feeling that they had already been recognized, as they walked though the harbor.

But that hardly mattered; he had given no thought to disguising himself, once he finally got here. The Martells hated the Lannisters enough to at least hear him out, after what he was accused of doing.

Or at least, he hoped so.

Beside him, Bronn swore again and reached up to mop at his forehead. “I thought your brother would be the last person to drag me to this godsforsaken place.”

Tyrion eyed him in some amusement, waving away yet another merchant. 

“How many people have dragged you to Dorne before this?” He asked, out of a sense of idle curiosity, and to distract himself from the worry fo what he would need to do if the Martells decided that it was just the same to them if their guards ran him through.

He supposed it wouldn’t matter, then, if they did. Sansa and Cersei had already stolen from him what semblance of a life he’d had left; what he’d had in Lys, and in Braavos, before that, could not strictly be called living, after all.

Bronn had said it himself when he’d found him; he had been drinking himself to death, for all that he had been too drunk, in the moment, to admit it.

Even later, after he’d sobered up and agreed, for some insane reason, to go to Dorne, he hadn’t wanted to admit it, though Bronn had seen through the facade that he had put up clearly enough.

But it had not been easy, sobering up this time. Not like all of the times in the past; this time, it had taken days to stop the tremors in his hands, to stop thinking about the need for a stiff drink, every time something did not entirely go his way.

If the Martells wanted to kill him, he could not even blame them, he knew. He was walking right into their hands, after all. 

Myrcella, he reminded himself. He had come here for Myrcella, whom he had sent here in the first place, and the Martells clearly had some use for her, as well. 

It had been his fault, he knew that, the one thing that he had done that Cersei could truly blame him for, he supposed.

And if she was going to blame him for Joffrey’s death, then he might as well make up for it by making sure that her other children survived.

Even if it wasn’t his fault that Joffrey was dead, and he didn’t feel particularly bad about it, only that Jaime and Cersei had lost a son.

But he was tired of drinking himself to death in Lys, that was for damn sure, and if this meant that his sister wouldn’t have a death wish out for him, perhaps more than just one good could come of making sure that she didn’t lose her other children, as well. 

Bronn shifted, looking the closet to uncomfortable that Tyrion had ever seen him, a stark reminder of the last time that they parted ways. “I dunno,” he said. “It’s a hot country, full of beautiful women.”

Tyrion rolled his eyes, taking that to mean that he wasn’t going to explain more than that. “And I don’t suppose that you and Jaime managed to find a way into the castle, the last time you were here.”

Bronn grinned at him. “Oh, didn’t we ever,” he said.

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

Bronn grimaced. “I think I liked you better when you were drinking yourself to death in Lys,” he muttered.

Tyrion rolled his eyes. “You didn’t speak to me the entire time that we were in Lys,” he muttered.

Bronn eyed him. “Exactly,” he said. “Nobody was trying to kill me then, though.”

Tyrion’s lips twitched. “You were still a sellsword, over there. And well paid, at that.”

Bronn shrugged. “Sellswords don’t do shit, over there,” he said. “Just get fat and make money.”

“Well, if you hadn’t made money, we never would have been able to afford the trip here,” Tyrion pointed out, as he pressed a hand to his lips.

Bronn looked less than impressed. “Yes, whoever said Lannisters shit gold was an idiot,” he muttered. “You could have spent less of what you had, while we were in Lys.”

Tyrion neglected to point out that he’d only had what was on him at the time he’d left King’s Landing, which had not been much, thanks to his wife’s little deception. 

“To the palace, my lord?” Bronn asked him, and Tyrion bit back a sigh.

He supposed it would be better to get this first meeting over with now, than later. 

He noticed the guards then, at the 

“Are you sure this is a good idea, my lord?” Bronn asked, and Tyrion rolled his eyes.

“It’s a bit too late for that now, don’t you think?” He asked, and Bronn looked annoyed, but it passed quickly. “Besides, this was your idea.”

Bronn shrugged. “Yes,” he said, staring up at the palace of Sunspear. “But my idea was to do something, not quite…this.”

Tyrion rolled his eyes, taking a step forward. “Well then,” he muttered, as the guards finally laid eyes on them. “You should have been more specific.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think in the comments!


	18. King's Landing

_ Brienne of Tarth did not understand her lady’s fascination with Margaery Tyrell. _

_ She hadn’t spent much time with Margaery, in the time she had been in King’s Landing. In truth, the words that Margaery had spoken to her in the days before her wedding to Joffrey Baratheon had so startled Brienne that she thought perhaps she would not like the woman if she knew her better. _

_ After all, Margaery had all but told her to forget about Renly, a man Brienne had thought worthy of being a true king, and whom Margaery herself had been married to, and smiled so prettily at her new husband as if Renly had never existed at all. _

_ Her grandmother was an intimidating woman, and for all that she seemed to not judge Brienne on her face and the armor she wore rather than the gowns, seemed actually to be mildly interested in her, Brienne could see that she was a plotter. That she got what she wanted by getting her hands as dirty as she needed to. Could see it in her eyes, the same eyes she saw reflected in the granddaughter’s. _

_ And then, after the wedding, Margaery had seemed, at best, mildly tolerant of her husband’s worst behaviors, and at worst, to enjoy them herself.  _

_ And Brienne would be the first to admit that she had not done all that she could to protect Sansa, in those early days. That she could have been there for her far more, that she should have been. Perhaps if she had done what she had promised to Lady Catelyn from the beginning, had been there for Sansa when she thought at first it might do the girl more harm to pay attention to her, considering the King’s own interest in her, she would have understood this fascination better. _

_ She knew that her lady and Margaery Tyrell had been close, even then, though the girls had tried to hide it rather valiantly. It was perhaps only because Brienne was watching Sansa so closely, from afar, that she had seen it at all, this thing that the two girls shared which they tried to hide. _

_ A fascination bordering on obsession.  _

_ For that was perhaps the only word that Brienne felt comfortable ascribing to Sansa’s interest in Margaery Tyrell.  _

_ She had seen her at her lowest, after the world thought that Margaery was dead, when Sansa had gone to Highgarden and been left behind by her husband, and she thought she understood only then what Sansa had felt for the Regent. _

_ Had seen her grief, and thought she understood a little of it from how she had felt when Renly had died, and the world blamed her for that death rather than the shadow demon who had stolen him from it. Had seen the way she reacted when Margaery Tyrell returned to life, as Renly had not, how quickly she had agreed to go back to the place that had only ever brought her pain and harm, and Brienne thought she knew what it was that lay between them, then. _

_ But then the King had died, and Brienne felt no grief at the boy’s death, only grief, if that was the right word, for Sansa’s involvement for it, a grief that felt like Lady Catelyn’s hand squeezing around her heart, crying out for what had become of the daughter she had lost.  _

_ And she had seen a darkness in Sansa’s eyes, a darkness that had startled even Brienne, who had seen a demon kill Renly Baratheon, because it was nothing like the girl she had thought Sansa was, nothing like the woman Catelyn had been, save for the day when she had asked Brienne to take the Kingslayer back to King’s Landing to save her only daughters, and damn the consequences if her son found out about it. _

_ Seeing that darkness in Sansa’s eyes, as she spoke of premeditated murder in the same way her mother had spoken of defying her son, had been terrifying. Brienne had wondered if she had already failed to protect the girl she had promised her lady she would save. _

_ It had been her feelings for Margaery, oddly enough, which had Brienne convinced that Sansa was still savable. That she was still Catelyn Stark’s daughter, even if she was beginning to wonder if Sansa herself even believed that. _

_ Margaery Tyrell, who had started to truly suffer under her husband’s reign as they came closer to his death, who had nearly lost a child, but it had been Sansa, sobbing in her chambers when she thought Brienne couldn’t hear her, who had mourned for it, as she had after Margaery’s death. _

_ It had been Sansa who had decided to do whatever it took, to kill Joffrey if she had to, just because her lady was in pain, where she had endured so many years of Joffrey’s torments herself in silence.  _

_ And it was Sansa, now, caring for Margaery in any way she could after the boy’s death, for all that Brienne didn’t understand why Margaery should feel traumatized by the death of a man she had clearly loathed, all but wrapping Margaery in blankets and taking on her responsibilities for herself, responsibilities that she had no need to take on, that had Brienne convinced that girl had always been there, all along, even when Brienne hadn’t seen it. _

_ But Margaery… _

_ For all that Brienne had worried at first that Sansa was not the girl her mother thought she was, the Regent hardly seemed pleased by the attention that Sansa was pouring over her, seemed more bothered, every time that Sansa tried to do something for her, and given the way she had latched onto her husband, becoming a very different woman than she had been when she was married to Renly, Brienne had to wonder if her feelings for Sansa were as genuine as the ones Sansa clearly had for her. _

_ The thought that Sansa was sacrificing so much of herself for a woman who clearly didn’t have the same feelings for her made Brienne feel sick, every time she saw them together.  _

_ Brienne sighed, walking along in silence behind the younger woman as Sansa all but marched to the Regent’s chambers, the ones that had once belonged to Cersei Lannister. _

_ The Regent had sent a summons for Sansa, an official one through one of her scheming ladies, though the girls’ schemes did not actually seem that evil, for the most part, and Sansa had come running the moment she received it. _

_ Brienne had insisted on going with her, even if Sansa had seemed a little annoyed at the presumption. Brienne didn’t care; Sansa did not allow her to sit in on those private meetings that she had with that snake, Baelish, for all that Brienne practically begged her to, and she didn’t know if it was because Sansa didn’t trust Brienne, or thought that Baelish wouldn’t, but she wasn’t about to let Sansa out of her sight if she could help it. _

_ Sansa paused outside the Regent’s door, nodding to the grim faced guards standing outside the door. “The Regent summoned me,” she said, but the guards were already moving aside for her. _

_ Brienne didn’t know exactly what Baelish had done, to convince the newest members of the Kingsguard, installed by Garlan Tyrell rather quickly and haphazardly after the King’s death, to convince them to take Sansa so seriously, but the guards hardly seemed surprised by her presence, nor like they were going to stop her. _

_ “Brienne,” Sansa said, turning to face her, then, “You may wait out here.” _

_ Brienne lifted her chin. She’d spent far too long standing just outside of Sansa’s life, looking in. Joffrey was dead, but there were plenty enough attention that Sansa could find here which Brienne thought wouldn’t be good for her. _

_ “I will come with you, my lady,” she said, and Sansa looked annoyed for the briefest of moments, before she shrugged and stepped through the doors, the guards not hesitating to let Brienne through, as well. _

_ A Regent was usually surrounded by their subordinates, Brienne had found. Renly certainly was; she didn’t think she could ever think of a moment when he was alone, the whole time that she had served him, even if that had not been very long at all. _

_ It was the same with Margaery, once she had married Joffrey, and even before that. She was always surrounded by her ladies, never alone, though Brienne had very much gotten the idea that she wished she was, or that, at the very least, Sansa wished she was. _

_ Now, though, she was sitting on the sofa in the outer parlor of what had once been Cersei’s chambers, chambers that Brienne had done her best to avoid since coming to King’s Landing, not surrounded by servants or ladies, but utterly alone. _

_ Her complexion was dark, as she looked up at Sansa with hooded eyes, and Brienne suddenly found herself wondering if it had been a mistake, to come in here with Sansa. _

_ “Your Grace,” Sansa said, as if the three of them didn’t know she’d rather call the lady something else, and Margaery dipped her head, and then gestured for Sansa to take a seat. She moved as if to do the same with Brienne, but Brienne was already moving to the far wall and leaning against it. _

_ Sansa swallowed hard, looking pained by even that small amount of distance between the two of them. Privately, Brienne thought it was something of a miracle that the two of them had not been found out ages ago, but then, she supposed, she knew Sansa rather better than most did, these days.  _

_ Brienne glanced away from the naked longing in Sansa’s eyes then, finding something in that as both distinctly familiar and very painful, and instead found herself staring at a section of the wall on which resided a mutilated stag, blood pouring from its body and out into a forest. _

_ Brienne wondered if Cersei had been the one to commission the painting, or if Margaery had, for it seemed a little too on the nose.  _

_ “Sansa,” Margaery said, and there was something very tired in the other woman’s voice. Brienne found herself glancing back at the other woman despite herself. _

_ It was not that she disliked Margaery; Brienne simple recognized that they resided in entirely different worlds. It was the same thing that she had realized during her first conversation with Cersei Lannister; she had very much known that the other woman was sizing her up, was trying to decide if she found her to be a threat, during that first conversation they’d had at the wedding. She was not a fool; she knew the rumors about the Queen and her brother, after all. _

_ And Brienne had recognized then and there that if Cersei Lannister wanted to wage a war on her that had nothing to do with swords, there was no chance of Brienne winning. _

_ It was the same, with Margaery. _

_ But there was no denying that since her husband’s death, Margaery Tyrell had changed. She seemed a shell of her former self at the best of times, but there was something about her that, while Brienne disliked her dismissive treatment of Sansa at times, seemed more sincere. Seemed more like someone that Brienne could trust to speak her mind, rather than to play games. _

_ Just now, Margaery looked pained at the look on Sansa’s face, but it vanished quickly enough. She reached down, folding her hands together carefully in her lap, staring at the table that separated the two girls. She let out a soft sigh. _

_ Brienne wondered if perhaps she simply didn’t know how to show her feelings for Sansa, though she’d certainly not had a problem with doing it before. If, somehow, she truly had cared for her little beast of a husband, and felt guilty for the way she felt about Sansa, now. _

_ If that was the case, Brienne thought she might be able to understand the woman a little better, even if it was a disturbing thought. _

_ Brienne closed her eyes, and thought of Jaime Lannister, of his green eyes and sincere expression when he told her how the Mad King had really died, and wondered if it was a little like that. _

_ If there was something to Margaery Tyrell that she simply couldn’t see, because she wasn’t Sansa Stark. Because she didn’t know the woman as intimately as she now knew the man they called the Kingslayer. _

_ “Margaery…” Sansa took a deep breath, finally breaking the silence that had settled over the room. “Why did you send for me?” _

_ Margaery bit her lip. For a moment, she looked unsure, as if she didn’t want to bring up whatever it was that had warranted an official summons to her chambers, but then she seemed to steel herself, sitting up a little straighter. _

_ “My father told me that he came to see me yesterday, and the guards wouldn’t even let him in,” Margaery said coldly, and Brienne grimaced at the way that Sansa flinched at them, at how much of an accusation they sounded like. _

_ Sansa licked her lips. “Margaery…” _

_ “Did you tell the guards not to admit my own father to see me?” Margaery demanded, and her voice was hardening a little, as she said it. “Why...would you do that? I don’t understand that.” _

_ Sansa reached out as if to take Margaery’s hand, and then hesitated, pulling back from her. Brienne had noticed that, for all the two of them certainly seemed affectionate before the King’s death, risking perhaps even being caught when they were first reunited, they didn’t touch, now, ever. _

_ “Yes,” Sansa said, stiffly, now. “I told the guards not to let anyone in to see you. I thought…” _

_ “On whose orders?” Margaery demanded. “Those men are all members of the Kingsguard, but they were loyal to House Tyrell, first. They have no right to tell my father not to see me.” _

_ Sansa grimaced. “On yours,” she said, and Margaery stared at her, wide eyed, for several moments. “Margaery…” _

_ She reached out again. This time, Margaery flinched back from her, and Brienne saw the flash of hurt on Sansa’s features while Margaery did not. _

_ She bit back another sigh, leaning back hard against the wall she stood against. _

_ “He’s my father,” Margaery bit out then, sounding furious for all that her facial expression hadn’t changed a whit. “And he may be...He may…” She shook her head. “But you don’t have the right to tell him whether he can or cannot see me, Sansa. You...Why would you do that?” _

_ Sansa swallowed hard. “Margaery, I don’t know if you just don’t see it because of what you’ve been through or…Or what, but I worry that the more people who will see you, the more will realize that something is going on.” _

_ “Don’t tell me what I’ve been through,” Margaery whispered, and her voice sounded all the harsher for it, as her eyes flitted over to Brienne. _

_ Sansa winced. “I just meant...I’m trying to protect you.” _

_ “From my father?” Margaery echoed incredulously, and even Brienne had thought the excuse sounded a little weak. She knew little about Mace Tyrell, but he seemed to have a genuine affection for his daughter. His eyes lit up every time she walked into the throne room and sat herself down on the Iron Throne. “Do you honestly think my father would use that against me?” _

_ Brienne’s eyes narrowed, and she had a feeling she was missing a rather important piece of the story, here.  _

_ Sansa let out a sigh. “You’re not yourself, lately,” she said. “I thought that the less people who know that, the better. Including your father, yes.” _

_ Margaery licked her lips. “You had no right to do that without consulting me,” she whispered, but she didn’t sound angry simply...hurt, as if she couldn’t quite believe that Sansa had done it. _

_ For a moment, Brienne thought she might be close to understanding the other girl. And then the moment was lost. _

_ Sansa lifted her chin. “I won’t do it again, if that’s what you want,” she whispered. _

_ Margaery stared at her. “I want my guards to listen to their Regent over you, if I give them an order,” she said. “Or, at the very least, to consult me before doing as you want and not as I do.” _

_ Sansa looked pained, again. She fisted her hands in the fabric of her gown at her waist. Brienne found herself tracking the movement. _

_ “Margaery...The Court has not seen you in almost a week, since you gave the order for your husband’s killers to be brought to justice and declared yourself Regent,” Sansa said the words slowly, as if she were talking to a young child. “They need to see you, or they’re going to lose confidence in you, and there will be nothing I can do to stop that.” _

_ “You just said that they weren’t allowed to see me,” Margaery gritted out, sitting back on the sofa and crossing her arms, looking rather petulant, Brienne thought.  _

_ Sansa sniffed. “Because I can’t...be certain, anymore, what they’re going to see, accidentally,” she whispered, not meeting Margaery’s eyes. _

_ Margaery scoffed. “Oh, what?” she demanded, rising to her feet, then. “Do you think I’ll show them the marks he left on me, tear off my gown and ask if it seems believable that someone else attacked me so intimately?” Her eyes were fierce, flinty. “Do you think I’ll just happen to blurt out what really happened, that night?” _

_ Brienne’s eyes widened. _

_ Sansa glanced over at her then, flinching, her eyes pleading. _

_ Margaery realized what she had done a second later, lifting a hand to her mouth and covering it, half turning away from the both of them as she took one careful breath, and then another. _

_ “Brienne won’t tell a soul,” Sansa said, into the silence, as realization swept over Brienne. _

_ Margaery scoffed. “You’re right,” she said, turning back around. “I’m...Sansa, what’s wrong with me?” _

_ Brienne sucked in a breath through her teeth. _

_ Sansa leapt to her feet at once, walking around the table to reach out and touch Margaery’s hands, gently. Margaery flinched away, at first, and then reached out and latched her fingers onto Sansa’s. _

_ “You just need some time,” Sansa promised her, slowly. “And I’m going to take care of things until you’re...feeling more yourself again, all right? But I need you to trust me.” _

_ Margaery’s eyes were wide as they met Sansa’s, as, slowly, she nodded. _

_ Brienne had the feeling that both of them had forgotten she was there, in that moment, or rather, that they wished she was not. She found herself staring at the wall again, as Sansa whispered sweet nothings to the woman Brienne was steadily watching her kill herself over, and thought she finally understood. _

_ Jaime had said goodbye to her, before he had taken Tommen and Myrcella with him to the Rock. He’d said it like he knew he wasn’t coming back, and it had been the most gentle she had ever seen him, even after the first time they’d kissed. _

_ It was how Sansa sounded, now, and it sent worry down Brienne’s spine, as it had when Jaime had sounded like that, rather than the reassurance she hoped Margaery felt. _

_ And then, just like that, they were leaving again, though Margaery seemed alternately to want to beg them to stay and to want them to leave. _

_ They passed by the guards, and Sansa leaned close enough to whisper, “The Regent has changed her mind. Her father, Garlan Tyrell, the servants, and no one else save myself. Do you understand?” _

_ They nodded, silent as the grave. _

_ Brienne watched and found herself wondering what sort of woman Sansa might have been, had she become Joffrey’s Queen as Brienne knew was originally intended for the girl. Wondered if she ever would have found someone to cling to as desperately as Margaery did now to her. _

_ “Why did you order them to keep her father out?” Brienne asked, out of curiosity, as they made their way down the hall. She knew that it was none of her business, if Sansa did not want to tell her, but Lady Catelyn had confided some things in her, and she thought the lady had felt better for it. _

_ And besides that, there was something disturbing about all of this. About the fact that Sansa had been able to keep the Regent’s father from visiting his own daughter on her orders, rather than Margaery’s, and that Petyr Baelish was spending so much time alone with the girl, and that Margaery Tyrell, for all her plotting before, seemed to hold little interest at all in the Iron Throne, these days. _

_ Sansa sighed. “It gave me no pleasure, I assure you,” she said, softly. “Pet...Baelish informed me that just the other day, Olenna let Gendry Waters out of her dungeons and is dressing him up in finery,” she said. _

_ Brienne’s brows furrowed. She knew that something had gone wrong, in their plan to murder Joffrey, which she had asked not to be a part of beyond what she had done to get Tyrion Lannister out of the city for his brother, who would never have forgiven her, she was certain, if she had allowed him to take the fall for it. She knew that even before that, Margaery had sent her own grandmother, whom she had once been inseparable with, out of the city. That Olenna had done something Margaery had found reprehensible, from the ay Sansa skirted around the issue. _

_ But she knew that, despite that exile, Olenna was still a great source of power for House Tyrell, and in the Reach.  _

_ And she remembered the boy whom Olenna had been keeping in her dungeons, a boy who had claimed he knew that Margaery was alive long before the rest of King’s Landing had. Who had known about it while Sansa had been mourning the other girl.  _

_ She knew that he had been Margaery’s messenger to the Tyrells that she still lived, though they hadn’t heeded the message, but she knew little else about him, except, apparently, that he was a bastard of King’s Landing. She didn’t know why Olenna’s letting him out of the dungeons was significant. _

_ Sansa let out a little sigh, not as if she were annoyed with Brienne, but rather with having to speak about the situation at all. “Gendry is Robert Baratheon’s trueborn son,” she said. “If Olenna is giving him attention instead of seeing him dead in a ditch somewhere, much as it pains me to think of that, while her granddaughter reigns for Robert Baratheon’s grandson, it’s significant. And Mace Tyrell has never done anything without his mother’s permission.” Her eyes darkened. “I’m surprised Margaery allowed him to remain after she set her grandmother away, but I suppose she thought that would look weak…” _

_ She trailed off then, seemingly lost in thought. _

_ Brienne took a careful breath. _

_ Robert Baratheon’s trueborn son. _

_ Jaime’s children… _

_ She glanced sideways at Sansa. “You think that she’s...lost confidence in her granddaughter?” she asked, and the question was almost too surprising. _

_ They were winning, after all. Margaery sat on the Iron Throne even when she was not supposed to, her child about ready to come out into the world as its new King, if it was a boy. _

_ If it was a boy… _

_ And if it wasn’t, Lady Olenna had a perfect spare, apparently, in the bastard son of Robert Baratheon, after her family had already gone as far as to accuse the Lannisters of incest once before. _

_ “I don’t know,” Sansa whispered, sounding terribly lost, then. Brienne felt a stab of pity for her; after all, she had not been doing this for much longer than Brienne had, playing this horrible game. _

_ Brienne  took a deep breath, turning away from the younger woman as they neared her chambers again just in time to see Petyr Baelish, standing down the hall, staring at her. And there was something about him, just now, looking at her like that when he thought that she wouldn’t see him, that made Brienne shiver.  _

_ She very much didn’t like the attention that he was giving Sansa, these days, all the more for the fact that Margaery Tyrell was not giving her any. _

* * *

Brienne was watching her.

She had been doing that more and more, lately, and Sansa knew it was because the other woman was worried about her, but Sansa still found it unnerving.

She felt, absurdly, for Brienne had only once questioned her actions since coming to protect her, that Brienne was judging her with those looks. And perhaps she was but merely keeping it to herself.

Still, Sansa was exhausted from spending half of the night up with Garlan, to the point where she was rather worried that one of the servants would catch them together and assume the worst, trying to figure out how they were going to deal with the Boltons, now that they seemed willing to ally with the Crown.

Sansa was adamant that they would not remain allies for long, but Garlan, like Baelish, seemed to see the sense in keeping them around, much to her annoyance.

“What is it?” Sansa finally asked, turning to the other woman, where she stood in the corner of Sansa’s chambers.

Sansa had told her, more than once, that she was welcome to sit down if she liked, when she was standing guard over Sansa in private, but the other woman seemed determined to do the done thing, in guarding her.

Sansa didn’t know if that was because she took her duties as a knight so seriously, or because Sansa was Catelyn Stark’s daughter.

A part of her didn’t want to know the answer.

She was waiting for Rosamund to report to her, about what she had found during her time at Baelish’s brothel, and was getting more and more annoyed that the girl had yet to show her face.

After all, Brienne had reported that Rosamund had found her way back to Sansa’s chambers, so clearly, she had not been caught.

But she wasn’t there now.

“Nothing, my lady,” Brienne said, but Sansa thought she knew the other woman too well for that, these days.

She raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Brienne let out a sigh. “I’m just…worried about you, my lady,” she said, and no matter how many times Sansa told her that she didn’t need to call her that, Brienne continued.

Sansa bit back a sigh. “I…”

“You are surrounded by enemies, now more than ever, it feels like,” Brienne pointed out, and Sansa flinched.

She wanted to tell Brienne that, for all the flailing she had done of late, all of the mistakes she was making, all of the late night migraines that kept her up far too long into the night, migraines that Brienne knew about because, unlike Rosamund, she was always there to offer comfort, even if Sansa refused it, she didn’t feel like she was surrounded by more enemies than ever before.

For the first time in a long time, despite Margaery’s antics, Sansa finally felt like she was getting somewhere. Like she was in control of some aspects of her life, and she could reach out and take control of more, if she had to.

And it felt…nice, in a way that Sansa had not felt in a long time, not to feel so powerless.

Yes, she was surrounded by enemies, but she knew what they wanted, for the most part, was even learning damn well how to control Baelish, as well. 

“I’m not sure who I should be protecting you from, some days,” Brienne continued, and Sansa sighed, because she knew exactly who Brienne was referring to, with those words.

“He’s not a threat, Brienne, I promise,” she said, lifting her chin, daring the other woman to challenge her, which of course, she did.

“That man is a snake, you must realize that,” she said. “He…he was the one who returned only some of your father’s bones to your mother, when she came to see Renly. He was there, to make sure he got what he wanted out of things, too.”

Sansa licked her lips, because she hadn’t meant to sound dismissive of Brienne’s concerns.

She shared them; she didn’t know how she was going to be rid of Baelish, in the end, but for now, she still needed him, and she worried that he knew that well enough to make sure that when the time came, she wouldn’t be able to be rid of him. 

“I don’t trust him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she promised Brienne. “But…He has his uses.”

“Your mother trusted him,” Brienne whispered, softly. “I believe. That did not go well for her. I would not see you suffer the same fate.”

Sansa flinched. “Brienne…”

“My lady,” Brienne held up a hand. “I don’t say that to hurt you. But…you have to be more careful. I know you are being careful, I know it, but…” she licked her lips. “I worry. There seem precious few left in King’s Landing who worry about you, as well.”

Sansa flinched again, opened her mouth to respond, though she had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that, when the door opened, and Megga stepped inside, not bothering to knock.

Sansa rolled her eyes, turning to face the other girl. “You know, if you just invite yourself in like that all of the time, people might start to suspect.”

Megga shrugged. “Margaery already knows that I’m spying for you, I think,” she admitted, and Sansa blinked at her in shock. 

“Then why hasn’t she said anything?” She demanded, because that didn’t sound like the Margaery she knew of late. Margaery had made it rather clear what she thought of any attempts to manipulate her, after all, once she found out about them.

Sansa grimaced, remembering their last confrontation over that.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Megga said, and sounded a little shaken. Sansa wondered if it was because Lady Nym was gone, or if it was something else.

She seemed oddly attached to the other woman, now, in a way that she hadn’t seen Megga be attached to anyone, Before. And a part of Sansa wanted to be happy for her, she couldn’t help but wonder about that.

Perhaps, perhaps Lady Nym was…truly helping Megga, work through the things that had happened to her, down in the Black Cells.

Sansa grimaced; much as she disliked the other girl, she found herself wishing that there was someone in Rosamund’s life who could do the same for her, so she didn’t have to spend half of her time wondering if Rosamund’s mind would finally be lost to madness.

“Yes?”

“Margaery just did something incredibly stupid, speaking of her not liking to be spied on,” Megga snapped, and she sounded strangely angry with Sansa, though Sansa, for once, had no idea what she was talking about.

“What?” Sansa asked, struggling hard not to add a quiet, “now,” onto the end of that.

Brienne crossed her arms over her chest, where she stood in the corner of the room, looking uncomfortable.

She had made it no secret, in recent months, that she didn’t trust Margaery, and Sansa supposed she understood the other woman’s reasons. She hadn’t exactly been close with Sansa for very long, even now wasn’t close with her like Shae had been, so she didn’t know.

Didn’t know what Margaery meant to her, and instead all she seemed to see of their relationship was Sansa cleaning up Margaery’s messes, as Margaery slowly descended into more chaotic decisions, rather than getting better as Sansa had hoped that she would. 

If she had seen them, before, had known Sansa as well back then, then perhaps, she would understand now, Sansa told herself. She wouldn't question so many of Sansa’s decisions, either.

But Brienne didn’t outright question Sansa’s reasons for helping the other woman, either. Sansa had a feeling the other woman knew something of how she felt for Margaery, even if she perhaps didn’t think that Margaery returned those feelings.

She just…hadn’t seen them before all of this, Sansa reminded herself. If she had…

Sansa bit back a sigh. “What is it?” She asked, when Megga didn’t respond immediately. 

“The Regent,” Megga bit out, as if she didn’t know full well Margaery’s name, looking furious for the first time in a while, “just outlawed executions.”

Sansa blinked at her. “Come again?” She asked, her jaw falling open, as she turned around in her chair to face Megga fully.

She had seen the look in Margaery’s eyes of course, at that Small Council meeting. Had known that Margaery wanted badly to suggest that very thing, even though she had somehow managed to restrain herself. Had seen how guilty she obviously felt because of what she blamed herself for, even if no one else did.

But she hadn’t thought that Margaery would actually do it.

“Well, as near as she can, announcing it to the people,” Megga said, shakily, as she took a seat on the divan in Sansa’s chambers without being invited, letting out a long sigh. “There were at least a hundred people there. There’s no way half of King’s Landing doesn’t know by now. They’re calling her Good Queen Marg again. Well, some of them.”

Sansa sighed. “And, I imagine, the Small Council will be the last to know about this,” she said, gritting her teeth.

It made a certain sort of sense. The Small Council had not reacted favorably to her suggestion, and so Margaery, fully leaning into her position as the Regent, had gone around them, to the people, so that if the Small Council tried to stop her now, they would look like they were undermining their Regent.

Sansa sighed; it was the sort of thing the old Margaery might have convinced Joffrey to do, and thus, she knew, it had to have been Margaery’s plan from the start, which was…unsettling, in a way, because she hadn’t though Margaery capable of such deceit, at the moment.

Gods, she could hardly pretend to look interested in most Small Council meetings, these days.

Perhaps she was wrong about Margaery, these past few weeks. She had labored under the belief that Margaery wasn’t capable of her old plots and plans, that she couldn’t handle them, and now, here she was, running circles around the Small Council just for…incredibly stupid reasons.

It wasn’t as if the Crown could actually keep such a promise, noble though it was.

“Fuck,” Sansa breathed, and Brienne looked a little startled, at her cursing, but Sansa couldn’t even bring herself to be amused, by the look on the other woman’s face.

Sansa got to her feet, reaching for her shawl.

She didn’t know how she was going to fix this, just now, only knew that she had to do something, before Margaery did another foolish thing that got them all killed, liking promising to lay down the gates for Cersei Lannister, next, out of some misplaced guilt for what had happened to Joffrey.

She thought that if she could just get Margaery alone for a few minutes, could just shake some sense into her…

“Sansa, that’s not all,” Megga said, at her back now, and Sansa stifled a sigh.

“What now?” She demanded, annoyance filling her as she turned around to face Megga, again.

Megga looked a little…concerned, about the next thing she was about to say in front of Brienne, but Sansa waved an impatient hand.

She didn’t have time for that, after all. Not now. Not with Margaery determined to tear down this throne she’d spent so long working towards, once.

“Septa Unella,” Megga said slowly, and she said her next words very carefully, as if she was almost…terrified of whatever reaction that Sansa might have to her words.

And somehow, before she even knew what Megga was going to say, she knew exactly what the other girl was going to say.

Sansa closed her eyes.

“She knows.”

Sansa slammed her hand against the doorframe. Megga jumped, and Sansa only felt moderately guilty as she opened her eyes again, rounding on Megga, and she tried not to notice the way that Megga flinched back from her.

“You’re certain?”

Beside her, Brienne went suddenly very still. 

“I…overheard them,” Megga said, quietly. “Sansa…Margaery…” she sighed, looking torn, and Sansa waited. “The septa has some sort of hold over her. I fear…I fear that she feels such guilt, over Joffrey’s actions at the Sept, that the septa could convince her to do anything, just invoking that time.”

Sansa swallowed hard.

So much for Sansa thinking that perhaps Margaery was coming back to herself. 

Sansa reached up, running a hand through her loose hair.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was just what she needed, just what she had been fearing would happen from the very moment that witch had insinuated herself back into Margaery’s life. She had known something like this would happen, and that was why she had loathed the thought of Margaery spending so much time around her of late, when she was already so vulnerable…

And of course the bitch was already using it to manipulate her.

“I’m going to kill her,” Sansa whispered, as Megga grimaced, and Sansa genuinely didn’t know if she was talking about Margaery, or the septa, with those words.

Because godsdamnit, how could Margaery be so stupid as to tell her something like that? As to tell her the one thing that could get all of them killed? How could she have thought for a single moment that appeasing her own guilt was more important than their very lives?

Because this would get out, Sansa knew. The septa would not have gone to all of that trouble just to keep such a secret to herself, no matter what the Seven Pointed Star said about confession. She would see to it that it got out, and the moment anyone heard a whisper of it, Cersei would.

Cersei would turn her armies on King’s Landing and slaughter them both, for her son’s revenge.

Sansa shuddered. 

“Sansa…” Megga grimaced. “Margaery all but threatened me with exile back to Highgarden, if I questioned her about the septa again,” she said, and Brienne looked more than a little concerned, now. “I don’t think she’ll…react favorably, if something were to happen to the septa.”

Sansa shook her head, pulling her shawl a little more tightly around her shoulders. “I don’t care,” she said, voice cold, and was almost as startled as Megga to realize how much she meant those words. 

Because godsdamnit, she loved Margaery, she did, but she had been running around putting out every single fire that Margaery had initiated since the night Margaery had killed her husband, the king, and she was tired of being three steps behind a girl who wasn’t thinking about a damn thing that she was doing.

She was fucking tired of losing the game, of clawing her way to the top only to be pushed back down again by someone who she…

She licked her lips. “The septa has been with her for barely two weeks, and already she’s convinced Margaery to abolish the death penalty and to tell her…to tell her something that Margaery, in her right mind, would never tell a damn soul. She’s a threat.”

And Sansa believed that.

It had nothing, she told herself, to do with the fact that Margaery had welcomed the septa back into her life with open arms after so firmly rejecting Sansa, these past few months. Nothing to do with the fact that Margaery had turned her away but was listening to a woman like the septa, was confiding in her.

She swallowed hard. “Are you going to help me, or not?”

Megga grimaced. “That depends on what you’re talking about, exactly,” she said, softly. “I agree that she’s a terrible influence over Margaery, but if you’re talking about…” she swallowed. “Sansa…”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it when it was Joffrey,” Sansa spat out, and Brienne looked…horrified, as if she no longer recognized the young woman that she was looking at as her mother’s daughter.

And perhaps this angry thing that was welling up inside of Sansa’s chest wasn’t Catelyn Stark’s daughter. Perhaps that girl had died some time ago.

When she had twisted the knife in Ser Meryn’s gut.

But that was fine, she told herself. She didn’t need Megga’s permission, didn’t Brienne’s, for that matter.

She didn’t.

The septa knew the truth about them, and that made her enemy, whether Sansa wanted her death or not.

She swallowed. “Megga, I can’t do this without you. I need-”

The door opened then, Rosamund rushing inside, looking sweaty and wide eyed. “My lady!” She cried, looking surprised to find Sansa here. “I went to the library to look for you, and you weren’t there.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow. “Why would I be in the library?” She asked, softly.

Rosamund shook her head. “You weren’t here, earlier,” she offered, and only then seemed to notice Megga and Brienne. She dipped into a bow. “I have something I have to tell you.”

Sansa lifted a hand, already walking past her towards the door. 

“I don’t have time to talk right now, Rosamund,” Sansa said, “about whatever it was you found out in the brothel. We’ll talk about it later. I’m busy.”

Trying to make sure that Margaery didn’t get them all killed, which was becoming something of a full time job, these days.

Rosamund crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ll have time for this, my lady,” she said, and Sansa’s head jerked up at her words, because rarely was Rosamund ever so forceful.

Megga looked suddenly very tired.

“Time for what?” She asked, not sure that she was ready for anymore surprises to be thrown into her life, these days.

* * *

“Septa Unella,” Sansa said, eyeing the other woman with trepidation.

She didn’t like her here, in the chambers that Margaery now claimed as her own. She didn’t like that she was here, in the Keep, nor that Margaery seemed so taken with her, after she had been such a devout follower of the Sparrows, according to Megga.

But if she was going to be rid of the woman, the way that Kevan wanted and the way that Sansa knew needed to be done, if they were going to pull Margaery back into this game, then she needed to do it right.

She had found her, slinking around Margaery’s empty chambers, the ones that used to belong to Joffrey, and already, Sansa felt irritation with the other woman growing, didn’t like that she was here, at all, alone, no less, because neither Margaery nor any of her ladies seemed to be around.

Sansa let herself into the rooms with an odd glance in the direction of the guard standing outside of them, knowing that Margaery would have said Septa Unella could enter, but finding it irritating, all the same, that she was allowed entry without even a second glance, after everything.

Surely, even the guards had more common sense than that.

But apparently no one had common sense, these days, Sansa included. Sansa had decided to partner herself with Baelish, a man whom, historically, no one had gotten the better of since her father had married her mother, and now, she was only digging a hole deeper for herself.

But the septa; the septa was someone she could deal with, surely, to pull herself up from this feeling that she was drowning.

She reached out, shutting the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone, and Septa Unella’s eyes shot up, at the small sound.

“Lady Sansa,” Septa Unella said, and her eyes were glittering, but her face was expressionless. “Can I help you with something?”

Sansa ground her teeth; she had more right to be in these rooms than the septa did, after all.

Gods, she hated these rooms.

Every step she took inside of them reminded her of what had happened that night, of what she had walked in on. Margaery, covered in blood, Joffrey’s body laying across the floor, barely recognizable.

Ser Meryn Trant, standing over Margaery, sword raised.

Yes, she hated these rooms. She would have been perfectly content if they had burned them, the way that Cersei had done with the Tower of the Hand after Lord Tywin’s death, but instead, Margaery was sleeping in them.

And perhaps that said more about Margaery’s current state than anything else could. 

Sansa crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, actually, you can,” she muttered. “I’m having a bit of confusion about why you’re still here. What it is that you want with Margaery.”

Septa Unella raised a brow. “I have made my intentions towards the Regent very clear, my lady,” she said, as if she thought Sansa quite dumb. “I wish only to help her heal, after all of the pain that she has endured. And I think that is something that can be overcome with the help of the Faith alone.”

Sansa swallowed. She thought of the old gods, of the heart tree in the Kingswood that she sometimes went to for prayer, if she was feeling particularly low.

She hadn’t gone to it, lately.

She hadn’t been so sick that she vomited into her chamber pot lately, either, she thought, the first time she’d had such a thought since the last time she had done so, and she wondered why that was.

Wondered why, even with everything going to shit around her, she wasn’t reacting to things the way she might have done a year ago, less than that.

She looked at Septa Unella, and wondered if this was just the way that the woman wanted Margaery to react, so she could keep her claws in her, so that she could pry a confession out of her and get her revenge on the one who had destroyed her master, that damned fanatic.

She wasn’t about to let this woman get her claws into Margaery. She wasn’t about to let her bring them down, after she had worked so hard to crawl up to the top, to get them here in the first place.

Not Margaery, not her family, not Baelish, her.

Sansa lifted her chin.

Kevan was right. Sansa was right. They had to be rid of this woman.

But…in the moments after her fury had abated towards the septa in her chambers, when Rosamund explained to her that she might, perhaps, be facing an even larger threat in the form of her own advisor, Sansa had decided that she could at least offer this woman a little mercy.

Megga had claimed that she had overheard them, that she thought the septa knew, but Sansa had to be certain of that, for herself. Had to know what sort of woman this septa was, that she truly would do something with that information, sin or not.

Sansa licked her lips, walking forward. 

She could, perhaps, not afford to be that magnanimous, but Sansa did not think she had the strength to deal with both Baelish and Septa Unella, at the moment.

“It must be a new experience for you,” Sansa said, cocking her head at the septa, “Living amongst all of this finery.” She gestured around them, to ornate walls and beautiful carpets. “From what I understood of the High Sparrow’s message, he wouldn’t approve.”

The septa hummed. “The Regent understands my need for simplicity, and not wanting to spend lavishly on things that are of this world,” she told Sansa. “She even approves, in her own way. And she seems to be sincere in her own efforts towards the Faith.”

Sansa cleared her throat. “Oh?” She asked. “How?”

She knew Margaery well, and while she knew that Margaery sympathized with the plight fo the smallfolk, she also knew that Margaery enjoyed her finery and her fancy gowns very much.

Sansa had…rather intimate knowledge of those fancy gowns, after all.

Of Myrish silk sheets and golden tapestries.

The septa’s smile was thin. “She recognizes that these are all things that the Crown has managed to get because of the devotion of the smallfolk,” she said. “I understand that you are keeper of her finances, these days.”

That was not something that this septa was supposed to know, as certainly most of King’s Landing did not.

“I hope you’ve noticed that she has not bought a single new gown, nor anything of lavish refinement, since my arrival here.”

Sansa…hadn’t noticed that. She’d been too busy trying to keep the realm together when it was all but falling to pieces, to notice that.

“And she gives back, in her own way.” Her smile turned sharp, then, as she saw the obvious surprise on Sansa’s face. “Oh, you didn’t know? She’s been going out amongst the smallfolk again, giving to them golden coins and food to eat. I understand that she’s even offered to build the orphanage that she patrons a nicer building, away from Flea Bottom, despite the objections of many of the merchants.”

Sansa blinked at her, mouth opening and closing. “I…”

No, she hadn’t known any of that, and it was infuriating.

Dear gods, what did Megga think she was doing, keeping an eye on Margaery for Sansa, and not telling her any of this?

And it was infuriating to learn something like this from Septa Unella.

“The smallfolk are very close to hating her, just now,” Sansa ground out. “Why would you tell her to go out amongst them?”

Unless she wanted Margaery to get herself killed, going out amongst a people who had not forgotten that her husband had slaughtered so many of their number, that she had killed more of them when it had been found out that Sparrows had killed her husband.

Sparrows, who were really just the first dozen able-bodied men that Baelish had been able to round up, in the nights after Joffrey’s death. Who had families who must have known that, who must have loathed Margaery for that.

Dear gods, it was a terrible idea, for her to go out amongst them. She didn’t know if that was the sort of thing that could be forgotten, if Margaery could ever win their love back, much as she might want it.

And this…septa was manipulating her into wanting it enough to get herself killed.

Septa Unella cocked her head, looking at Sansa thoughtfully. “You care a great deal for the Regent,” she commented, and Sansa felt herself going very still. “She cares a great deal for you too, you know.”

Sansa lifted her chin, not liking what she surmised to be a threat, in those words. “She cares more for me than she will for you, septa, so I wouldn’t advise trying to come between us.”

The other woman had hardly been subtle, out in the hallway, with the dagger like glares that she had been sending Sansa’s way, even if Megga hadn’t told her that the septa knew about the two of them.

The septa hummed, and something cruel entered her eyes, something that had Sansa stiffening before the other woman even spoke. “Oh, I learned my lesson about that some time ago,” the septa said, coldly. “During the Slaughter of the Sept. I presume you know why it happened? Why the Regent blames herself so much for it?”

Sansa felt her body growing cold. Dear gods, she wanted to be rid of this woman, right now.

Instead, she swallowed hard and forced herself to say, woodenly, “Margaery is a very empathetic woman, towards the smallfolk, but it was her husband who caused that slaughter, not her.”

The septa shrugged. “She’s a woman who knows how to manipulate her husband, something that the Seven Pointed Star preaches against. A wife ought to be meek and humble, ought to stand by her husband, but remind him of the ways of righteousness when he strays. The Regent reveled in her husband’s cruelty, that day.”

The cold feeling sweeping over Sansa only grew, at those words. “She blames herself for his cruelty that day,” she gritted out, hating that Margaery was taking advice from this woman over her.

No wonder she felt so guilty over something that wasn’t her fault, these days, with this woman preaching in her ear.

The septa eyed her. “Perhaps you don’t know her as well as you thought, my lady,” she said, and Sansa half expected her to wink, then. She didn’t. “The High Sparrow asked the Queen to confess, once more, that day. Asked her to get on her knees, and confess what sort of man she was married to. Asked her to confess that he had…” she pursed her lips, looking Sansa up and down. “Well, I believe you were mentioned more than once. Your…sins, and what ought to be done as penance for them, when you were so…involved, with the Queen and the King.”

Sansa forgot how to breathe, for a moment.

The septa continued, mercilessly, and Sansa wanted to cover her ears like a small child. “Your…being at fault, in many of the same things that the Queen was implicated in. The High Sparrow was very interested in seeing you brought to trial for such…sins, as well. He did not simply wish to see the King and Queen brought to justice, but all of us, after all.”

Sansa’s heart beat faster, in her chest. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. She swallowed hard. “I don’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, hoarsely.

The septa leaned forward, and her eyes were almost…sad, which struck Sansa as the wrong emotion entirely. “I think you do, dear. I think you know that the Queen, the moment she learned that you might be placed in…an even less forgiving position than she had been, before the Faith, would do just about anything, to keep you from that. Even facilitate her husband’s slaughtering of entire sept full of people.”

Sansa went very pale. 

No.

No, she was lying. She was lying, because there was no way that they could have known about…

Joffrey had sent his mother away for colluding with the enemy.

Sansa had been so proud to laugh in Cersei’s face while she told her what she and Margaery had been doing, all this time, the words carefully cloaked in a lie that would implicate Joffrey, as well.

Margaery had seen to it that the Sparrows would never be able to bring the most damning of her charges against her, against Sansa as well, by getting her husband angry enough to slaughter every last member of the Sparrows, first.

When she ought to have known that her grandmother, at the very least, would have a plan to get her out of that situation, to get her away from the fanatics, but she had goaded Joffrey into slaughtering that entire room, instead of waiting…

Her heart skipped a beat.

She took an actual step back from the septa, and Septa Unella smiled at her.

“There now,” she said, calmly enough. “You see why I stick by the Regent’s side. Why I am as convinced as she that she needs to find penance, in the eyes of the Faith, for the things that she has done. Why you won’t be able to scare me away from helping one truly who truly seeks the light, after committing so many…atrocities.”

Sansa licked her lips. 

It wasn’t the worst thing that Septa Unella could know; she didn’t know that Margaery had killed her own husband, that the child in her womb didn’t belong to that husband, but clearly, she knew something damning enough.

And Sansa didn’t know if Margaery was keeping her around because the septa was holding that over her head, or for some other reason, because she truly felt such guilt for what she had done, a guilt that Sansa had seen often enough in the days after Joffrey’s death to know was real.

She didn’t know which one it was, or whether it was a combination of both, but the septa clearly still knew about the two of them, and that was dangerous enough knowledge, on its own.

For a moment, she let herself imagine getting rid of the woman, here and now, for what she knew.

Let herself imagine pulling out the knife that she had used on Ser Meryn, the moment the two of them walked in on Margaery and Joffrey’s brutalized, dead body, and stabbing it between the woman’s ribs, the way she had with Ser Meryn.

Stabbing it into the woman’s left eye, instead, and watching it go into her brain. Of going to find Baelish, again, and asking the man to help her cover up yet another thing, because if Margaery ever found out…

If Margaery found out, and the septa really was by her side because she was hoping to find some sort of absolution with the other woman, where she should have known that Sansa would gladly listen to anything she needed to say, Sansa knew that Margaery would be furious with her, for it.

Because, for whatever reason, Margaery had chosen to take the septa under her wing, rather than killing her, and Sansa knew she wouldn’t like it if Sansa acted against her, now, even if she was trying to protect her.

She swallowed hard, and wished she had the old Margaery back, the one who wouldn’t blink twice about this sort of thing, even if, back then, Sansa would have.

“Let me make something very clear,” Sansa said, advancing on the other woman, enjoying the small amount of surprise that flashed across her face. “There are quite a few at court who don’t like you.”

The septa raised an eyebrow. “Are you…”

Sansa interrupted her, “They don’t like what you represent anymore than I do, because they all know who you used to serve. They don’t want you in King’s Landing, and they don’t want you near the Queen, vulnerable as she is after the death of her beloved husband. Hells, they wouldn’t even mind if you…fell out a window, during the night. And the Regent might feel bad about it for a time, but I’m sure she’d move on.”

The last words came out close to a growl. 

Septa Unella didn’t even flinch. “I am not so sure that she would believe such an act to be an accident, my lady,” she said. “Her heart…it is broken, these days. She would not be able to accept such a thing.”

Damn her, Sansa knew her heart was broken. She didn’t need this woman to tell her that.

And this woman had no right to be manipulating Margaery’s heart, either.

She lifted her chin.

“But Cersei Lannister is coming to King’s Landing, soon. And she will like you even less than all of them,” Sansa continued, coldly. “I don’t care what sort of deal you think you might be able to make with her, but your master was the reason she was ultimately banished from King’s Landing, and that is not something she will forget. The moment she sees you here, one of those damned fanatics, standing next to the Regent, she will start plotting a horrible demise for you. Because she might not give a damn about Margaery, but she will hate the sight of the Sparrows manipulating Joffrey’s wife, winning, after all she went through because of them. After the Sparrows murdered her son.”

A small spike of fear crossed the septa’s features, then, and Sansa’s lips curved up into a smile.

“It might just be the one thing that she and I would agree on,” Sansa continued, mercilessly, because she wanted to see more of that fear, after the septa had just instilled so much of it in her.

The septa lifted her chin, however. “I am a servant of the Faith, Lady Sansa,” she informed her. “I do not fear mortal peril.”

Sansa forced a smile that she didn’t feel at all, at the moment. “Cersei isn’t any mortal,” she said, coldly, because a part of her thought it was true. “She’s a cockroach, something loved by the Stranger himself. Somehow, despite everything that’s ever happened to her, every enemy she’s ever faced, she’s always found a way to crawl out on top again.”

It was the one consistent thing that Sansa knew about the other woman, after all.

“So if I were you, I would fear her. She has a way of getting what she wants, whenever she wants it.”

The septa swallowed. “You seem to have no guilt, for the sins you have committed,” the septa said, finally, clearly trying to find back some of the ground Sansa had stolen from her. “The Regent feels remorse, but you don’t.”

Sansa swallowed hard, biting back a flinch because she didn’t want to give the other woman the satisfaction of seeing her do so.

Oh, she didn’t understand Sansa, at all, Sansa thought, and felt a thrill at the thought.

She may be able to hold something horrible over her, might be able to prey on Margaery’s guilt, but she didn’t understand Sansa at all, and that was good.

Sansa had lived with guilt for half of her life. She had become quite accustomed to simply…hiding it, the way that she hid her emotions in order to survive, with Joffrey, with Cersei.

She had carried guilt with her for what had happened to Lady, for what had happened to her father, for what had happened to Oberyn, for what had happened to her mother and brother, because she had spent so long, not even bothering to fight back against the people who had killed them.

She knew what guilt was; at this point, it was something like a second friend, to Sansa.

But none of those things were the sins that this septa seemed to think that Sansa ought to feel guilty for.

This septa was playing a game for the first time that Sansa had been playing for many years, against better players than she.

That meant that Sansa could still win this.

“Again, that’s Cersei, actually,” Sansa told her, calmly. “In fact, with all of the horrible things she’s ever done, things that would put…anything you had against Margaery to shame, I don’t think she’s ever felt remorse for them.”

It was the truth, after all, Sansa thought, even as the septa’s eyes sparked, with those words.

“So…I wish you good fortune, with that,” Sansa said, smirking. “I have a feeling you might need it, if you’re truly so determined to remain by Margaery’s side for so long.”

She turned, and walked out of the room, biting back a smile.

There, she thought. She still felt terribly unsettled by this whole thing, but at least she had placed the septa…on the right path, as it were.

She and Cersei rather deserved each other, Sansa thought. Assuming they ever did meet.

Because hopefully, she would have dealt with the septa, by then.

She would give her this one chance to bow out gracefully, now, though.

Because she wasn’t Cersei.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and pretended that she didn’t see, as she always did these days, the sight of the knife that Margaery had once given her twisting between Ser Meryn Trant’s ribs.

* * *

“If you’re here to tell me that you think I made a mistake, with my…announcement to the smallfolk, then you needn’t bother,” Margaery snapped, as Sansa opened the door behind her, to her parlor. “I’ve already gotten quite an earful from everyone from my father to the servants.”

Sansa grimaced. “I’m not,” she said, very softly, and slowly, Margaery turned around to face her, one hand on her protruding stomach and the other pressed against her temple.

Margaery sagged a little, at the sight of her, sinking down onto the sofa. She seemed to realize that Sansa was not there for a fight, which was a rather refreshing realization, Sansa couldn't help but think, these days.

Sometimes, lately, it felt like all they did was argue, skirt around the issues, fight.

She took a careful breath, let it out slowly. She wasn’t here to fight, after all. “Can I sit down?” she asked, and reflected that there was once a time when she would not have felt the need to ask.

Margaery grunted, gesturing over to the sofa across from her. “I warn you,” she said, sounding very tired, “that this child keeps kicking on my bladder, and I’m already in an irritable mood.”

Sansa smiled, despite the words. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised, because even when Margaery was irritable, there was something about her, sitting here complaining about the child, that was almost sweet.

Almost made Sansa forget the shitshow outside of these doors.

She took a seat at the same time that Margaery did, stretching herself out over the whole of the sofa across from Sansa, and Sansa couldn’t help but grin a little, at the unkempt look. Margaery had once always strove to be so prim and proper, after all. 

“What is it?” Margaery asked, sounding slightly happy to see her, Sansa hoped, but also annoyed. Sansa glanced down at her ankles, where they were sitting up on the table. 

“I…”

She didn’t know, honestly.

It wasn’t as if she could tell Margaery that she had spoken with the septa, because a terrified part of her wondered if the Regent wouldn’t then start to confide...other things in the septa, things that could get all of them killed, if she thought the septa had kept that secret for long enough.

And Sansa could not have that hanging over their heads, as well. 

She knew also that if she otld Margaery she was considering getting rid of the septa, permanently, Margaery would hardly approve of the idea, might even try to talk her out of it, which was exactly why Sansa knew that she couldn’t bring it up. Keeping it from Margaery might hurt them both in the long run, but it was also better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

That was what they had done when they had killed Joffrey, wasn’t it?

A part of her wanted to lean forward and offer to rub Margaery’s ankles, if she thought it might make the other girl feel better, but they were passed that sort of casual intimacy, these days. Sansa didn’t even know if her touch would be welcome, even if Margaery did feel sore.

But she had still come here, after talking to the septa, because, in many ways, Margaery was still one of the few people in King’s Landing that Sansa still trusted.

And because she wanted to know if what the septa had told her about the sept and why Margaery had goaded her husband into slaughtering them, if indeed that was what Margaery had done, was the truth. Even if it was a painful memory for Margaery, something that she seemed to bring up, these days, even less than she did her husband’s death, Sansa had to know.

She had to know, before she got rid of the septa for good.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that…that was why you…” Sansa licked her lips, suddenly struggling to find words. She leaned forward on the sofa, pressing her elbows into her knees. “I had no idea. About the Slaughter of the Sept. About why…” she swallowed hard, seeing the way that Margaery’s face twisted, in response. “You wanted...You wanted to spare me from being arrested, as well.”

Margaery looked away suddenly, hugging herself, and Sansa wanted nothing more than to walk around the table and wrap her arms around the other girl, but she forced herself not to, because she had no idea how Margaery would react to that, these days.

“I…” Margaery licked her lips. “I didn’t want you to ever find out,” she admitted, and Sansa blinked at her in confusion.

“What?” Sansa asked, cocking her head at her.

Margaery swallowed thickly. “It’s not exactly a memory that I’m fond of,” she admitted, softly, and Sansa felt her stomach sink.

Of course it wasn’t. 

Because hundreds of people had died in the Sept that day; the smallfolk were still furious about it, for all that they seemed a bit more accepting of Margaery with her newest idea to ban the most vile of executions, and Margaery had known it would happen before it did, when she decided to save Sansa from a similar fate.

But she hadn’t done it, Sansa wanted to remind her. It wasn’t her fault that Joffrey had given that order, that she knew what Joffrey’s anger was like; she was not the cause of it, after all. She had only known what might happen, as Sansa had known what might happen when she had testified against Oberyn Martell.

She licked her lips, not liking that comparison.

“How did you find out?” Margaery asked finally, rubbing absently at her stomach, looking pained, but Sansa had a feeling that she might bite her head off if Sansa asked what was wrong.

Sansa grimaced. She thought, for a moment, about lying and saying that Megga had been the one to tell her, but she didn’t like the thought of lying to Margaery, after all that they had been through together, and she didn’t know if Megga even knew, either.

“The septa,” she said, darkly. “She told me that you were about to confess, when instead the High Sparrow mentioned my sins, as well.”

Margaery flinched, hugging herself a little tighter.

“I understand why you did it,” Sansa said, softly. “I’m...grateful that you did it. But Margaery, just the fact that you gave in to a bunch of crazed fanatics does not make you responsible for the deaths of all of those people. That was very much Joffrey. I don’t know what the septa has told you, but you didn’t kill those people. You know how he was. You know what he was. He would have…” she licked her lips. “He probably would have done it either way, especially if you had confessed to something.”

And being responsible for the deaths of all of those people herself...that was not a burden that Sansa thought she could bear, either way.

She understood why Margaery might blame herself for it, but in the end, it had been Joffrey who had given the order, the High Sparrow who had instigated it, for, after living years under Joffrey’s reign, how could he have expected anything else of a response, from the things that he had done?

Margaery grunted. “Is that true?’ she whispered, and Sansa blinked at her. Margaery shrugged thin shoulders. “I did it because I knew how he would react. I saved you the only way that I was sure would work, because I knew that the moment Joffrey was there, feeling threatened, he’d do what he did. And I didn’t even…” she swallowed. “I didn’t feel a damn thing, when it happened. Except that I knew you would be safe, the way you would have been if I’d just…” she gritted her teeth. “Gone to Highgarden instead of going back to King’s Landing.”

Sansa went very still. “I...I chose to come back here,” she whispered, because she wanted...no, needed Margaery to understand that.

The moment she’d learned that Margaery was back in King’s Landing, even as a prisoner of the fanatics, Sansa had come running back here, barely having to be convinced by Olenna.

And perhaps that said something about Sansa, that the moment she’d finally gotten away from this horrible place, she’d returned, but that wasn’t Margaery’s fault. 

Even if Margaery clearly still blamed herself for it.

“And if I hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have,” Margaery said, very softly.

Sansa scoffed, seeing the rather circular logic of her argument. “And if you hadn’t offered the things you did to the Martells?” she asked, secretly pleased they were able to have an argument like this at all, these days.

Barely a month ago, she didn’t think that Margaery would have been capable of it.

“Do you really think they would have let you go without knowing that it might benefit them, somehow?”

Margaery licked her lips. “I…” she shook her head, which was as much of an admittance as Sansa thought she was going to get from the other woman. Then, “You weren’t there, Sansa. You didn’t see ...gods, all of those people, dying, because of what I wanted.”

_ Because of you _ , seemed to hang in the air, though it didn’t hang on Margaery’s lips, and Sansa didn’t think the other girl would say it. 

It was true though, Sansa thought. Margaery had done what she did because she had been protecting Sansa, not herself. After all, if hse had wanted to save herself, she could have sold out her husband at anytime before that, and she hadn’t.

She’d only reacted when she thought that there was some threat to Sansa. 

And perhaps she didn’t even realize that, in the days after the slaughter, but she seemed very much to understand it now, with the way she had been steadily avoiding Sanssa, these days. Sansa shuddered, and wondered if the other girl had even realized she was doing it. 

Wondered if the brunt of the guilt had only cropped up after she had killed her husband, if that was why Margaery had seemed so...fine, in the days after the slaughter, only to be crippled by it now.

Sansa did move forward, then, moving around the table to kneel in front of Margaery, whose feet fell from the table. She blinked down at Sansa, looking very confused.

Sansa swallowed hard, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her knee. “Thank you,” she whispered, and Margaery stared at her, startled. “For doing it.”

Margaery licked suddenly very dry lips. She looked exhausted; Sansa saw the large, dark circles under her eyes, sitting this close to her, and wondered if she hadn’t been sleeping any better since she had taken over her husband’s chambers, as well. 

It had to mean something, Sansa told herself. The fact that Margaery had given so much of herself, of her sanity, to keep Sansa safe, first from the High Sparrow, and then from Joffrey, when his interest had turned once again towards her. 

All of those people...Joffrey had very much been responsible for their deaths, Sansa truly believed that, but she thought it might weigh a little less on Margaery’s conscience if she thanked her, all the same

And Sansa had seen, of late, the consequences of anything weighing on Margaery’s conscience, after all. 

And then, Margaery surprised her, by, ever so hesitantly reaching out to touch Sansa’s hands, where they hung uselessly in the air above the table, squeezing one of them gently in thanks, a dismissal of this conversation, Sansa thought.

“Will you…will you stay with me, while I sleep?” Margaery asked, and there was something terribly vulnerable, in her tone, that made Sansa want to instantly agree.

“I...Of course,” she said, and refrained from mentioning how that was all she had wanted for a very long time, now.

Margaery stood then, rather slowly, and Sansa allowed the other woman to lead her back to the bedroom, to lay her down on the bed and then slowly follow her, being careful not to touch her, at first.

It was hardly evening, Sansa thought idly, but didn’t dare to pull away, where they lay together on the bed, not at first, and not later, in the night when she was sure that Margaery had fallen asleep, because suddenly the other woman was clinging to her like a limpet, where she had hardly dared to touch her, before.

Margaery held her like she thought that this would be the last time she would be able to do so.

And Sansa stayed awake all night long, the septa’s ominous threats echoing through her ears as she watched the steady rise and fall of Margaery’s chest, stared at her protruding stomach, saw that she was sleeping fine for what was perhaps the first time since Joffrey’s death.

* * *

“The people like the septa,” Megga said, and Sansa resisted the urge to ask her where she was getting her information, as they sat in Sansa’s chambers, about the only ones she trusted to make her plots in, these days, with Baelish’s ears everywhere. Megga was drinking tea; rather, she was spinning her spoon around in the teacup that Rosamund had offered her earlier, before the two of them had sent the other girl away. 

Sansa wasn’t fool enough to trust her with everything, after all. 

Megga pressed her lips together when Sansa didn’t respond. The truth was, Sansa felt rather exhausted; she had been up half of the night, with Margaery, and clarity still had not come to her.

She had hoped that Megga would bring her better news, as well.

“They like that she is at Margaery’s side, now, guiding her as some sort of counselor. They think it means that the Crown is headed in the right direction.”

Sansa understood what Megga wasn’t saying; and right now, they needed the support of the smallfolk wherever they could find it. They all knew what happened when they lost it, after all. 

But Sansa could not abide the thought of Septa Unella remaining at Margaery’s side for the rest of her reign, learning her secrets, figuring out how to use them against her, how to turn her even more into this shell of a person she had become with Joffrey’s death, this guilt-ridden woman she was becoming.

This wasn’t the Margaery that Sansa had fallen in love with, and she’d be damned if she lost any more of her because a religious fanatic thought to manipulate her further.

Sansa hummed. “Then find something that will make them dislike her,” she told Megga, because she was running out of options, at the moment.

Megga grimaced. “I...Hate to say it, but I’m not sure that the smallfolk, as they are currently, will believe anything that we bring against the septa.”

Sansa snorted. “Funny; they seemed happy enough to believe anything that the High Sparrow accused Margaery of, for all that they once claimed to love her, without any shred of evidence.”

Cersei was wrong about a great many things, Sansa thought, but the irritation that she felt with the smallfolk at all times seemed entirely justified, these days.

Megga met her eyes. “You may just...have to accept that they won’t believe anything you bring against the septa, Sansa, if you’re...that serious about being rid of her,” she whispered, and she still sounded horrified by the suggestion.

Sansa reached up, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Megga was, of course, a wonderful partner in crime most days, because Sansa didn’t have much options in those, save for, perhaps, Baelish, though she could hardly count him a friend these days, if Rosamund was to be believed, but she was always squeamish about these things.

And Sansa supposed that any other time, that would be a good thing. Hells, if it had been just a few months ago, she would have considered that a good thing.

Now, though, she wasn’t certain that it was. Now, it felt like she had wasted far too many years of her life fearing that she would become something Other, when killing Ser Meryn Trant had barely affected her.

She hoped.

Sansa licked her lips. “I know,” she said, softly, because that was something she’d given thought to, as well.

But it was worth the risk, she had to believe that. The septa may be becoming a symbol to the smallfolk that the Crown had changed, that their Queen had changed, may represent the restoration of trust between the people and the Crown, but Sansa was not willing to make that sacrifice if it meant that Margaery would end up trusting the woman, as well.

Because no matter what the septa said to try to convince her that she truly cared about Margaery’s repentance, or whatever it was she truly wanted from the other woman, Sansa couldn’t bring herself to believe her. Couldn’t bring herself to believe that she would stop at just that, after the way that the High Sparrow had been so stubborn about getting the Queen to confess to all of the people. 

No, the septa would not have approached Margaery, would not have insinuated herself into Margaery’s life so quickly and so seamlessly, if she weren’t playing some longer game. The conversation they’d had had all but confirmed it, even if it had just left Sansa with more questions.

“Do you know anything about her past?” Sansa asked. “Anything we can use against her?”

Megga grimaced. “Nothing that will stick,” she admitted, after several moments. “She was the second born daughter of some lower noble, who had her sent away to become a septa because he didn’t think she would find a suitable match, most likely. Or one that would advance their House.”

“What House?” Sansa asked, suspiciously.

Megga shrugged. “Not one worth knowing,” she admitted, then, “They’re all dead now, anyway. Her sister died of some sweating sickness, as a teenager. The septa refused to return home when her family asked her to, and they did not survive to the next harvest.”

“She refused to go home,” Sansa echoed in disbelief. She could not imagine doing the same, if her own family had begged such a thing of her, if she had the opportunity to do so.

And then she thought of what a stupid little girl she had been, in believing that she would one day become Joffrey’s beoved queen, and wondered if perhaps the septa had fallen in love with the Faith in the same way.

She supposed it might explain the other woman’s fanatical devotion to it.

Megga shrugged. “Perhaps they were cruel to her,” she said, and something shifted, behind her eyes. “It can’t have been easy, to know that her parents didn’t think her pretty enough or intelligent enough to find a husband.”

Sansa had a feeling Megga was off the mark, about that. Septa Unella didn’t strike her as the sort of woman who cared overmuch what anyone thought of her, even her parents, and who certainly didn’t care about things as superficial as beauty and marriage.

“Well, see if you can find anything else out,” Sansa instructed her. “Anything that I can use against her would be helpful. Preferably soon.”

Cersei was due to arrive in King’s Landing soon enough, after all, and the funeral was hardly a place for this showdown to happen. Not with Cersei’s suspicious eyes watching.

No, whatever was going to happen with the funeral, it would need to be before the funeral. 

Megga nodded her head, and then looked like she was going to ask something else, before she hesitated. Sansa bit back a sigh.

“Do you…” Megga swallowed, looking suddenly nervous, and Sansa had a horrible feeling she knew what Megga’s next words would be about. “I don’t suppose you know how long it will be until Lady Nym returns?” she asked, and despite herself, Sansa found herself relaxing, just a bit.

She had been worried that the other girl would bring up Rosamund, someone whom Sansa very much didn’t want to find herself talking about.

Not when she still didn’t know how she felt about the other girl. 

She licked her lips. “I sent Lady Nym on an...important mission,” she reminded the other girl, wondering if Lady Nym had mentioned it to her before she had left, testing her. She hoped she hadn’t; after all, Sansa had warned her not to tell a soul about it. 

Megga lifted her chin. “I know,” she said. “And I’m wondering when she’ll be back.”

Sansa sighed. “She’s…” she chose her next words carefully, because she had learned her lesson, with Baelish, about entrusting everything to just one person, when that person’s motives were not entirely clear to her.

She sighed, feeling a headache coming on.

The problem was, she still trusted Baelish. Still needed him, and she knew that Megga was not like Baelish, but dear gods, the things that Rosamund had told her…

“The truth is,” Sansa said, softly, “It will be some time before Lady Nym comes back. Her mission is rather...sensitive in nature, and requires a certain level of finesse.”

Megga pursed her lips. “And I suppose that’s all you’re going to tell me,” she said softly, sounding annoyed, and Sansa thought she knew how the other girl felt.

If they had been talking about Margaery just now, after all, even if she didn’t quite understand the depth of Megga’s feelings for Nym, nor the other girl’s for her, she wouldn’t have been satisfied with that answer, either.

She lifted her chin. “I’m afraid so,” she said, before taking a careful sip of her tea. 

Megga sighed, getting to her feet abruptly, still carrying the teacup. Sansa squinted at her.

“I’m not going to help you plot the septa’s murder, Sansa,” she said. “I...I witnessed some...horrible and strange things, during my time as a silent sister, but I won’t be party to that. There are some things I don’t think that I…” she cut off abruptly, swallowing hard.

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek, wanting to ask if this was because of Sansa’s refusal to tell her where Lady Nym was and when she would be back, or if her sudden squeamishness was actually genuine. She bit back a sigh, understanding that if she made an enemy of Megga...well, she would have few friends left in King’s Landing, then, and Sansa very much didn’t want to make an enemy of her, in any case.

She sighed. “I understand,” she said, even as her heart sank a little, for she had a feeling that she would not be able to bring down the one woman holding half of King’s landing off from riots by herself. And that would mean turning to someone who could.

Megga walked out, then, and out of the corner of her eye, through the doorway, Sansa saw a flash of blonde hair that was far too recognizable, these days, with so few Lannisters left in King’s Landing, anyway.

Somehow, Megga seemed to miss the young man, but Sansa did not, slamming down her teacup with rather more force than necessary as she marched out of her chambers and confronted the man standing in the shadows. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sansa demanded as she slammed him against the wall with rather more force than necessary, because this...this was the last thing that Sansa needed right now, to have to deal with the man who had fathered Margaery’s child on top of this septa, who could so easily find out that truth if he was nearby…

He licked his lips, looking surprised by her force. Sansa couldn’t bring herself to care.

He represented everything she was trying to hide, in this moment, and it was infuriating to see him pop up like this, out of nowhere. She was dealing with enough surprises as it was, these days.

“I seek an audience with the Queen,” he said, and Sansa scoffed.

“And what makes you think she’ll grant you one?” she asked, nastily. “You have some...understanding with her, I suppose?”

For a moment, Olyvar went pale, but then he lifted his chin, stubbornly. 

“The Regent promised me that Garlan Tyrell’s squire was soon to return to Highgarden, and that she could give me that position,” Olyvar said, and there was no joy in his eyes at this ambition, as Sansa had thought there would be. Instead, he looked almost...afraid. “I came to get an answer to that promise.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow, even as her heart skipped a beat at the thought of the boy who had fathered Margaery’s child actually living in the Keep, so close, and getting a position he had no reason to expect, as well. She thought of what Rosamund had told her, of what she had learned in Baelish’s brothel. 

She pushed him away from her.

“She’s not that stupid, Olyvar. And neither am I.”

Olyvar lifted his chin. “She promised me,” he repeated, stubbornly. He sounded, strangely, like a desperate child, and for a moment, Sansa felt a stab of pity for him.

“Yes, well, I’m promising you that’s not going to happen,” Sansa gritted out, pulling back from him. “Not while I’m here. Not ever.”

And she meant it. She didn’t know what Margaery had been thinking, if she really had promised him such a thing. She knew that Margaery had something of a weak spot for him, and she didn’t know if it was because of the relationship he’d apparently had with her brother, or because he was the father of her child, but all she did know was that it was certainly a dangerous thing.

And that the very idea of Olyvar being here, being so close to the child that he had fathered, endangering all of them...it scared the shit out of her.

Olyvar brushed himself off. “You have to help me,” he said, and Sansa stared at him.

“I don’t have to do anything,” she said, coolly. “I don’t owe you anything, and neither does the Regent.”

“Baelish knows,” he said, and Sansa stilled, because...because there was no way to know if this was a trick or not, after what Rosamund had overheard at the brothel, and if it was, she needed to look surprised, after all. Olyvar jumped on her silence. “He knows about us. He knows...I don’t know how, I swear by the gods that I didn’t tell him, but somehow, he knows the truth about…”

Sansa slammed her hand over his mouth. “If you gave anything away, I swear by the old gods and the new that I will see you pay for it,” she hissed out, but Olyvar only looked pained.

“I know you think I can’t be trusted,” he whispered hoarsely, hugging himself, now. “And you probably have good reason not to. But that is my child, too.”

Sansa stared into his eyes for a long moment, saw the fear there that she’d seen reflected in her own eyes so many times before, and then deflated, pulling her hand back. 

She thought that Margaery was a fool, for keeping him alive as long as she was, for relying on him so much when he was such an obvious liability, when she knew that he had hardly been good for her brother, as well. 

But the fact remained that Margaery very much seemed to want him to live. 

“I can’t stay there any longer,” Olyvar went on. “Baelish, he…” his eyes were very wide, and soft, as they glanced up to meet hers, again. “Please. He knows what I did, and I...I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me. He wants to use me, I think, to bring her down. You have to know that. That that’s a possibility. You know he would do that. And I can’t...At first,” he swallowed hard, “It didn’t mean much to me, but that’s still my child. I can’t...I can’t stand by and watch Baelish destroy him.”

Sansa closed her eyes. She knew what Rosamund had overheard, after all, knew that it made sense, because of course Baelish didn’t want Margaery sitting on the Iron Throne forever, even if he had helped put her there. 

She knew what he wanted, after all.

And, despite herself, she couldn’t help but feel pity for Olyvar, as he invoked his son, or, at the very least, what they all hoped would become a son. 

She supposed a part of her understood what it was about this boy that caused Margaery to act so stupidly. 

She licked her lips, taking in a deep breath, centering herself as she tried to decide what to do, what she could do that would leave her not feeling terrible guilt.

She swallowed, pulling back even further from him. “If you do anything to endanger Margaery or the child, and I do mean anything, I will have your cock cut off and fed to the palace dogs,” she told him, harshly. “And I’ll make sure you live to see it,” she continued, even as she saw the relief in his eyes. “Do you understand?”

He hesitated for only a moment, before nodding shakily. “Thank you,” he whispered, softly. “You have no idea…”

“And if you ever refer to that child as yours again,” Sansa continued mercilessly, or what she hoped he would see as such, “I’ll do the same. You may work here for the rest of your life, and you will never see him that way. He will never know who you are. I doubt he will even learn your name. You have to stop thinking about him that way, or Baelish will know he can use it against you. Against all of us. Margaery’s child belongs to the Iron Throne, and the throne alone.”

She thought Olyvar began to understand that a little better, as he met her eyes, and Sansa breathed a sigh of relief.

Yes, he did understand.

Jaime Lannister had done it, had spent years around his sister’s children, pretending that they were Robert Baratheon’s, that he had no further attachment to them than that of an uncle. Years, and Sansa hoped she could do the same with that child in Margaery’s belly, if she and Margaery ever did rekindle their relationship.

Could keep up the pretense, because children were terribly perceptive creatures, and she didn’t intend to lose her head because either one of them had slipped up around this child.

She and Olyvar had both, somehow, come to want that child as it grew in Margaery’s belly, both done something incredibly foolish in beginning to see it as theirs, and not Joffrey’s, and neither would ever have him, regardless of what she had once told Margaery.

But she could do this one thing for the father of Margaery’s child, if nothing else. 

“Garlan does not share his brother's inclinations,” Sansa informed him, tartly. “You won’t be able to manipulate him the way you did Loras, if this is some sort of trick.”

Olyvar flinched. “It isn’t,” he said, hoarsely. “And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t...I wasn’t manipulating him, for some of it.”

“But not all of it,” Sansa noted, and Olyvar grimaced again.

“I’m not here for Baelish, this time,” he whispered, voice so soft she had to lean forward to hear him. “When Margaery first approached me about...all of this,” Sansa glanced nervously over her shoulder, “She asked me if I wanted to find myself working for him for the rest of my days, however short they ended up being. I don’t want that. And I don’t want a man who sees my child,” he grimaced, no doubt remembering her warning, “as expendable, after everything I’ve sacrificed for him, having that sort of power over my life.”

Sansa thought, for once, that they finally understood each other when he sent her a tremulous smile, at the end of those words.

And perhaps she was making a mistake, in agreeing to this when just moments ago she had been strongly opposed to it, but Sansa couldn’t help but think that at least she was doing so with a clear conscience.

And that was something in short supply for her, these days.

* * *

“Anyone know what this is about?” Elinor asked, as she walked up beside where Sansa and Megga were standing in the crowd before the Iron Throne, and Sansa tried not to react to the other woman’s presence.

She wasn’t a child, after all, and she had dealt with far worse people than Elinor.

Megga pressed her lips together in something like disapproval. “Haven’t got a clue,” she admitted, and Elinor bit back a sigh.

Margaery was standing before the Iron Throne; the other woman hadn’t sat in it for several days, now, and Sansa was beginning to wonder why. It wasn’t the done thing, for a Regent to so obviously take the throne, but Margaery had quite soundly proven lately that she cared very little about that. 

Instead, just now, she stood just before the Iron Throne, one hand carefully resting on her pregnant belly, the septa at her side, as she always seemed to be, these days.

She had gathered half of the ladies of the court before her, this morning, and many of the men had come along as well, including several members of her Small Council, and Sansa had a feeling they were there to see what other foolish decisions their Regent decided to announce in their absence.

Sansa nervously met Baelish’s eyes, where he stood near the back of the room, slinking around in the shadows as he always was.

She wondered if he had realized that Olyvar was gone, yet. Wondered what his countermove would be, to the knowledge that Margaery, for he would assume it was her, of that Sansa was certain, had stolen one of his best whores.

“In the days leading up to the Queen Mother’s arrival in King’s Landing, and to my husband’s, may he rest in peace, funeral, I invite you all to gather in prayer with me,” Margaery said, folding her hands together before her, almost in supplication. Sansa grimaced. “Prayer for the people of the Seven Kingdoms, prayer for my son, when he is born, and prayer for your king, now that he has departed the land of the living.” She glanced over at the septa by her side, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Septa Unella has kindly offered to lead us in that prayer, today, but I ask that all of you make some time out of your day for it in the coming days. The gods know that there has been little enough prayer in this place, in recent years.”

Elinor sucked in a breath. 

The septa stepped forward then, standing abreast with Margaery, and Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, half in the hope that this was nothing but her imagination. 

“Gods, she looks so pleased with herself,” Sansa muttered bitterly, as she watched the septa, where she stood beside Margaery.

Margaery, who could not even stand the sight of a septa, in the days after her imprisonment by the Faith. Who could not stand to be touched, after what Joffrey had done to her, and now here she was, standing so close to the septa that they were nearly touching, and smiling about their prayers.

The nobles all seemed…confused, at the very least, to be led in prayer by their Regent and her pet septa, for they had never known her to be more than a somewhat religious woman, in the past.

Especially when she was married to the King.

But here she was, demanding that they all attend to prayers with her, if they could not all go to the Sept together, for the people seemed to hate the nobles as much as they did Margaery.

“Well, she has moved up quite a bit in the world,” Elinor whispered, at her side.

“Yes,” Sansa muttered. “From one figurehead to another.”

Both of whom had all but returned from the dead, too, which was rather odd, as well…

Sansa swallowed hard as the septa began to pray, her words low and somehow echoing throughout the room, and Sansa looked out at the crowd and saw the way that each and every noble, save perhaps the youngest amongst them, seemed to check out from the moment she began.

They were going to lose them, Sansa realized. It didn’t matter how the smallfolk seemed to feel about the septa standing at Margaery’s side, not if the nobles totally lost faith in their Regent, when Cersei represented just as incompetent an alternative, at the moment.

“She’s always going to be a threat,” Sansa whispered, hoarsely, into the silence, and Megga, at her side, grimaced.

“Sansa…” she began, carefully, as Elinor glanced over at the two of them, eyes widening as she clearly came to a conclusion about what Sansa meant. 

Sansa lifted her chin, ignoring the other girl. “Look at them,” she whispered. “We need their armies when Cersei inevitably declares war on us, and they’ve lost their faith just as Margaery is finding it.”

And they needed those armies, desperately just now, with Cersei championing her son’s cause. Needed them not to think that Cersei and her son were a safer, saner, alternative. Not now. Needed the nobles to think that they had a capable, competent leader in Margaery, with her family seemingly split apart at the seams, with Olenna back in Highgarden, a clear signal that something was wrong to anyone who knew the Tyrells well. 

It was true that the majority of the people in the throne room were only women, and not in charge of those armies, but Sansa had witnessed firsthand, in the last few years, what a woman was capable of when she whispered into the heart of a man, and there were plenty enough of those around to get the word out, just now.

It was not just that this woman was a threat to Sansa and Margaery, a threat that could expose their relationship to the world. She knew too much, yes, but she also represented havoc in the Keep, lack of ability to the nobles, whose armies they needed more than the goodwill of the smallfolk, much as it might appease Margaery to receive it.

For a moment, Sansa found herself wondering if she shouldn’t think to turn to Garlan, first, after he had taken control of the soldiers in King’s Landing, as her mind inevitably turned to the one person who could help her fix this situation, with both Elinor and Megga looking at her in such horror. And Elinor had little right to do so, Sansa thought bitterly, after she had been responsible for that boy’s death after she adhered to Olenna’s plan.

No, they would not help her, but she knew someone who would, someone who would not balk at what needed to be done, even if a part of Sansa felt guilty for thinking it.

And, even then, she found herself wondering if her guilt came from the thought of killing a woman, even one who was a threat to her, or doing so behind Margaery’s back, after Margaery had shown her how much the septa seemed to mean to her.

It seemed like the worst things always happened, when she and Margaery kept secrets from one another.

And then Sansa’s eyes sought out Baelish’s, where he stood in the crowd, watching Sansa with some annoyance, she realized, because she had been watching Margaery.

For a man no one ever seemed to understand, he was hardly subtle in his jealousy, Sansa thought, with the way he was watching her. She found herself wondering how he had remained in King’s Landing as a wolf in...well, perhaps that was the wrong metaphor.

When the prayer was done, Sansa had hardly realized it was happening at all, but the nobles all seemed quick to flee. Sansa wondered if it was out of fear that Margaery would try to keep them there in prayer longer, or to run off and gossip about how their once dismissive Queen had turned to religion so quickly. 

“It’s strange,” Lord Mace said, suddenly at her side, Elinor and Megga having disappeared with the crowd, and Sansa turned to him as he let out a small sigh. “She was never this religious before his death. It…It’s unsettling.”

He seemed to be saying it to the air, rather than to her; still, Sansa knew what he meant, even if it felt strange to commiserate with Mace Tyrell about anything.

The man had hardly made a dent in his daughter’s politics, since his arrival in King’s Landing, for all that Sansa had once feared that he would be a plant for Olenna, telling her of everything and anything that happened here in her absence.

Of course, she had that in Elinor, now, and hardly needed her son, but Sansa had thought that, for all Mace Tyrell’s ambitions, he would have stepped up a little taller since the King’s death. She was rather surprised that he hadn’t, that he seemed terribly forgettable, in recent months.

And she wondered if she wasn’t missing something, there, when Mace Tyrell’s ambition had done everything from getting Renly Baratheon killed by his own brother to sticking Margaery with a madman for a husband.

She dipped into a curtsey, quickly dismissing herself from the other man before he tried to draw her into conversation, standing on her tiptoes a moment later in an attempt to seek out Baelish in the crowd, where he seemed to have vanished.

Instead, she found herself facing yet another member of the Small Council, though this one was that even more in name than Mace Tyrell was, these days.

“My lady,” Trystane said, as he stepped closer to her. “I was wondering if I might have a word with you?”

Sansa reached up, pinching the bridge of her nose. The last thing that she wanted to do right now was to have a word with the Prince of Dorne, and be reminded that he was here in King’s Landing at all, when she had far more pressing concerns, and was actively planning an assasination. 

Her second one. 

But Trystane was here, standing in front of her and looking rather pitiful, she thought, which was a far cry from the last time she had paid much attention to him, as he railed against Joffrey and then was foolish enough to challenge him to a duel, as if Joffrey would ever accept.

She wondered if that was because he had found his place here, as she had once been forced to do.

As Margaery’s…hostage, she supposed.

Because it was just another reminder of the headache she was trying to put off, of an entire kingdom full of people whom Margaery had, apparently, promised a war to, and, if Lady Nym was to be believed, even more than that.

“What is it, Your Highness?” She asked him, biting back a sigh.

Trystane gave her a little bow, and Sansa raised an eyebrow, wondering if he had been astute enough to recognize what many other lords in King’s Landing seemed not to have, since she had taken control of the throne, behind the scenes.

It was an unsettling thought, when Trystane was nearer in her age to theirs.

She forced herself to focus a little more of her attention on him. “What is it?” she repeated, forcing her voice to sound a little more understanding.

Trystane grimaced. “It’s a...personal matter,” he explained, slowly, as he reached out to guide her to the corner of the room, where they might be less likely to be overheard, and Sansa found her annoyance growing, as she did not see Baelish once again even there, and Trystane’s hand remained on her elbow until she shook it off.

“Are your rooms unsatisfactory?” she asked, feeling a spike of guilt as she remembered the way he had been looked on with suspicion after the King’s death, because it was not as if they could admit who the collaborators had been, in that case.

She’d made sure he’d been moved, after he emerged from the Black Cells, to far more comfortable rooms than he’d originally received, and given servants who were also meant to monitor his activities, though she knew from firsthand experience that a gilded cage was still a cage.

He shook his head.

“My sister has…in her wisdom, and without explanation, suddenly decided that Myrcella and I can no longer communicate,” he said, clearing his throat a little. “I know that you and Myrcella were once…something like friends, here. I was hoping that perhaps you might intercede on our behalf. She is still my wife, after all.”

Sansa cleared her throat. “And what would make you think that I might have that sort of influence over your sister?” She asked. “I would think you would have better luck, there.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t think I have any luck with my sister, these days,” he muttered, sounding rather resentful.

Sansa raised an eyebrow. “You say she won’t let you write letters, at all?” She asked. “I thought she had agreed that you and Myrcella could write one another so long as your letters were…”

“Read?” Trystane finished, wryly, and Sansa grimaced. “Yes, that was the deal she made with the Regent. And now, I’m not allowed to write to my own wife, or hear that she’s all right.”

Sansa swallowed, feeling something like pity welling up within her, and at the most inconvenient of times.

She had only been allowed to write her own family once, and that only with a dozen members of the Small Council reading over her shoulder, while she had been a prisoner here, and had family left to write to. 

It made her rather more sympathetic to Trystane’s cause, just now, and to think that this time, it was his own sister keeping him from writing such letters...

“Tell you what,” she said, tiredly. “I don’t think that I will have much luck, interceding with your sister, either, but I will have Lady Nym write her a letter, the moment she returns to King’s Landing, letting her know that the…Crown disapproves of her attempts to separate two young people who are beloved by the Crown.”

Trystane raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think the Regent even remembers my name,” he said.

Sansa frowned at him. “You are a very important ally, Trystane,” she said, and wanted to tell him that he ought to be grateful he felt that way, when she saw so much of herself in him, like looking into a mirror that was a couple of years old, and she had longed for a time when Joffrey might ignore her enough to forget her name. “Of course the Regent remembers your name.”

Of course, his captivity here was nothing like hers had been; they were not cruel to him, had made sure that he had someone continuing his studies here, even when Margaery had seemed concerned, the one time she had walked in on him sparring with Lady Nym over spears, had welcomed him onto the Small Council, though the rest of the Small Council hated it.

She did it, perhaps, because she felt guilty, seeing someone in a position so similar to her own, and perhaps because she had appreciated the companionship that Myrcella had offered, the last time she had been in King’s Landing.

And because the last time that Trystane had gotten himself riled up over his treatment by the Crown, he had nearly gotten both his cousin and Margaery’s child killed.

Sansa would like to avoid any repeat performances, and she had no real reason to see him unhappy here, either, even if she could not return him to Dorne.

She had not quite the same faith in them as Margaery seemed to, these days, not after she, and Olenna, had all but gotten Oberyn Martell killed, between the two of them.

She grimaced, going still at the thought, as she realized she didn’t know if she had ever told Margaery about that, doubted Olenna ever had.

“My lady?” Trystane said, and she realized that she had been silent for some time.

Sansa cleared her throat. “The moment she returns,” she promised him, even as she privately wondered if Lady Nym even had that sort of pull with her cousin, with the way that she had all but attached herself to Margaery, these days.

Trystane’s eyes widened. “She’s not here?” he asked, and Sansa cursed inwardly at letting such a thing slip.

She really was too distracted, at the moment.

“No, she’s...The Regent sent her on an important mission,” Sansa told him. “And one that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned.”

Though she was surprised, in truth, that Trystane had not reached out to his own cousin first, before Sansa, of all people.

Trystane blinked at her. “Ah,” he said. “Well, I thank you for whatever you might be able to accomplish, in this,” he said, softly. “I...Not being able to even hear from Myrcella…”

She thought she understood what he meant.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I really should be…” she gestured in front of them, and it seemed only then that Trystane realized he was still holding onto her elbow.

“Oh,” he said, letting go of her. “Sorry.”

She found herself rather glad that he had not reached out to Margaery first, in that moment, though she doubted he would have been so forward as to drag Margaery across the room as he had Sansa.

She walked forward, thought she spied the end of Baelish’s robes as he slipped from the room, just then, only to encounter yet another distraction.

Even if this one was the reason she was seeking out Baelish in the first place.

“Septa Unella,” Sansa said with a sigh, giving up on the idea of catching Baelish before he vanished for good, then, as she wondered where Margaery had gone, without her trusted septa.

“Lady Sansa,” the septa said, giving her a short, haughty nod of her head, as if she were not the daughter of some lesser noble, and a septa, at that. “I couldn’t help but notice, during prayers, that you seemed rather...distracted.”

Sansa grimaced, lifting her chin. “I find it strange that the one leading those prayers should have noticed such a thing,” she said, tartly, and the septa sent her a sharp smile. 

“One of the first things that we septas are taught is that the ones we pray with are almost as important as the prayers themselves,” the septa said, softly. 

Sansa raised an eyebrow. “And you expect me to believe that you are so concerned with mine?”

The septa looked strangely...hurt, by her words. “I am concerned with every soul that has not yet repented, Lady,” she said, calmly. “Even yours.”

The words sent a shiver down Sansa’s spine. “Do excuse me,” she said, and the septa eyed her carefully as she walked away.

The problem, Sansa thought, as she went to track down Baelish herself, was that she could sense no guile in the other woman’s words. She seemed to genuinely believe them, and that, Sansa thought, was even more dangerous to the both of them.

* * *

Sansa took a deep breath, knocking on the door of the chambers that Baelish used while he was occupying the Keep, these days. 

“Enter,” a familiar voice said, and Sansa took a deep breath before she stepped inside.

“I need your help, Petyr,” Sansa said immediately, and hated herself a little more when he instantly lifted his head, smiled at her, reached out to cup her cheek in his hand, and she didn’t flinch away at the touch.

“What is it?” He asked her, in that gentle tone he always reserved for her, and Sansa squeezed her eyes shut, and wished that it hadn’t come to this.

Wished that she didn’t owe him so much, wished that Margaery hadn’t been foolish enough to bring Septa Unella back into their lives, wished that they could have just gotten on with their lives, after Joffrey’s death.

That was all that Sansa wanted, since then. Joffrey was dead yes, and she knew that whatever had happened between Margaery and Joffrey, in the moments before his death, had been absolutely traumatizing for the other girl.

But things would be so much easier if they could just…move on.

And Sansa was doing her best to be accommodating, because she knew that to be otherwise would just be selfish, but she was doing everything for Margaery, just now. Gods, she was practically running the Seven Kingdoms for her.

And there was no one there for Sansa, save for Petyr, with his hand on her cheek and his thoughts already far past that.

She licked her lips. “I don’t...this septa, I don’t know how she knows, I don’t know if it was Margaery or she found out some other way,” she couldn’t dare insinuate that it was Baelish’s fault, not when she needed him rather desperately at the moment, but, “She knows. About us. And I’m not certain that I can...deal with her alone, not with the way that she seems to have cleaved herself to Margaery’s side.”

Baelish stared at her, then, finally pulling back from her to consider her words, and then said, carefully, “The Regent…is not going to like it,” and he looked concerned for her, but damn him, Sansa could see the way his eyes were shining, at the thought.

It was why she had spared Megga and gone to him, after all; she knew damn well that he would agree to anything he thought might bring a rift between Sansa and Margaery.

And perhaps he was right; perhaps she was a fool for doing this, perhaps she was a fool for believing that Margaery would simply forgive her for it, after the things that Margaery had confessed to her, about what this septa seemed to represent, for her.

But Sansa had to be willing to take that risk, because it wasn’t just about Margaery’s trust, this. It was about her life. About the life of the child in her belly, because what Sansa and Margaery had done together might well get them killed, but it could also get that child killed, as well.

Could have Cersei Lannister wondering who else Margaery might have slept with, while she was married to her darling boy.

Sansa gritted her teeth as she looked down, so that she didn’t have to see that smarmy look on Baelish’s face.

“I know,” she whispered, hoarsely. “But…” she twisted the knife. “You’re the only one I trust to know the truth about this, Petyr. The only one who I know will actually help us. I need your help, now, even if she does hate me for it. Because I know I said that I would...deal with this myself, but I can’t…I can’t lose her.”

There.

And he would very much want Sansa to lose her, as he had all but told her in the past, as he had clearly told Olyvar, but none of that could matter, at the moment.

Because Sansa might not regret what she was about to do, might feel very little remorse for it, as the septa had even accused her of, but she also knew that if she did it with her own hands, Margaery truly wouldn’t forgive her for it.

When she glanced up at Baelish again, he was the picture of concern.

“You’re right,” he agreed, voice raspy. He sounded…almost shaken, and she wondered if he knew exactly what she was doing, just now. “If this septa knows the truth about the two of you, she will find some way to use it to her advantage, or to expose it, if she truly is as fanatical as she claims to be.”

Sansa nodded, swallowing hard, not quite trusting herself to speak. She thought of the girl she had once been, a lifetime ago, the sweet, innocent creature that she had been.

The sweet thing that her mother must have been, for Baelish to fall so hard for her.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered, hoarsely, biting her lower lip, and watching the way Baelish’s eyes flew to the motion. “I…What I did to Ser Meryn, I can’t…I can’t do that again.”

The knife twisted, in her mind’s eye.

She wondered why it felt so different, to get Oberyn and her father killed, to nearly kill Joffrey and almost feel guilty over it, than it did to finally twist the knife inside of Ser Meryn Trant.

Baelish reached out then, running a gentle hand through her hair. “Don’t worry, my lady,” he said, his voice gentle then, but with a hint of something dangerous in it. “I’ll take care of it.”

She closed her eyes, and thought of what Rosamund had told her, about his plans for Margaery, his plans for them.

She opened her eyes, and smiled at him. “You’ve always taken care of me,” she responded, and flinched inwardly, wondering if that had been going too far.

But when Baelish bent down and kissed her, then, she thought it was worth it.

* * *

“Septa Unella?” Margaery called out, when her knocking on the door had no effect. She wondered, for a moment, if the septa had gone out of the chambers that she had commissioned for the other woman, close to her own, but then, there were few others in the Keep who seemed to want to spend time with the other woman, and she did not go to the Sept so late at night.

Margaery swallowed hard, taking a deep breath as if tensing for some unknown danger, before stepping into the septa’s chambers, and she froze, as she did so.

The sight before her was brutal, but not only that, it was terribly familiar.

Margaery inhaled, but felt no breath coming into her lungs. 

“Septa!” She cried out, and then rushed forward, falling to her knees beside the older woman’s prone form, ignoring the feeling of wet blood seeping into her gown at the knees, a feeling that was far too familiar, after...after the last time.

No, she thought. No, this couldn’t be happening. 

Not again.

She wasn’t breathing, Margaery realized, moments later, as she felt for the woman’s pulse, and came up empty. Though, of course, she had known that it would not. Had known that the septa was already dead from the moment that she had walked into the room and found her lying in exactly the same way that Joffrey had been, after Margaery had...after she had killed him.

Brains bashed in, body crumpled on the floor, blood pooling around it.

She dropped the septa’s hand abruptly.

“No,” she breathed, horror filling her. “No, no, no. No, not you, too.”

The septa lay still, and very dead, and Margaery felt tears entering her eyes even if she hadn’t had the time to come to know this woman barely at all.

But she had represented something, had represented hope, a hope that Margaery had not thought she would feel again after Joffrey’s death, and something like fear clawed its way up Margaery’s throat as she felt her child kick, ominously, within her.

“Guards!” She called out behind her, and heard the Kingsguard come running, as they had not bothered to do on the night of her own husband’s death. “Find a maester!”

It was too late, she knew, because it had been too late for Joffrey too, when he had looked just like this, but she screamed for the maester, anyway.

* * *

Elinor had heard about the Queen’s dramatic declaration to the smallfolk by the end of the day, and had a horrible feeling that she would be getting a raven about it, soon, demanding to know why she was not better at keeping Margaery in check.

Hells, everyone had heard about the promise that Margaery had made to the smallfolk at this point, even her husband, as she walked in on him, seated on the divan in their chambers, playing with their son.

Making faces, and then laughing when their son grew increasingly more amused with each one, for all that they never seemed to change much.

Still, Elinor stopped and smiled a little, at the sight of it. At the sight of her beautiful little family, for once looking so happy.

She wished she could stay in this moment forever.

She wished they could go back to Highgarden, where she had never actually spent much time with her husband, could go back to her family’s home and disappear into the sheets and never return.

She was so tired of King’s Landing, of the plots and plans that kept them here, the plots that only ever got her and the people she loved hurt.

She licked her lips, reaching out to touch her husband’s cheek, where he lay on the bed beside her, looking exhausted. Even the slightest exertion got him tired, these days, she knew.

She was almost glad of that. Was almost glad that he had not been one of the guards out accompanying Margaery, when she had made the suicidal decision to…ban death, or whatever it was she was actually doing.

Elinor would have been terrified for him, even if the people seemed to have reacted fairly well to the whole thing.

Her husband’s eyes fluttered, and then blinked open, and he stared at her for a moment longer, before he smiled.

“You should be sleeping,” he said. “Our son kept you up half the night.”

Elinor smiled. “Our son,” she repeated, and after a moment, her husband smiled as well, so sweetly.

And then, as if on cue, their child began to cry, from the other room.

Elinor sighed.

Alyn reached out, placing a hand over hers. “I can get it,” he said, softly, but Elinor shook her head.

“You were sleeping so well,” she said. “Besides, he probably wants me.”

A flash of what might have been hurt crossed over Alyn’s features, and she forced herself not to think about it as she got to her feet and reached for her robe, walking out into the main room.

Her heart stopped, for the second time in recent weeks, as she saw Lord Varys leaning over her child’s crib, once again, silent as the grave.

He glanced up, as she entered the room, shutting the door to her bedchambers behind her and crossing her arms over her chest.

“I don’t want you in here, anymore,” Elinor whispered, and Varys stared at her with a single, raised brow, before stepping away from her son’s crib.

Dear gods, she thought, she was going to have to move their son’s crib into her own chambers, just to make sure that he was safe.

And then sh thought about how Varys seemed to have attained the ability to walk through walls, and surely it wouldn’t matter, where she had her son sleep at night, so long as he was able to move about unheard.

She took a careful breath, and let it out slowly. “What are you doing here?”

“The Queen went against the advice of the Small Council, today,” Varys said, and his tone was almost conversational, as he glanced over at her child, in the crib.

She closed her eyes, opened them again. “I’d hardly imagined that a bunch of men had suddenly decided that they disliked killing things,” she muttered.

Varys was unamused. “It was my understanding that the Queen no longer had much interest in the goings on of the Small Council, and after all of my years serving on it, I count myself a rather good judge of character.”

Elinor chewed on her bottom lip, before she muttered, “Well, perhaps she is finally…taking an interest,” she said.

“Or,” Varys went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “Perhaps someone else is taking an interest, and finally convincing her to do as they will.”

Elinor could have laughed, at that. 

If Sansa Stark wasn’t capable of that, no one was, she thought. 

“I don’t control the Queen,” Elinor said, shortly. “You’re not Olenna, so I think you know that.”

Varys gave her a long look. “She is a…persistent woman,” he said, slowly.

Elinor lifted her chin. “I don’t control Sansa either, if that’s your next question.”

Varys stalked forward, until he was standing merely a hair’s breadth away from her, and Elinor’s breath caught in her throat.

“Then why does Baelish?” He asked her, coldly. 

Elinor swallowed hard.

She had a feeling she knew the answer to that question, but wasn’t certain if it was the sort of thing she should be confusing to Varys, or to Lady Olenna. Didn’t know if it was the sort of thing that Sansa would forgive her for.

But it made sense, the theory she’d worked out in the privacy of her own mind. That Baelish wasn’t so much a trusted fellow as someone who knew more than he ought to.

“Why are you here this late at night, Lord Varys?” She asked him.

He eyed her. “Why do you call me ‘lord’?” He asked her. “Olenna made it rather clear, before she left, that she doesn’t see me as such, and the title is not strictly…true.”

Elinor shrugged. “Because it’s polite, I suppose.”

He waited.

Elinor felt her gut twist, as she realized what he meant by that. 

She supposed she was surprised, at this point, that the news had not come earlier. That she had not found out, the moment that Sansa had thrown her out of Margaery’s ladies, that she had outlived her usefulness to the Lady Olenna.

After all, the rest of the ladies in Margaery’s entourage had all been spies for Olenna once; it was not uncommon, amongst ladies in waiting, whoever the lady might be, and they were fortunate that so many of them had been for Olenna, but they were hardly that, now.

Margaery had scared them away from it for good, after all, the day that she had decided to banish her own grandmother.

And Margaery might take Elinor back, if she had a mind to; Elinor was concerned that Margaery’s mind was lost to all of them at this point, however; even to herself.

Sansa was the one in charge of Margaery’s affairs, these days, both openly and in private, and all that mattered was that Sansa would never allow her back in, even if the boy had, after all, died in the end.

Olenna had only Elinor, and Elinor was next to useless, now, for anything besides getting information, something that she could easily get from Varys, if she so wanted.

“Is this my polite warning?” She asked him. “I’ve failed Olenna, and so you’ve come to let me know that I don’t have much longer for this world?”

Strangely, she was not as horrified at the threat as she had always thought she would be, when it finally came.

After all, she had spent so long living in fear of the other shoe dropping, of whatever it was that Olenna would do to her, once she decided that Elinor had finally failed her, that now that it was here, it felt…strangely less threatening.

Varys sighed. He looked saddened by the thought that it might be; Elinor could not imagine why. For all that they were working towards a similar purpose, Elinor knew that it was not the same one.

They were both birds, twittering their lies to their masters, but, for all his attempts to prove her wrong, Elinor was not entirely convinced that they followed the same master at all. 

“Is it…possible that the Queen has been playing all of us, all of this time?” He asked her, and there was something sharp and dangerous in his tone, something that made Elinor, despite her apathy, stand up and take notice. “Olenna is not here, and you know Margaery better than I ever could.”

He said it without a hint of judgment, even as Elinor blushed and glanced nervously over her shoulder.

Her husband knew about her past relationship with the Regent, of course, because it was the sort of thing she could imagine Olenna trying to hold over them, one day, or someone else doing so.

It had been her true test of her husband, in the early days of their relationship, and he had reacted better than she had ever expected him to.

But they didn’t talk about it, since then, and besides the fact that she didn’t want her husband to know why they truly remained in King’s Landing, she wouldn’t like to remind him of that relationship, again.

“That she…isn’t nearly as…badly affected by her husband’s death as she has let on?” Varys pushed, when Elinor remained silent.

Elinor blinked up at him. “You’re…asking me if I think Margaery is faking her feelings for her wretched husband’s death.”

Varys’ lips twitched into a small smirk. “I suppose it is rather unbelievable,” he said, letting out a sigh. “But you and I both know that something else happened, that night.”

Elinor sucked in a breath; they did not speak of it, what might have happened that night, though they both had an idea, just as the rest of the Keep did not speak of it.

And here he was, telling her that she did not have much more use to Olenna, and asking her about that night.

“In any case,” Varys went on, unfettered by Elinor’s silence, “it still does not explain her actions of late, not unless she’s faking them.”

Elinor bit the inside of her cheek.

The truth was, she had wondered the same thing, the first and only time that Margaery had come to visit her in her chambers, had come to see her child and had looked beautifully sad at the sight of him.

Had looked…almost like the woman that Elinor had once known so well, except that there was a pervasive sadness hanging over her, at all times.

In that moment, Elinor had not seen at all the girl who had worked so hard for the damn throne only to sit on it staring at her nails, when it was finally hers. 

Elinor had known Margaery for many years, but never before Olenna had gotten her hooks into the other girl, and so she had always known Margaery’s ambition, had always known her drive to get what she wanted, whether that thing was the last lemon cake on the table, or the Crown.

She no longer recognized the Margaery sitting in the Iron Throne as if she didn’t know it was meant for her son or her Hand, and not for her.

So it made sense, she supposed. This theory that Varys and Olenna had come up with, that Margaery’s traumatized responses to everything around her, the disinterest in her own regency, the lack of respect for the throne, the fact that she’d brought a septa into the Keep after sending Nysterica away, were all a carefully tailored reaction, to keep the rest of King’s Landing, hells, the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, from overestimating her.

It did make sense, she thought. And it made sense that Olenna so wanted to believe it.

It was just the sort of thing Margaery might have done, once. Made them all underestimate her, made them all think of her in one way when she was really another thing entirely, for her own advantage, just as she had once done with Joffrey.

But the more Elinor thought about it, the less she believed it to be the case.

She knew Margaery, after all, as Varys had said. She knew her well, and she knew when Margaery was pretending, and when she was not

And…whatever had happened to Margaery that night - Elinor squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to think of the words Sansa had once thrown at her - it had changed her, utterly.

There were only small traces of the Margaery that Elinor had once known, inside of the other girl. That was why Olenna could not recognize her either, why she was clinging to anything she could find, to explain away all of this.

For a moment, because Varys had already been polite enough to let her know that Olenna would not have a use for her much longer, Elinor considered lying. Considered leaving Olenna in the horrible suspense of what her granddaughter might be up to, that thing that she could not yet understand.

But she supposed that she owed it to Margaery, to Sansa, not to do that to them.

“I don’t think it’s a pretense,” Elinor said, slowly. “And I know that’s exactly what Olenna doesn’t want to hear, but the things that happened that night…They changed her, utterly.”

Varys studied her, looking for some sort of sign that she was lying, she supposed, before he finally let out a small sigh.

“That’s…unfortunate,” he said, and he said it as if he truly meant it.

Elinor eyed him warily, wondered what master it was he served, that he was playing the long game with someone like Olenna Tyrell, that he cared enough to look like he meant it, when Elinor told him that Margaery had lost herself.

Wondered why he should care so much about the mental well being of Margaery Tyrell, besides the more obvious reasons, because he cared so much for the damn good of the realm, as he’d told her once.

That didn’t explain his frequent visits here, how often his questioning turned to Margaery, the look of absolute pity in his eyes, as he uttered these words, tonight.

And before all of this, he’d been working with Margaery, she remembered, the two fo them trying to curb some of Joffrey’s more base tendencies. Had taken something like a special interest in her ever since her arrival in King’s Landing, though he’d certainly been subtle about it.

And the moment Olenna was gone, he’d volunteered to keep her in the know.

He had plans for Margaery, plans that consisted of her actually being able to think critically for herself, it seemed, and Elinor supposed that she should be more worried about that.

But the words of his threat earlier, the polite warning he’d given her, were finally sinking in, and she took a small step back from him, and then another.

She could endure whatever Olenna threw at her, because she had been expecting it for so damn long, but Varys was standing next to her child, just as he always was.

It struck her, then, that he was always standing by her child, whenever they had these meetings.

Always  _ staring _ .

She remembered abruptly that he had a small army of tongueless children who did his bidding, and wondered if, without the use of his cock, there was some more…insidious purpose he had for them.

She shivered, moving to take her child into her arms.

Willas let out a little squeal of annoyance, twisting in her arms, but Elinor didn’t dare set him back down.

Varys’ eyes were soft, as they alighted on her son for another moment, and then he stepped back, as if to reassure her that he meant her child no harm.

It wasn’t reassuring in the least.

Especially not with his next words.

“He looks like his namesake, you know,” Varys said, into the silence of Elinor trying to figure out why the fuck he cared about Margaery at all, why he was so invested in this.

Elinor licked her lips. “Get out,” she whispered.

And Varys left without it ever occurring to Elinor to ask him how he knew what Willas Tyrell had once looked like.

She shook her head, remembering to breathe only once the door had shut behind him once more, and considered her son for a moment.

He did sort of look like Willas, she supposed. But then, she was a Tyrell, for all that the rest of her family seemed to have forgotten that fact. It made sense that he would look like Willas. 

She was shaking as she carried her son back into the bedchambers that she shared with her husband, because like hells was she going to leave him out in his crib after that confrontation. 

She set him down between her and her husband, on the bed, and slowly climbed in after him, ignoring the soft sigh that her husband gave as he said, “We shouldn’t encourage this, you know.”

“He’s just a babe,” Elinor reminded him.

Her husband smiled at her, reached out to touch her cheek, and Elinor flinched a little, under that touch.

Between them, Willas let out a little cry, and Elinor instantly turned her attention on him, so that her husband could not see her tears.

He saw her tense shoulders, anyway, she supposed.

“What’s wrong, love?” He asked her.

Her gentle, sweet husband, who was only ever concerned for her, when Elinor had fucked the both of them, because she could stand the thought of her own death, could stand the thought of whatever revenge Olenna got on her for telling Sansa about the Tyrells’ plans, but she couldn’t stand the thought that her son, her husband, would pay that price.

And Olenna knew how to make things hurt; they would be the first ones she came after, Elinor knew that.

Oh, she would not hurt them. Not now that Elinor’s husband had made such a miraculous recovery. He would live out the rest of his days alone, toiling away in misery, and their son…No doubt, Olenna would find some excuse to keep him close that not even her husband could deny.

And that would be enough. Elinor, separated from the last amount of family that she was allowed to have.

Elinor forced herself to smile, pressed a kiss against her forehead. “It’s nothing,” she promised. “Nothing. He was merely fussy.”

He gave her a long, searching look, and then shrugged as she sank down against him.

Elinor took a careful breath, pulling the blankets back up over them and wrapping an arm around her husband’s chest.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, wondering if Varys was still out there somewhere, knew only that her husband wasn’t falling asleep, either.

“We should leave,” Elinor said, into the silence, and her husband turned to her in the bed, regarding her nervously, now.

“Elinor?” He asked, gently. “You think…You want to return to Highgarden, now?”

Elinor pressed her lips together.

No. No, because Olenna was in Highgarden, and if she went back there, she would either go mad or find herself brought right back here, to keep up her spying for the other woman, because Olenna couldn’t be bothered to find another spy when Elinor was perfectly useful, still.

“We could go to your home,” Elinor whispered. “Or to Oldtown, and hide among the merchant lords, there.”

Her husband let out a bitter laugh. “And what would I sell?” He asked her. “A feeble cripple?”

Elinor swallowed. “They called Willas Tyrell that,” she said, and thought about how they had named their child after Willas. “He managed to…reform Oldtown, in a way that no other noble lord had managed, before him, without anyone ever finding out that he had done so. I think…I think we could build a life together, if we wanted to, there. Or anywhere.”

Just not here, she thought, desperately.

Her husband swallowed. “Elinor…” He took a deep breath. “During the Battle of Blackwater, every time that I was afraid, every time that I killed a man, I cried out your name. I thought…” he laughed a little. “I thought that you would be my charm, against those who might otherwise kill me.”

Elinor licked her lips. She remembered thinking the story was amusing, cute, almost, the first time that she had heard it from one of the other men serving alongside Alyn. Now, she thought it was sad.

That her husband had derived that sort of courage from her, when she wasn’t feeling very courageous, of late.

“But I’m not…I’m a soldier, Elinor. It’s what I’ve always wanted to be. And now, I can’t even be that.” He coughed, and she leaned forward on instinct, asking him if he felt ill on the tip of her tongue. “I’m not brave enough to start a new life. I’m…”

Comfortable, Elinor thought. They were comfortable, now, living under Olenna’s patronage, because Elinor might resent the other woman for insisting that she remain here when all Elinor wanted was to return home, but it could not be denied that she was living comfortably. Her husband would never have to lift a finger again, her rooms were larger than the ones she had shared with Margaery’s ladies, when she had still been one of them.

And if she demanded that they leave, she would be taking that away from him.

And after what had happened, after the way he had been injured…because of her, she couldn’t take anything else away from him.

She moved closer to him, wrapped her arms around him tightly. Pressed her head against his shoulder.

Her husband let out a dry sob, and Elinor squeezed him tighter, sniffing herself. 

“I can’t…” he repeated, and she shushed him, gently, pressing her lips against his.

“It’s all right,” she murmured. “It’s fine, Alyn.”

He took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

She leaned closer. “No,” she said. “No. Alyn…”

He let out a dry laugh. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, “That you ended up married to someone like me. I’m sorry that you had to have my child, instead of the child of…”

Elinor’s eyes dripped. “No,” she said, more forceful, this time. “Don’t say that. Don’t talk like that.”

Because she hated that he thought of himself that way, hated that she had been the one to do it to him, because she had disobeyed Olenna, in some small way, and now, she was dependent on the other woman to keep her husband alive.

She took a deep breath, and didn’t tell him about Varys’ veiled threat.

“Our son is going to be strong, and wise, just like his father,” Elinor crooned against his skin, and her husband snorted.

“I don’t think that I am either of those things, Elinor,” he whispered. “If anything, that’s you.”

Elinor bit back an equally harsh laugh. “Perhaps neither of us are those things,” she admitted. “But our son will be. We’ll raise him to be.” She leaned close and whispered against his ear, “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave a comment!


	19. Casterly Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m afraid that Arya’s transformation here would make a bit more sense if the Braavos story had been finished (sorry) but here we are.
> 
> One quick note, though, my Arya spent some time with Tywin at Harrenhall, like she did in the show, even if it makes no sense plot/character wise, because I loved that in the show. 
> 
> Anyway, without spoiling too much from the Braavos story, have our first Arya chapter. *Runs away*

Most nights, she dreamt about the Merling Queen.

The Merling Queen, laying beneath her in the woman’s bedchambers, drenched in her own sweat and blood, and staring up at Arya (a girl) with those sad, resigned eyes, as if she had forgiven Arya for ever taking the knife to her without even knowing why Arya had done so.

And Arya did not even have a reason to give her, as she stood over the Merling Queen in her dreams and plunged the knife through her stomach.

It was a horrible feeling, not knowing why she was even taking that woman’s life, why she was blindly following the words of a man who had only ever helped her because she had named him for her kill.

Sometimes, in these dreams, which always ended with Arya killing her, no matter how many times she tried to stop herself, the Merlin Queen’s face would turn into Shae’s face, and Arya awoke in the night, sweating and biting back a strangled scream that she was far too controlled, these days, to let loose.

She stared up at the stark, tall walls of Casterly Rock, and shuddered.

When she had first became Lord Tywin Lannister’s cupbearer, terrified that he might recognize her at any moment, Arya had imagined that Casterly Rock was just the same cold, imposing place that its owner had been, with high, rock walls and little warmth.

She had never seen it, of course. Tywin had come to Harrenhall while he was busy fighting her brother, had kept her there because she amused him, he knew, because she wasn’t what he had expected in the beaten down, subjugated people he had found there.

A part of her wondered, sometimes, if he hadn’t kept her around because he knew who she was, but then, if he had, she didn’t understand why he ever would have let her go.

She hadn’t been wrong, she realized, as she came to a pause in front of the old building. Casterly Rock was the perfect residence for the man she had served as cupbearer for over those few months.

Cold, elusive, and terrifying.

Arya swallowed hard, staring up at it, and told herself to keep fucking walking.

She wasn’t about to stop now, when she had already come all of this way.

She didn’t know where else to go, after all. 

In truth, Arya didn’t know why she had come here.

When she had departed from Braavos, it had been with the resolve to finally return home, whatever form that ended up taking. She had lost most of her family; only Jon and Sansa remained, and she didn’t know if she had the power to get back to either one of them.

Jon was at the Wall, and Sansa…

She shut her eyes, and every night, she dreamed of the Merling Queen, or of Shae, and both reminded her of Sansa.

She didn’t know how she would react to actually meeting the other girl. She didn’t know if she’d be able to meet Sansa’s eyes at all. 

But the moment her feet touched the ground in Westeros, she’d found herself walking West, until she made her way here.

Heading West, as she dreamt of Tywin Lannister sitting over a pile of his own shit, of Cersei Lannister, the last, grinning bitch of House Lannister, the last of those who had so destroyed her own family, sitting prettily in Casterly Rock these days, exiled by her own son, who appeared to hate her almost as much as Arya did, somehow.

And she knew why her feet walked west even if she tried to pretend that she had given up that life, that sort of thing, for good.

And now, she was standing in front of the Rock, that imposing, terrifying place built from rock that had once housed the great Tywin Lannister, and she…didn’t understand what she saw.

He was dead now, she’d heard. Had died over his own shit, and though a part of her had come to appreciate what he had had been during the time she spent as his cupbearer, another part of her thought he deserved such an inglorious death.

She still hated herself, a little, for the way she hadn’t slit his throat, or given his name to J’aquen Har, when she had the chance. He had gone on to order her mother’s death, her brother’s death, and if she had just acted, instead of surviving...

The valley before the Rock, Lannisport, around it…it was all full of soldiers, a long trail of soldiers wearing nondescript silver armor that looked like it hadn’t been washed in some time, pitching tents whose names were so faded she couldn’t even see the colors that had once belonged to them, and Arya…

Arya didn’t understand why there was an army parked outside of the Rock. An army, standing between her and the Rock. 

An army that didn’t look like it belonged to the Lannisters, at first glance.

And why the army didn’t seem to have any colors associated with it, something almost unheard of in a place that insisted on the rule of feudal lords over armies, regardless of which king they followed.

But the fact remained that none of the soldiers were wearing armor she could easily identify; it had been some years since Arya had been in Westeros, and she wondered if that was the cause, but she was sure that she would have recognized the ridiculous uniforms that the Lannisters wore.

She swallowed hard, and kept walking.

As long as she was here, Arya supposed, she might as well finish off one of the names on her list, the name of someone who truly deserved to die.

Cersei Lannister was going to die tonight, and then perhaps she would stop dreaming of the woman Tyrion Lannister had called, so lovingly, Shae.

And if Cersei really was dead, as a part of her feared, then she might as well make sure of that. Might as well see Cersei Lannister’s head hanging from the walls of the Rock, the way they said her father’s head had.

She hadn’t stayed in King’s Landing long enough to find out, after all.

She glanced at the tents, trying to find some women among them; she could dress as a serving boy, to sneak into the Rock, but she’d prefer to not have to change her outfit overmuch, and she knew that if any of the soldiers at the gates pulled the hood back from her head, they would see her long hair.

She had taken many faces while she had been in Braavos, but she wouldn’t be able to pretend to be Arry, with hair this long.

She swallowed, feeling a little overwhelmed, suddenly, wondering if she should just turn around and leave now, if it was worth it, to try to sneak into the city to find Cersei Lannister’s head.

Stannis, if this was indeed Stannis’ army, wouldn’t know what she looked like; she couldn’t remember ever spending any significant amount of time with the man, and she couldn’t think of another lord save for Tywin who might have recognized her either and been able to take the Rock, and she was long dead, she knew, to the people of Westeros.

But on the off chance that one of them did, she didn’t think she would be able to amuse them enough into becoming their cupbearer, this time.

And then she saw the serving women, walking in a clump up the hill towards the Rock, carrying baskets full of clothes and, she thought, bread, and Arya made up her mind.

Her clothes were not so fine as theirs; in Braavos, she had gotten used to wearing pants because they allowed her greater mobility, in her kills, and when she had decided that she was returning to Westeros, she’d found the grubby gown she’d stolen from a woman’s basket of them tight in all of the wrong places and strangely uncomfortable, for all that it was so freeing around her legs.

But she had been wearing the gown for days, now, washing it only once at the single tavern she’d stayed at, before she left in the early morning, not liking the look the other, all male, patrons had given her.

She could have dealt with them, if she had to, but Arya hadn’t wanted to, not then, even if they all deserved to die, for the way that they were looking at her, she privately thought.

But she thought that her clothes were just nice enough that she might be able to convince the guards that she was also one of the maids, as she hurried along behind them, and just hoped that the maids would not be required to back up her story. 

They walked through the camp like they were entirely at home with it, which Arya found strange, because at least two of them were wearing red and gold gowns, which still didn’t make sense.

She wondered if the people of the West had hated their overlords so much that they had happily accepted Stannis’ rule over them, and grunted.

One of the maids, a girl wearing the dull grays of the Baratheons, turned around and looked at her, but her face was blank, and Arya realized something then; not all of these girls were Lannister maids.

Some of them belonged to the Baratheons, somehow, which meant that Stannis’, or whoever’s, men must have been here for some time, but she doubted that every serving girl knew the name of every other serving girl.

Lucky.

She winked at the other girl, who gave her a disgusted look and turned back around again, flipping her hair as she did so.

Arya rolled her eyes.

She swallowed, following the maids through the doorway, a little shocked that the Lannisters allowed servants to get into their walls so easily. Tywin Lannister had never been a trusting man, after all, and she would have expected more from him.

But then, Tywin Lannister was dead.

She had heard about that, while she was in Braavos. That Tywin Lannister, a man who had both awed and terrified her, had died taking a shit on his toilet, poisoned by two different people and stabbed by a third.

And one of the people who had poisoned him had been…

Arya grimaced, shaking her head.

She hadn’t wanted to react, in the markets of Braavos, knowing that the Waif was somewhere around, watching her, no doubt watching for some sort of reaction to that exact news, but later, she had gone to the place where she had hidden Needle, and…

Well, she hadn’t cried for Tywin Lannister. She doubted even his children, whom he himself had admitted he had always been hard on, had ever cried after learning of their father’s death.

But she had felt…something, something nameless and horrifying, which had slithered its way up her throat until she didn’t want to be Arya Stark anymore, because surely Arya Stark shouldn’t feel anything at all with the death of a man who had orchestrated her brother’s death.

“Halt,” the guards at the gate before the Rock said, and Arya stilled with the other serving girls, as the guards squinted at them.

Lannister guards, Arya noted, her heart thudding in her chest. She had no idea what the fuck was happening, just now; why there were Lannister guards at the gates of the Rock, and Stannis’ soldiers stood at the base of it, not seeming to be in the middle of a siege at all, as she might have originally thought.

One of the guards reached out, then, chucking the chin of the girl in front of her. “You,” he said to her, and Arya could see the way she was shaking from the way her brown and grey dress was trembling, in front of her. “You’ll stay behind.”

The girl let out a whimper, and Arya had no doubt the girl knew exactly why she was to stay behind.

She lifted her chin, tempted to say something, because she had spent far too long keeping silent, and the reminder that she had been silent while Tywin Lannister lived still weighed heavily on her, especially here.

As one, the other maids moved away from her, and Arya felt annoyance bubbling up within her at their actions, but found herself moving away with them, because after all, there was nothing she could do for this girl in full view of the encampment below, and besides, Arya needed to figure out what the fuck was going on.

This…wasn’t normal, any of it.

She swallowed hard, avoiding the maid’s eyes with the other maids as they walked through the gates, the doors shutting behind them, and the maids in front of her seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief, then.

And then they were moving, and Arya found herself left behind as they hurried off to do whatever it was they had chanced…that, to do.

She wandered.

She did not see Cersei’s head on the outer gates of the Keep, and she did not see the woman’s remains nailed up to the door, and she honestly could not think of a better place for them to put Cersei Lannister.

But if there were Lannister guards…

For a moment, she allowed herself to think of the possibility that the Lannisters had simply laid down their arms to Stannis, but had insisted on wearing their old uniforms, before she shook her head at the thought.

No, that didn’t make any sense, either.

There were Lannister guards here, which meant that somewhere in this Keep, there was a Lannister.

Arya could feel the blood pumping in her chest again, with the thought.

It didn’t make sense. Tywin Lannister was dead, but he had always been a proud man, and she could not imagine the Lannisters suddenly agreeing to allow other soldiers into their midst, to allow themselves to be besieged without fighting back, as they now seemed to be.

She took a deep breath, separating herself from the other serving girls as she walked forward, disappearing down a hallway unseen.

She had a feeling that, if Cersei Lannister was still in this great palace, if Arya hadn’t made a complete mistake in coming here, because none of the other noble Houses had ever done shit for hers, she would be holed up somewhere deep within the palace, somewhere that it would take the longest for the guards to find her.

Arya had her work cut out for her, trying to find the other woman.

She swallowed hard, reaching for Needle, where it hung inside her clothes, to feel its familiar, reassuring presence there.

She had nearly thrown it into the ocean, when the Kindly Man had told her the truth about the Many Faced God, and about the Faceless Men, when she had forced it out of him and realized that whatever she was doing there, for them, it was for nothing.

That Shae had died for nothing.

She shook that thought from her head; if she got distracted now, there was no telling who might stumble upon her.

She found a courtyard then, blinking in confusion because she had been quite certain that she was walking deeper into the Keep, but of course the Lannisters didn’t know how to build a decent building, she thought, with some annoyance.

She almost walked back when two men walked around the corner then, and Arya swore, plastering herself up against the far wall of the tower and squeezing herself into as small of a position as she could, still standing.

She supposed that spending all of that time in Braavos had taught her one thing; how not to be noticed.

And then the men sat down at the table in the courtyard, and Arya swore softly under her breath, annoyed that they were not going to quickly pass her by.

And then her eyes narrowed, and she supposed that if she did stay put, and if these men were more than useless drunks, she might find out a bit of what the hells was going on, by listening in on them.

“Heh,” the other man muttered. “That’s what they get, for what they did. If the King were here, he would be pleased to hear that justice had prevailed, even if it was by the hands of other traitors.”

The first man snorted. “I don’t think Stannis or his Red Lady would give a single shit about the Freys,” he said. “They’re just lackeys to the Lannisters. And he’s not the King anymore.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder, and Arya grimaced, almost caught.

Arya went very still, her attention caught the moment the Freys’ names were said.

The Freys.

She closed her eyes.

Walder Frey was at the top of her list, upon returning to Westeros. Tywin Lannister may have given the order, or Cersei, or Joffrey, but Walder had been the one to invite her mother and brother to a wedding, and then had proceeded to have them slaughtered at it.

And these men…

Arya’s eyes narrowed, wondering why Lannister men should give a single shit about the Freys dying, why the King, of all people, ought to care…

Her brows furrowed as she realized suddenly she wasn’t sure who the King was, at the moment. Tommen?

She doubted that the child would be spoken of with such devotion, if that were the case. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a little boy who cried too easily, as if begging his brother to use him for a target.

In Braavos, she had heard that it was a woman who ruled Westeros now, a woman who claimed the King’s power and ruled through a child yet to be born, and surely a newborn wouldn't care about something like justice…

Unless...

“Say what you like about the Starks, the King always had a healthy respect for them,” the first man said. “And what the Freys did to them…well, they deserve everything they got.”

He looked a little queasy though, Arya thought, as she turned her head around the pillar to get a good look at these men, wondering just what the fuck was going on.

And that was when she noticed it.

They were wearing Baratheon armor, though they wore the colors of House Lannister. Fuck if she hadn’t noticed it beofre, though the soldiers in the valley had not been wearing colors at all. 

The soldiers who had been following Tywin Lannister had all been wearing the gold and red of the Lannisters, not a single one of them pretending that they followed a Baratheon King.

Which meant…

Which meant that…

“Still…” one of the men said, still looking disturbed. “I think even the King’s woman would agree that what the Boltons did, it was…too fucking far. And the Boltons were at the fucking Red Wedding too, you know."

A shrug. “Hard to tell where any of these fucking Houses were at any given time, these days,” the first man muttered, not looking like he particularly cared.

Mercenary, Arya labeled him, though the other man, with all of his talk about the King and about justice, was no doubt a true soldier.

A good little soldier, sent into war to die like one.

No doubt, they’d both been part of the army which had taken Casterly Rock, and if Stannis Baratheon controlled the Rock, the last place where Cersei Lannister was rumored to be, then…

Well, Arya couldn’t imagine that Cersei Lannister was still alive.

She felt numb.

If Cersei Lannister was dead, then she had come all of the way to the Rock for nothing, it appeared. She’d fucked herself, when she could have gone and groveled at Sansa’s feet, or at least gone to the Wall to find the only brother she had left.

And instead, she’d sent herself here, to a place full of Lannisters and men who followed Stannis Baratheon because they believed him a god.

A cough from one of the men. “Did you hear that they were flayed alive, all of them, like the Boltons used to do to their enemies? The women and children, too. The Bastard is mad, that one.”

The first voice sounded rather dismissive, even as Arya grimaced.

She remembered Roose Bolton, remembered the sort of man he had been. He was not kind.

But he had been a friend to House Stark, she had thought. And now, he had killed the Boltons. She thought that had to count for something.

“Just be glad Cersei Lannister isn’t mad enough to do the same,” the other man muttered. “Mad bitch would probably like to, if she thought she could get away with it, but she knows she needs us.”

Arya closed her eyes.

So Cersei was still alive, Arya hadn’t been mistaken about that, in the things she had picked up in the marketplaces of Braavos, and then later still, on the ship returning here. 

Good.

Needle itched, against her side, and she grimaced, and wondered if it was so good at all, as the Merling Queen’s face flashed before her eyes again.

“The King is dead, more like than not,” he went on, “And Cersei Lannister may be a cunt, but she sure as shit ain’t stupid. Well, now. Must be plenty stupid to fuck your own-”

“Shut the fuck up, idiot.”

But they both laughed, all the same.

She waited until the mercenary was gone, and then she struck.

“Excuse me,” Arya said, trying her hardest to sound like a Western girl, like what she imagined Robb’s little wife had sounded like, as she walked out from behind the pillar, and the man jumped a little, at the sight of her. “What’s this you say about the Freys?”

The men exchanged uncomfortable glances. “F-How long you been standing there, girlie?”

She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, and rather suspecting that she’d failed. “Long enough. What happened to the Freys?”

She wondered if a Western lady would be this direct, and then she thought of Cersei Lannister, how she had killed her own husband, the King, and found that she didn’t particular care if she was deemed strange for being direct, or not.

“Well, it ain’t for dainty little ears, m’lady,” the first man said, and Arya rolled her eyes.

“My ears are hardly…” she allowed her eyes to trail up and down his body suggestively, the way that she had seen the Merling Queen do to plenty a man, making them weak to her every suggestion, “Dainty.”

He flushed, giving her the same onceover she had just given him, and apparently liking what he saw.

Arya had learned enough, from her time among the Merling Queen’s ladies, even if that time had not been particularly long, to know how to position her body, how to make herself look more desirable to a man, from watching the Merling Queen adjust accordingly every time she met a new man. She had known from the moment she walked up to him that he would tell her what she wanted to know.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard,” the man said, shrugging. “Freys were all butchered not a few nights hence, every man, woman and child in the Riverlands. The Bolton Bastard of Winterfell claimed responsibility for it, came like an animal in the middle of the night and flayed them all alive. They say they could hear their screams down the River. He was gone by morning. The Blackfish has already claimed their lands for himself. Might have half a prayer of actually taking back the Riverlands, now.”

Arya sucked in a breath. “Why?” she asked, forcing herself not to react more than that, even as the blood pumped in her ears.

The Freys were dead.

The Freys were dead.

Every man, woman and child was dead, and the Bolton Bastard of Winterfell had killed them. The Bolton Bastard of Winterfell.

Everything about that title sounded so wrong, to Arya’s ears.

The mercenary shrugged. “They’re saying Cersei Lannister asked him to bring Shireen Baratheon here, and bend the knee,” he said. “This was his answer. The little princess is already halfway to King’s Landing.”

Arya swallowed thickly. “To King’s Landing,” she repeated, because her understanding of this place might be a little rusty after so long, but she would have thought that with Cersei Lannister’s grandson on the throne, King’s Landing would not be seen as an...enemy.

But clearly they were, if the Bolton Bastard of Winterfell was killing Lannister allies, or as close to allies as the Freys could be to anyone when they were only ever looking out for themselves, to spite Cersei.

She should have gone to the Freys, Arya thought, as she had originally planned. She had wanted to go to the Freys, and make them pay for the things that they had done to her brother and her mother.

They said that the Freys had sewn a wolf’s head onto her brother’s neck, after chopping his head off in the first place.

They had very much deserved their place on her list, for that. 

She closed her eyes, and saw Shae, spread out beneath her, body twisted in odd contortions, neck slit, blood pouring out onto the bed, onto her Lannister lover.

Her eyes flew open.

She should have gone to the Freys.

If she had, she could have made them pay, personally, for what they had done to her family, and instead, a family who had been at her brother’s murder, who had actively participated in it, had done it, had gotten rid of them, and she had not.

Had killed them, and where the fuck was the justice in that?

“Hey,” the soldier said, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “I don’t think I should have told you that. You look a little…green. Perhaps you should sit…”

Arya shook her head. “Whose orders did they do it on?” She demanded, because she had to know.

The man shrugged. “No one’s. Cersei Lannister declared war on the Tyrells, and the Boltons slaughtered the Freys in the night while they were traveling to help Cersei out, uh, here,” he looked uncomfortable again, “Against King Stannis, and killed every last one of them. And then, when it was daybreak, they had somehow made it to the Freys’ Keep, and slaughtered the rest of them. Every man, woman, and child.”

He grimaced, again.

Arya stared at him.

“It was their way of declaring for the Tyrells,” the man finished, uncomfortably, looking almost suspicious of her now, and she supposed she was acting strangely, when she ought to already know most of this, as he’d said. “Ah, I forgot to ask. Are you a Lannister servant?”

She stared at him, supposed that made sense, to explain why she was reacting the way that she was, as if she gave a single fuck about the Freys, other than in knowing that she had not been able to kill them herself.

What had been the point of spending all of that time training, when she only came back too late to kill anyone who had been on her list? She may have learned much, but it felt useless to her, now.

She should never have gone to Braavos in the first place.

She nodded, idly. “I…Yes,” she whispered, making her voice sound small, so that he would leave her alone. “I have a cousin who’s a Frey.”

The man swallowed. “Ah,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t’ve…”

She shook her head. “How did they die?” He stared at her. “I mean…” she flushed. “Did any of them die well? Lord Frey, perhaps?”

She was fully aware that he might lie to her, now that she had just said she had a cousin, no doubt dead now, who was a Frey, but she thought that she might at least make the effort.

She hoped that Walder Frey had squealed like a pig, after the way he had laughed about her mother and brother, had killed them at a wedding.

The man shrugged, still looking uncomfortable. “This new Lord Bolton, he is…” he shuddered slightly. “A beast of a man, they say. I didn’t mean to surprise you with this knowledge. The whole castle’s been talking about it, I would have thought a Lannister girl would have known…”

He noticed, then, her lack of golden Lannister hair, she thought, as he fell silent.

She swallowed hard. “More Frey than Lannister, honestly,” she admitted. “I married into the family. My husband, in fact, will be looking for me, soon…”

She was moving away by then, terrified that he would reach out and grab her and that she would have to kill him for it, but the man didn’t seem to care, standing still as she all but fled the courtyard.

She was glad. It wasn’t him she suddenly wanted to kill, at the moment.

The new Lord Bolton was a beast, he’d said.

The new Lord Bolton.

The Boltons had been her family’s allies, she knew, in the North, up until the moment when they’d betrayed her brother at the Red Wedding, had actively taken part in the murders, themselves, she’d heard.

The Waif had enjoyed throwing that at her, whenever Arya didn’t react enough for her, so she knew that as much.

And now, the Freys were dead, butchered in the night, unsuspecting, just as her mother and brother had been unsuspecting, and Arya couldn’t even be happy about the justice of it, because the Boltons had butchered them, and the Boltons had no doubt had the idea because they were at the Fucking Wedding, themselves.

She gritted her teeth, realizing she had walked all of the way to the other end of the courtyard without the soldier following her only then, and she took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, because she needed to be calm, to get out of this place.

She’d been a fool, to come here at all.

If she was going to waste this trip, she should have asked that soldier how it was that Cersei Lannister was still alive when he was a Baratheon soldier, but instead, she’d learned that the Freys were dead, and she could not even have that bit of justice.

She ought to go track down this new Lord Bolton, now, and let him know exactly what she thought of him stealing away what rightfully belonged to her.

She ought to flay him alive, the way it was rumored House Bolton used to punish their enemies…

She ought to…

No.

She had promised herself that she wasn’t going to do that anymore. That she wasn’t going to kill just because she could; a long time ago, a little girl had seen her father, her mother and brother, murdered, and she had made a list of those who had wronged them, who had wronged her.

She had gone to Braavos to learn how to kill the people left on her list, not to kill people who didn’t matter, and she was going to stick to that list.

She had to.

Arya Stark took a deep breath, and was just about to leave the courtyard and…and, she didn’t know what, when she noticed something, a figure, walking along the outer courtyard of the Rock, and her eyes narrowed suddenly, because there was no way that was who she thought it was…

A moment later, Arya forgot all of her protestations about not killing anyone else who wasn’t on her list, anyone else whose death wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t have meaning to her.

She sucked in a breath, and Arya’s eyes widened at the sight of the man, and before she knew what she was doing, her feet were stalking across the courtyard, following him, leaving the soldier behind without a second glance.

Because she knew this man, and that wasn’t possible, because she shouldn’t know anyone in the Rock, she shouldn’t see this particular fucking man in the Rock.

He rounded the corner, out of the courtyard and into a narrow hallway, and Arya followed him, unthinking, the fury she’d been trying to force down moments ago rearing its ugly head once more, and this time, she didn’t try to stop it.

She reveled in it.

This man wasn’t on her list, but by the gods, he ought to have been.

Arya didn’t think she’d put him on her list because she’d simply been…too shocked that yet another person who had pledged their loyalty to the Starks, who she’d known as a brother, once, had betrayed them.

Had been lost to her.

She ought to have added him to the list, when she’d heard about the things he’d done to her brothers, but she’d been too horrified, and by then, she’d been No One, not Arya Stark, and she knew that she shouldn’t have cared, so she hadn’t dared to add it.

Besides, she knew that the Waif would ask her why his name was on her list, and she didn’t think that she could bear to talk about Rickon and Bran.

They were innocents, in all of this, more so than her father and brother had been, because they were just children, and she didn’t want to think of them and death in the same breath.

But he had still done that. Still murdered them, because it suited his wretched, jealous little self to steal Winterfell from the Starks, who had raised him like their own-

By that point, she was already moving, so close that she could reach out and touch him, if she wanted to.

She didn’t.

The darkness of the corridor they were in, abandoned save for the two of them, made her feel brave enough to speak up.

“Theon,” she hissed, and watched his back go very still, watched as he slowly turned around, and his jaw fell open at the sight of her.

If she had been No One, she thought that she might have enjoyed the look on his face, the utter and complete shock there, before his face morphed into something pathetic and terrified, and he swallowed hard.

Arya found herself mirroring the action, unthinking.

“No,” he said, and his eyes blew wide with terror, belying his words as he backed up one step, and then another. “No, I’m not him, I swear. My name is Reek, it’s not Theon, I don’t know…”

“Stop lying, Theon,” she snapped, as she backed him up against the wall behind him. He gulped, and suddenly, a knife was in her hand, pressed against his belly. A part of her just wanted to start cutting into him, without giving him the chance to speak to her again, because how dare he try to deny who he was, when they had grown up together, when she knew damn well exactly who he was. “Or I swear by the gods, I’ll start cutting you open until you admit who you are, you fucking coward.”

Her eyes were wet. She didn’t know when that had started, and she angrily reached up to swipe at one of them with her free hand. The other, holding the knife, trembled.

She might just cut him open again.

He let out a whimper, as if she’d spoken the thought aloud. “Please, my name is Reek,” he whispered. “I swear, I’m not that man anymore, and I didn’t-”

“Shut the fuck up!” She shouted, and then stilled, fully aware that her shout would no doubt bring servants or soldiers running, at any moment.

She maneuvered him as quickly as she could through the corridor, and found a small room in the hallway behind that one to throw him into, shutting the door behind the both of them and latching, it tightly.

Theon stared at her, looking betrayed, and she felt another burst of fury, that he might look at her like that, after what he had done.

She raised the knife.

Perhaps he hadn’t been on her list, but he belonged there, and she had never given anyone else on her list the chance to explain themselves. She certainly wasn’t going to start, now.

“Wait, please!” He begged, falling down onto his knees on the floor, and Arya stared down at him in disgust, the knife lowering slightly as she found herself wondering if he was even worth it, this pathetic, sad little creature kneeling at her feet, who she had once looked up to the same way that she had looked up to Robb.

She had just told herself that he deserved to be on her list, though he had never been, and now, here she was, not even able to kill him because he was too fucking pathetic.

“Get up, Theon,” she snapped at him, and he grimaced, raising his hands above him wordlessly, his whole body shaking.

She thought about her brothers, about poor Rickon and Bran, who’d been barely more than babes the last time she had seen them, about how she might have been a child forced to grow up far too quickly, but her brothers had never gotten that chance.

Theon had killed them before they ever had that chance.

“Arya…” he stared up at her, with wide, haunted eyes, and Arya gritted her teeth, pressing the knife into the soft flesh of his stomach.

Or…not so flesh. The Theon she had known had never had much fat on him, but the man in front of her looked barely more than flesh and bones.

She didn’t let herself think about why for very long.

“I said get the fuck up!” She snapped at him, a small, wicked part of her delighting in the way that he flinched at her raised voice.

And then he was getting to his feet, hands still raised above his head, trying valiantly to meet her eyes. Well, valiant for a fucking coward.

“I didn’t kill your brothers, Arya,” he told her, and he was crying, but she didn’t care, because she was crying, too, and he deserved everything she was about to do to him, because again, he was lying. He swallowed hard. “I know you don’t believe me now, but I didn’t kill your brothers, I swear.”

He was still shaking.

She wondered if he was that afraid to die, or if he feared what she would do to him before she killed him.

“Because you’re not Theon?” She sneered.

He flinched. “I-I-I…”

She scoffed at him. “My father treated you like a son, like family,” she told him, mercilessly when she saw the way he wilted a little, under her words. “He was only ever kind to you, and he didn’t have to be. But he had honor. And those boys…they were your brothers, too. Where was the honor in killing them, Theon?”

Theon’s eyes were wet. His tears were slipping down in dirty tracks on his cheeks.

Arya couldn’t meet them, suddenly; she found herself talking to somewhere at his chest level, rather than his face. “Why did you do it?”

She had thought, a moment ago, that she didn’t need an explanation, but those other people on her list…they had wronged her, but they hadn’t been family, once.

His lips quivered. “I…I didn’t kill them, Arya,” he swore, his whole body shaking when she stuck the knife a little bit deeper, until she encountered resistance, and she wanted nothing more than to plunge the knife further, to watch the blood and the guts seep out of him the way they had the Merling Queen…

“Arya, I swear by the old gods, I didn’t touch them!” He cried, and there was something almost animal in the way that he curled in on himself, hands still raised, not bothering to flee or fight back, that Arya paused.

“I heard what you did,” she snapped at him. “You hung their little bodies outside of Winterfell after you burned them. You butchered them like animals, little boys who used to call you Theo because they were too young to say your name right, and you killed them just so you could call yourself the Fucking Lord of Winterfell!”

He was shaking his head, again, sobs leaking out of him loudly, and Arya would have spared a thought to the idea that they might be overheard if she kept shouting and he kept crying for very much longer, but no one had come so far, and she found that she didn’t particularly care, just now.

She just wanted him to stop lying to her, to fucking explain himself so that she could kill him and then get out of this fucking place, which never brought anything but misery.

Cersei, still alive. Theon, too much of a coward to admit everything that he’d stolen from her.

“Not…not them,” Theon rasped out, and she stared at him. “I swear, it wasn’t them, Arya. It wasn’t them. I needed the bodies, so I took them, but it wasn’t Rickon and Bran. I wouldn’t…I couldn’t have done that.”

Arya stared at him. She wanted to disbelieve him, to continue driving the knife through his stomach until she felt his insides in her hands, but…horrifyingly, she believed him, could see the truth in his eyes, and somehow, that was worse.

“Where are they?” She demanded, not letting up on the knife because she didn’t think that her hand was capable of it.

Theon shook his head. “I don’t know.” She raised an eyebrow. “I swear, I don’t. They…they left, a long time before the Boltons ever took Winterfell. I lost them, and then I had two boys from the village who looked like them killed and said they were dead so that I could claim Winterfell,” he gasped out, all in one horrible, pathetic breath, and Arya stared at him.

“No,” she breathed, and her legs suddenly felt wobbly.

Theon cleared his throat. “It…it’s true,” he whispered, hoarsely. “I swear, Arya, it’s true. I…”

Her little brothers could still be alive. 

It was unlikely, she could admit, and didn’t feel as horrible at the admittance as she might have, believing them dead all of this time, if no one else in the Seven Kingdoms had seen them, but then again, no one had seen her, either.

Something that felt strangely like…hope, welled up within her, and she swallowed hard.

It had been a long time since she’d had the feeling. She almost didn’t recognize it when she did.

But…

But even if her brothers were still alive out there, somewhere, Theon had still killed two little boys her brothers’ ages, so that he could take her home for himself.

Surely, he deserved to pay for that, she thought, and even as she had the thought, she found that she couldn’t drive the knife into his gut, even though dear gods, she wanted to.

She sagged a little, the knife going limp in her hand, though she didn’t lower it.

Theon seemed very aware of that fact, as he stared down at it, and Arya let out a sigh.

“What the fuck happened to you, Theon?” She whispered. 

He blinked up at her. “I…I…”

He didn’t bother to offer an explanation after that, falling silent, and Arya gritted her teeth, annoyed with him all over again.

She huffed, turning and walking towards the door to the room, and unlatching it.

“W-Where are you going?” He asked her back, and Arya sighed, because she had just made up her mind that perhaps leaving him alive would be a more fitting punishment than killing him, and there he went again…talking.

“Winterfell,” she said, shortly.

He sucked in a breath. “Why? The Boltons…Arya, they’re not nice people, and now that Stannis is gone to the North, they’ll either already have Winterfell back, or they’ll be taking it back, very soon.”

Arya gritted her teeth. “Not if I can stop it.”

She could hear him scrambling up behind her. “No, you don’t understand. Arya…these people…hells, why would you want to go there?”

She didn’t need to explain herself to him, Arya told herself. She didn’t need to tell him that after what had happened to Shae, she couldn’t bring herself to meet her sister’s gaze, to go back to Sansa, where she was still stuck in King’s Landing, and that she was going to Winterfell to find brothers who were no doubt long gone, if no one had found them since they’d escaped Theon, on the off chance that they were hiding in the woods, just waiting for her to find them.

“Wait,” he said, and Arya paused, turning around, supposing that she could at least humor him in this one thing, if she was going to leave him alive to let his guilt slowly eat away at him. Theon took a deep breath.

“I’ll go with you, to Winterfell,” Theon said, swallowing hard.

Arya stared at him. “No,” she said, finally, and he slumped a little. She felt strangely compelled to defend her choice. “You would just slow me down.”

He sighed. “There’s something I have to do, there. Someone I left behind.”

Arya scoffed. “Who, my brothers?” She demanded.

Theon shook his head. “Arya, please.”

Arya cocked her head. “Why did you leave Winterfell to begin with?” She asked, curious.

The last thing she’d heard, Theon had stolen Winterfell from her brothers after he’d executed them like criminals, and not the children they were, and she supposed it made sense that he would have lost it, being such a fucking coward, but it didn’t make sense that he was here, at the Rock.

He sighed. “Stannis...Lord Stannis, he took me with him, when he took Winterfell. My…Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton’s bastard…well, I suppose Lord Bolton, now, he just…I was his captive, and he just forgot about me, when he was fleeing. Lord Stannis thought I would be of more use here because, I suppose, he thought he was coming back.”

He said it like the knowledge hurt him, somehow, that the man who had kept him captive - Arya assumed - had left him behind to be caught by Stannis Baratheon, instead.

She didn’t dare ask.

He’d told her that his name was Reek, after all. She wasn’t certain that she wanted to know.

It would only make her feel bad for him, she knew that much, and the last thing she wanted at the moment was to feel pity for him.

“Stannis…King Stannis, he thought that I would be a good bargaining chip against the Iron Islands, and he intended to…to use me, for that,” he whispered, and his voice was very hoarse. He lowered his head, and whispered, “They didn’t want me, either. I…I don’t know why he’s still kept me alive, after that.”

Arya sucked in a breath. “Imagine that,” she said, cruelly, because she could, and because she wanted the words to hurt, “Your own family, after you butchered the last one that you found, didn’t want you near them.”

Theon grimaced. “Arya…”

She lifted her chin. “You may not have killed them,” she hissed at him, “but if you did, and this is just some sort of false hope you’re giving me, I swear, by something that matters,” she didn’t say the old gods and the new, because they hardly mattered, didn’t they? “I swear, that I will come back here and make you wish that Stannis had killed you.”

Theon lowered his head. 

Satisfied, Arya turned around and threw open the door to the room, walking out into the hallway, ignoring Theon when he called after her.

“Wait!”

She kept walking, down the hallway, back the way she had come, ignoring both Theon and the strange looks of the few servants who passed them, looking confused at the sight of the young woman ignoring the man trailing after her, no doubt coming to completely the wrong impression about the matter, too.

“Arya, it’s about your brother,” he said, and she turned around, and blinked at him.

For a moment, she thought he was going to say that one of them was dead, that he’d said ‘brother’ because something had happened to one of them, but…looking into his eyes, she’d believed him earlier, and besides, there was something about the way he’d said the word…

Oh, gods.

“Jon?” She whispered, because even if Theon hadn’t killed her younger brothers, they had never been found, and that meant that they were no doubt lost. Jon was the only one left to her, besides Sansa, and she couldn’t go to Sansa now, not if what the woman had said was true and she really was Sansa’s friend.

He shook his head. “Take me with you, and I’ll tell you,” he promised.

She snorted, the answer to that coming easily. Not worth it, not even a little bit. No doubt he was just trying to trick her, and he didn’t know a damn thing about Jon. It wouldn’t make sense that he would know anything about Jon, at the Wall, anyway.

“No,” she said, and started walking again, a calculated move.

“It’s not safe for you out there, alone,” he called after, and she bit back a laugh.

“I’ll be fine,” she told him, not bothering to turn around as she did so. “I’ve survived on my own this long, trust me.”

A heavy silence. Arya bit back a sigh, a traitorous part of her warring up within her.

No.

No, she was not about to help Theon Greyjoy get away from his captor, even if he hadn’t killed her brothers. He’d still betrayed Robb and stolen Winterfell for himself. She didn’t owe him anything.

“He’s not at the Wall,” Theon told her. “So if you’re going to Winterfell hoping to go to the Wall after, you’re not going to find him there.”

Arya paused, turning back around at the base of the courtyard. “Where is he?” She breathed.

Theon grimaced, opening his mouth, and for one horrifying moment, she thought that he was going to tell her that, after all of this time, Jon was dead. That she had left only Sansa, who would hate her the moment she laid eyes on her, because, by the way the woman and the Imp had put it, Shae had been the only friend Sansa had, in King’s Landing.

And then the courtyard was pouring with dozens of people, streaming into the place with a frenzied fear, tripping over themselves as they poured out of the corridor that she and Theon had just left, and out of a dozen other ones, besides that, making their way for the great gates of the Keep, and Arya blinked in confusion, glancing at Theon.

But Theon…

Theon had already been swept up by the crowd and pulled away, and Arya swore under her breath, because now, of course, she had to go after him.

She had to know what he meant, about her brother.

About…Jon.

Fuck.

She started forward, following after him without really thinking about what she was doing, because she knew that if she did, she was only going to be annoyed with herself.

Theon, or Reek, whatever he was calling himself now, chased after her.

“Please, Arya,” he told her. “Jon isn’t at the Wall. You can’t…”

“I already told you, I’m into going to the Wall,” Arya hissed out, spinning on him then. “I’m going home.”

Theon shuddered. “Arya…”

“Who are the boys you murdered, then?” she demanded, and found some satisfaction in the way that Theon flinched. She knew that was somewhat hypocritical of her; after all, she didn’t know the names of many of those she had murdered in braavos, for the Many Faced God. Hadn’t cared, at the time.

She cared now, though she didn’t know if that meant anything.

“If they weren’t my brothers, who were they? What were their names?”

Theon flinched again. 

Arya lifted her chin. “Where’s Cersei?” she asked, determined that he was going to be of at least some use, if he was going to follow her around like a useless puppy whom she couldn't even bring herself to kill, not even after the things that he had done to her family.

He grimaced. “Not here,” he said, and Arya felt her stomach sink, at his words.

She had come all of this way for nothing, it seemed. She could have easily learned along the road to Winterfell what had become of her family home, what had become of the Freys because of the people who now had Winterfell.

“She went to King’s Landing, to attend Joffrey’s funeral,” he said, and if there was one good thing she had learned since returning to this wretched kingdom, Arya thought, it was that at least Joffrey was very much dead.

For a moment, Arya considered that was where she ought to go next. Even if she couldn’t stomach the thought of facing Sansa, she knew that she would have to find her sister eventually; Sansa was what remained of her family, these days, and Cersei was in King’s Landing.

Arya had come here to kill Cersei. She might as well go to King’s Landing.

But...her heart yearned for Winterfell, yearned to meet this man who thought he could steal her vengeance from her and put the bastard in his place. Yearned to know what had become of her brothers, brothers she had long thought dead.

“Then I’m going,” she said, bitterly, and started walking, ignoring the way that Theon, or Reek, chased after her, calling out desperately for her to wait.

She had waited long enough to go home, after all.

She made it as far as the outer walls of the Keep, ignoring the way that Theon shouted after her even with the strange looks that were sent her way because o f it, all of the way to the outer gates where the guards gave her a bit more attention than they had, going in.

The serving girl they had singled out before was nowhere in sight, now.

Theon moved forward, almost protectively, and Arya grimaced, wanting to shrug off his touch the moment his arm wrapped so proprietarily around her waist.

Wanting to punch him, more like.

“Look at that,” one of the guards said, amused now more than interested in her. “Freak’s found himself a bitch desperate enough for him,” one of them said. “I don’t suppose you wanna cue us in how you managed it, eh?”

Theon flushed crimson.

Arya lifted her chin. “I’m due out in the valley,” she said, crisply. “Master’s expecting me. Unless you want to explain to my lord why I’m late?”

Theon blinked at her.

The soldiers grimaced. “Of course not…” one of them began, but didn’t get much farther.

“She’s not going anywhere,” a new soldier said, stalking up the hill towards them, followed by at least a dozen more, and followed with the eyes of far more than that. “None of you are. Not while you belong to Cersei Lannister and her brat.”

Arya did roll her eyes, then. For a moment, she’d been terrified that he had somehow found out who she was, but this was almost worse. To be lumped in with Cersei lannister about anything...Arya made a face.

“The bitch is gone,” the Baratheon soldier said, straightening up. “Left her bastard behind, and we’ll take no more of her demands here, without her here to grovel with her gold for them.”

Laughter, throughout the crowd.

The Lannister soldiers seemed annoyed by that. “You seemed happy enough to listen to her demands while she was here, with your own ‘king’ gone and fucked off to his own death.”

“I’ll hear no words against Cersei Lannister,” another said, and Arya resisted the sudden urge to laugh.

“Nor I against the true King,” the first man said, and Arya slid fluidly under an arm and into the crowd of soldiers who looked absolutely ready to swing their swords at any second.

Vaguely, she was aware of Theon following along behind her, but Arya ignored him. She suddenly had a much larger concern, for the valley was a large one, which stood between them and the way out of the Westerlands, and it was suddenly about to become the scene of a battle, she could see that damn well clearly, now.

“You will let us pass into the Rock, or you will meet the end of my sword, coward,” the man said, and Arya grimaced as she pulled her hood up a little higher around her neck, glancing sideways at Theon, who was determinedly not meeting her gaze as she walked along, as silent as she could manage.

She knew how to make herself disappear. The fact that Theon would not leave her alone, however, was a challenge she didn’t like, not just now.

She had not come this far to be cut down by a Baratheon, or a Lannister.

She knew a moment before it happened, watched with something like blankness as the first, Baratheon soldier cut into the Lannister man’s throat, as blood spurted out over the grass.

As pandemonium broke out, with that first swing, and without really understanding why she did it, Arya reached out and grabbed Theon’s arm, dragging him along behind her lest he get himself killed in the melee.

He had promised her a secret, after all, and she couldn’t quite stomach the thought of leaving him here to die, by chance or accident, rather than by her own sword, after the things he had done.

Theon stared at her in shock as they rounded another soldier, staring down at their entwined fingers.

Arya dropped his hand in disgust, and kept marching forward, pulling Needle free of her clothes when it became apparent that they weren’t getting out of this valley without a fight, and that Theon had no weapon of his own.

He knows where Jon is, she told herself, as she considered him over the top of Needle.

And then she swung, and Theon ducked with a silent, tortured scream as she buried Needle in the throat of the soldier rushing at them behind him.

The man fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Arya watched him, that feeling of impassiveness that she’d felt as she watched the Merling Queen die beneath her rising up in her once again.

She hated it. Hated that she was forced to feel it for the sake of Theon Greyjoy, of all people.

“He’s North of the Wall, Arya,” Theon said, very quietly, as he stared down at the man, gurgling on the ground. “With Stannis Baratheon, and Ser Jaime Lannister.” He licked his lips.

Arya stared at him, something like fear welling up within her. For a moment, seh didn’t understand his words, didn’t understand what he meant until she realized that he was giving away his only leverage, because of what she had just done, and then, she didn’t understand how he could be so stupid as to tell her when they weren’t even clear of what was rapidly becoming a new battle.

And then the words sank in, and she didn’t have time to think about the rest.

She knew her brother had spent all of these years at the Wall, but surely, that was very different from… “What the fuck is he doing there?” She asked, even if a part of her already knew the answer to that question, somehow.

Sometimes, in the night, since she had stopped being No One, she dreamt of white faces and blue eyes wreathed in snow.

* * *

“Janei,” Genna whispered fiercely, and there was a fear in her words that Janei had not heard even when Cersei had crowned Tommen as King. “I need you to listen very carefully. Our lives depend on it.”

Janei grimaced, not liking the sudden fear on the woman’s face. “What is it?” she asked, even as the sounds of battle raged outside. She remembered that sound, from the last time that Stannis Baratheon’s men had marched through the Westerlands, burning the ground behind them, killing anyone who stood against them in the name of a king who was, in fact, a bastard.

Genna stared at her for several long moments, as if she were choosing her next words carefully, and Janei was distantly aware that the other woman was trying not to scare her.

But when the servants had burst into their chambers, announcing that a fight had broken out at the gates that was quickly turning into a bloodbath, Janei had known that this wasn’t some simple misunderstanding, that something terrible was about to happen.

She licked her lips.

Since then, the fight had turned into a full blown battle, the members of Stannis’ army who had not two weeks ago declared for Cersei’s son turning on the Lannister soldiers who remained at the Rock, defending Tommen’s claim. 

She could hear the shouts and sounds of war from Genna’s chambers, and Janei found it suddenly difficult to breathe as she remembered how it had felt for the Rock to be surrounded by Stannis’ men, and at the mercy of whatever Jaime and Stannis Baratheon managed to negotiate before all of them were killed.

She gulped.

Jaime wasn’t here now, and neither was Stannis. For that matter, neither was Cersei. She had made the decision to leave her son amongst these men, and Janei had thought that with her absence, she might finally be able to breathe again, because surely if Cersei trusted the situation enough to leave her son here, then they had to be safe.

And of course, not days after she started for King’s Landing, the Baratheons and Lannisters were at each other’s throats once more, without a single Baratheon or Lannister to lead them.

She knew what it was that Genna was going to tell her, now. Knew that it would be the same thing that the other woman had prepared her to do the last time that this had happened, when Jaime Lannister was still here and the other woman feared that he would not be able to negotiate with Stannis Baratheon because he was not the sort of man to be negotiated with.

She swallowed hard.

Somehow, Jaime had managed it, even with much of his own army still back in King’s Landing, with many more of them frightened at the thought of fighting Stannis’ army, growing as it was.

But he wasn’t here, now.

He’d gone North with that very same man and most of their troops, and left them here in the hands of Baratheon soldiers who didn’t give a damn about Lannisters, not when their lord was constantly reminding them that the Lannisters were nothing more than duplicitous liars.

And they wouldn’t care that Tommen was a child, either. Stannis hadn’t cared about that when he had declared all of the Baratheon children bastards.

She swallowed hard. 

She knew what Genna was going to ask her, and yet, she was terrified at the thought of doing that thing.

It had been a miracle, Janei had thought at the time, that Genna had convinced Cersei to let Janei stay here, to serve Tommen, while she went to King’s Landing without him. Cersei had been very insistent, though Tommen had thrown the first tantrum over it that she had ever seen from him, when he was normally such a well behaved boy, that he not travel with her to King’s Landing, even for his own brother’s funeral.

And Janei did not know if it was because Cersei was beginning to trust Janei now, if she trusted her with Tommen, or because she wanted her to keep an eye on Genna that she gave in so easily to Genna’s entreaties to leave her here, but now, Janei was beginning to wonder if she would regret not traveling with Cersei to the capital.

She licked her lips. “I…”

“Janei,” Genna said, and her voice was harsher now, coarser. “Do you want to be responsible for Tommen’s death?”

Janei flinched at the other woman’s tone. “I can’t…”

“You are the only one who can do this, do you understand?” Genna asked her, calmly, and Janei glanced up sharply, meeting the other woman’s gaze, not liking the words the other woman was leaving out.

She was older, of course, but she was not so old that she could not come with them, Janei thought, desperately. And yet, she knew that was exactly what Genna was going to say next. Because it was what she had said the last time.

That she could not flee while there was still a Rock to defend, that someone had to remain behind to fight to the last, because Lannisters were not cowards, but proud lions.

Janei felt a little bit like a coward. No matter what was happening in King’s Landing, she doubted that it included a siege from traitorous soldiers who knew far too much about the city to begin with.

“Take Tommen and your brother out through the sewers,” Genna whispered. “You remembered where I showed you how to get out through there?”

Janei nodded, breathless. “But…” she whispered. “What about…”

“I’ll take care of Cersei, if she seeks to take me to task for this,” Genna muttered, darkly. Then, “Find something less flashy for the boy to wear, something a serving boy would wear, for protection. He is not a king, no matter what Cersei seeks to call him, Janei, and you must do whatever you can to keep him safe from those who will see him as only that. Do you understand?”

Janei swallowed hard. “I…”

“Swear to me,” Genna said, squeezing her shoulderblades. Hard.

Janei gulped. “I swear,” she whispered, and the finality of the situation seemed to settle around her shoulders even as Genna let go of them.

Genna didn't think that they would keep Casterly Rock, she realized, by the end of this fight. Or, if they did, she didn't think it would be safe for Tommen to remain here as a King, anyway.

Cersei had said, while Janei combed out her hair, that she had named her son king in order to protect him. Genna was instructing her not to call him that, not to treat him as such, in order to protect him.

Janei’s mind buzzed in worry.

“Go to your mother, in Crakehall,” Genna went on. “She’ll be able to keep you safe, there, and the soldiers won’t come for you for at least a little while. I can figure out where to go, from there, to fix all of this. But in the mean time...Do not let the world know that the King is in Crakehall, do you understand? You must do whatever you can to ensure an army doesn’t show up there, Janei. Promise me.”

Janei didn’t bother to point out, just then, that if it was the Lannister soldiers coming for them, they would want Selyse, who was there, and if it was not, she and her brother and Tommen would hardly be safer from the Baratheon soldiers at Crakehall than they were here.

She thought she understood what Genna meant, after all. If it came down to it, she was to speak for Genna, letting the world know that the Lannisters didn’t consider Tommen a king, for his own safety, because if they did, someone would always want to kill him.

She thought about Cersei’s sharp eyes and dangerous fury, about the fear she had seen on Genna’s features as Cersei crowned her son and asked the Baratheon soldiers to join her, now that their king had abandoned them.

And they had done it, far too easily, it seemed.

She licked her lips. “Come with me,” she whispered, hoarsely. Because she couldn’t do as Genna wanted her to now. She was just a girl, and not a particularly smart or brave one, at that.

She couldn’t speak for House Lannister, against Cersei, if something did happen to Genna. Couldn’t keep Tommen safe against an army.

And yet, Genna was asking her to do just that.

Genna’s smile was sad. “Someone has to clean up your cousin’s mess, dear,” she said, sounding annoyingly resolved. “Now, go. Hurry.”

Janei did, running down the hallway with tears pricking at her eyes at the thought of what might happen to Genna if she did leave her behind, as she ran to Tommen’s chambers, and threw open the door to find Martyn, dressed in his armor and sword raised, waiting for her.

Well, perhaps not for her, but certainly for an intruder.

Tommen was sitting on the bed, looking dangerously close to tears.

Martyn’s face melted in relief, at the realization that she was his sister, and not an enemy. Slowly, he lowered his sword.

Janei found herself wishing he wouldn’t.

“What’s going on-?”

“We have to go,” Janei interrupted, and saw the same fear that she felt reflected on Martyn’s features.

“They have the gates surrounded. We can see them out there, through the window,” Martyn said, scrambling to his feet and reaching for his scabbard, as Janei rushed further into the room and towards Tommen’s clothes, stacked away in a wardrobe somewhere. It took her longer than she liked to find some that didn’t look like they belonged to a king.

Even a noble boy was better than a king, she reasoned, as she found a hood to cover his golden hair.

“We’re not going out through the gates,” she said, carefully, tossing the clothes at Tommen. The boy blushed as he fumbled with them, and Janei swallowed hard.

Gods, he was far too young to be anything like the king Cersei wanted to name him as.

She wished they had time to run to the kitchens and grab some food, before they ran, but Janei didn’t even think they really had time for Tommen to change clothes.

“Where are we going?” Tommen asked, clinging like a limpet to the clothes in his hands.

Janei glanced down at him, feeling suddenly sick that all of this fighting might result in the loss of his head, that this might just be only the beginning, with the fact that Cersei had all but declared war against the Tyrells when she had crowned him.

Sometimes, she forgot how young he was, Janei thought idly. Barely more than a child, with barely more than a basic understanding of what was going on around him, and outside those gates, downstairs, men were already falling on their swords for him. 

That was what it meant to be a king, even if Tommen wasn’t really the king of anything, as Genna had said.

“Somewhere safe,” she promised him, even as the words tasted like ash in her mouth.

She glanced up at Martyn, and found that his eyes were as wide and frightened as her own. He hesitated a moment, and then nodded.

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said. “We’re going to Crakehall, to my mother. You’ll be safe there. I’m your Kingsguard.” He straightened his shoulders, the ill fitting armor making Janei grimace at the thought of running all of the way there, if they had to.

“I am meant to do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

The words didn’t seem to reassure Tommen, Janei thought, as she gave his hand another gentle squeeze. She couldn’t quite blame him. Martyn looked so damn young, too.

“We have to run now, though,” she whispered, because even if Genna seemed to have planned for this, had known they would have to use the sewers to escape if the way she had brought Janei down to see them not a week before was any indication, she couldn’t have known exactly how this was going to happen.

Clearly, once they made their way out of the sewers, they were going to have to escape on foot, and with the sounds of battle still clanging behind them, Janei hated their odds.

Still, they didn’t have another choice, she thought, as the screams seemed to swell into a crescendo.

Martyn’s grip on his sword tightened, his face spasming nervously, and Janei wished, for once, that her brother was better at hiding his emotions from her. That when he lied and told Tommen that he would protect them, she believed him a little more.

“Do you hear me, Tommen?” she whispered, and waited for the boy to turn and look at her again, even as Martyn already started moving. “Run!”


	20. King's Landing

_ “I don’t know what to do,” Sansa whispered hoarsely, into the darkness. “Margaery is…” she cleared her throat. “The Margaery that I know, the woman who was once so good at all of this, who could spin circles around Joffrey…I’m afraid that she’s gone.” _

_ Admitting those words aloud was terrifying; somehow, it made them all the more likely to be true. _

_ But she knew that they were; she had been watching, in something like the blind terror she had felt ever since Joffrey had cut off her father’s head and she had realized who he truly was, ever since Margaery had killed her husband and Sansa had wondered if the other girl truly was capable of this. _

_ Everything that they had sacrificed, everyone who had died to get them to this point, and now that they were here, she wasn’t certain that Margaery was capable of anything she used to be. _

_ Sansa swallowed hard, desperately wanting to hear her companion tell her that she was jumping at shadows, seeing things that weren’t really there. That Margaery was just…adjusting, and trying to convince the rest of them that she mourned her husband. _

_ It was all a charade, like her marriage had been. _

_ Today, when Margaery had sat on the Iron Throne and not given a single damn about anything her lords said to her in their reports, that had been a show her of her fierce love for a dead husband. _

_ When they had told her that they had found her husband’s “murderers” and wanted to know what she wanted done with them, and she had all but laughed in their faces maniacally, that had been a show, hysteria, perhaps.  _

_ Silence. _

_ Slowly, Sansa turned around to meet Baelish’s eyes, her own widening. “You think that she’s gone too, don’t you?” She asked.  _

_ Baelish’s eyes were gentle; he looked sad to be admitting it, which was more than she would have expected from him. _

_ Hells, everything that he had done for her since the moment she had sent that boy running to him had been more than she was expecting. Especially after the way that she had treated him in Highgarden, and dear gods, Sansa didn’t know what to make of it. _

_ Didn’t know what to make of his careful calculations, on the night of the king’s death, when neither she nor Margaery was capable of coherent thought, much less covering up the death of a king, didn’t know what to make of the absurdly gentle way that he treated Sansa, after he had taunted her with Jeyne’s fate. _

_ Didn’t know what to make of the way that he plotted to keep Margaery as the Regent of the Iron Throne, when she knew that he was jealous of the other girl, of what she had with Sansa. _

_ She swallowed hard. _

_ Baelish sighed. “When I first met Margaery Tyrell,” he said, voice whisper soft despite the fact that they were very much alone here, in Sansa’s chambers, “I was immediately impressed by her ambition. She struck me as the sort of woman who will take whatever she wishes, whatever the cost, and who had the smarts to do so.” _

_ Sansa licked her lips; she didn’t want to reminisce about the woman that she loved with a man who claimed to love her, after all. She just wanted to know that everything was going to be okay. _

_ “And I think…” Baelish went on, in that whisper soft voice, as he moved closer to her, “I think that any woman capable of stringing Joffrey Baratheon along for the amount of time that she did, is capable of coming back from this.” _

_ Sansa swallowed hard, staring up at him in surprise. _

_ He truly believed that, she realized. He truly believed that Margaery could come back from this, that she could survive this and become the person she had once been. _

_ It was strange, Sansa realized, as she pulled back abruptly from him, staring at Petyr Baelish in a new light as she realized that he had just told her the truth. _

_ She had thought she was finally beginning to understand him, but perhaps she had only been beginning to understand what he wanted her to. _

_ Oh, she was not naive enough to think that she was as smart as he was, not after everything she had seen him to be capable of. But in this moment, realizing that she could tell he had been lying to her about nearly everything from the start, just because of one reassuring comment about Margaery…oh, it felt good, even if a part of her was terrified about what it meant for what his plans truly were. _

_ She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly before daring to speak again. “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated. “Even if she does come back, considering what happened today I think it will take time…” _

_ “And in that time, Cersei will have figured out what she wants to do in retaliation to her son’s death,” Baelish said, calmly, when the words he spoke of didn’t make Sansa feel calm, not at all. “And the lords of King’s Landing will scrape for any available power they can find, with a weak Regent on the Iron Throne.” _

_ Sansa swallowed hard. “You said you’d help me,” she whispered. _

_ He raised a single eyebrow; she had summoned him here to talk about the marriage Margaery had promised her into, on the night of Joffrey’s death, a marriage that Sansa had agreed to, but didn’t want. _

_ At the time, she had thought it was the only way, given the way Baelish always looked at her. _

_ Now, she wasn’t so certain. _

_ “I said that I would help you cover up Joffrey’s murder,” he said, slowly. _

_ Sansa nodded her head. “Yes,” she whispered, “and if the Queen goes mad because of what he did to her, it won’t take the rest of the court long to figure out we were lying about he died.” _

_ Baelish stared at her for a moment, and then he stepped forward, taking her hands in his own. _

_ She stared down at their touching fingers, swallowed hard. _

_ She wondered if her mother had ever liked him, or had merely felt pity for him. Wondered if he had repulsed her as much as he did Sansa. _

_ “Sansa…” he drew the word out slowly, and Sansa closed her eyes. Could hear the longing in his voice, but it wasn’t…wasn’t the sort of longing she had expected it to be. _

_ It reminded Sansa of the longing she’d heard in Margaery’s voice, when she spoke of how she was going to murder her husband. _

_ Her eyes snapped open, at those words, and she blinked up at him, as he moved closer still to her. _

_ “I have watched over you since you were such a young, naive thing, in this court,” Baelish said, and she swallowed hard, tried not to show how it unsettled her, to hear him talk about her like this. “I have seen you mature into a woman who knows how to play the game, when before, you could not even lie. I see you, Sansa Stark.” _

_ She swallowed hard, transfixed by his words even when she knew that she shouldn’t be. _

_ And a part of her knew that he was right, at least somewhat. _

_ If they wanted to survive this, Margaery had already proven that at least at the moment, she was incapable of much more than staying alive, herself. That she couldn’t lead the Seven Kingdoms, like this. _

_ And Sansa…Sansa knew her. She knew enough of Margaery to know what she might decide to do, in the coming months, if she were in her right mind. She knew enough about Margaery’s family to know what they would expect, from their Regent. _

_ She knew enough about Cersei to know how the other woman would retaliate, whether she knew the truth of what had happened to her son, or not. _

_ “I see that you are capable of far more than the people of King’s Landing seem to think that you are,” he went on. “That your future…it could be something truly greater than anyone who ever met the hostage daughter of House Stark could ever imagine. That you could be the true power behind the Iron Throne, that you could bring this city to its knees, with all of the secrets you know about it. With just a bit of help. You can do this. You can keep this throne together, until we can figure out something more…certain.” _

_ Sansa blinked, the spell lost, with those words. She imagined she knew damn well whose help he envisioned her having. _

_ And she had no doubt that whatever ‘certain’ plan Baelish had in mind, it was not one she would like.  _

_ “What do you want from me?” She whispered. “I mean, really, really want from me. No more lies, this time. I have to know.” _

_ She met his eyes, then, in the vain hope that doing so might reveal something of those ambitions to her, because for all that Petyr Baelish had been a constant in her life for so long now, she still wasn’t certain that she knew the answer to that question, not completely. _

_ Oh, she knew that he wanted to have her, in the most intimate of ways, could see that well enough in the way that he sometimes looked at her, in the way that he usually looked at Margaery when he thought she wasn’t looking. _

_ But, while she had been certain at Highgarden it was her body he wanted, now, she was not so certain. _

_ She knew enough about Petyr Baelish to know that he didn’t like revealing his plans, for all that made him the more irritating, and he had been more than open, since she had begged him for his help in covering up Joffrey’s murder, about what he wanted from her. _

_ That struck her as…terribly naive of a thing to trust, she thought. _

_ Baelish leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together, and Sansa breathed in deep and let the air out slowly. He reached out, cupping her cheek.  _

_ “I thought you knew what I wanted.” _

_ She pulled back then, staring up at him. “No,” she breathed, taking a step back from him. “No, this time, tell me the truth. If you wanted to marry me, they’ve already chosen a new High Septon. But you don’t want that. You possibly never did, not even when Margaery offered me up to you. I thought I was stringing you along, but it turns out, you’ve been stringing me.” _

_ Baelish blinked at her, and his face dipped into a small frown. “You know what I want, Sansa. You’ve known for some time, I think.” _

_ “I don’t know, anymore,” she whispered. “I thought you wanted me.” _

_ He stared at her, then, and because he was always so difficult for her to read, back when she had thought he was a friend of her family’s and he had only been her father’s enemy, only been her mother’s friend, she did not know whether the look in his eyes was one of pity or of lust. _

_ “Every time I’m faced with a decision,” he said, finally, “I close my eyes and see the same picture. Whenever I consider an action, I ask myself, ‘Will this action help to make this picture a reality?’ Pull it out of my mind, and into the world. And I only act if the answer is yes.” _

_ She swallowed hard. “What picture?” She whispered. _

_ “A picture of you, on the Iron Throne, and me, by your side. In whatever way you’ll have me.” _

_ Sansa felt her insides freeze. _

_ She wanted to say a dozen things, in response to that. Wanted to point out that if she, somehow, impossibly, was on the Iron Throne, it would mean that Margaery was not. Hells, it would mean that a great many people were no longer capable of taking the Iron Throne for themselves. _

_ She closed her eyes, and breathed out deeply.  _

_ It wasn’t what she wanted, either.  _

_ When she was a little girl, she had wanted to marry Joffrey and have his children, to become the next Queen of Westeros, but only because she was married to its king. _

_ But to be King… _

_ She had never wanted that; for so many years, stuck here amongst her enemies, all Sansa had ever wanted was to go home. _

_ And then, she had met Margaery, and thought that perhaps life in King’s Landing could be bearable but that was only because Margaery was here, beside her, because Margaery provided her the comfort she needed to continue on, because Margaery understood, a bit, of what she suffered, of the choices she had to make just to survive, and loved her, anyway. _

_ And this future Baelish was suggesting, it didn’t include Margaery. _

_ “It’s a pretty picture,” she breathed, pulling away from him. “But it’s not one I share. And you know why.” _

_ He stared at her, for several long, terrifying moments, and Sansa saw a dangerous sort of anger in his eyes, of the sort that shook her to her core. _

_ She swallowed hard, resisting the urge to step back from him. _

_ There were only a few men she had ever said ‘no,’ to, in her entire life, and it never ended well.  _

_ “You, my love, are my future. As I said: whatever way you’ll have me,” Baelish said, and Sansa stared up into the man’s eyes and, for the first time since Highgarden, she didn’t believe a single word he was saying. _

_ Oh, they were pretty words, as she had said a moment ago. But they were just that. _

_ His eyes were dull as he said them; perhaps he had loved her mother, she thought, had truly, actually loved the woman her mother had been, when they were young and he had been naive enough to think he might be able to marry her. _

_ But he didn’t love Sansa; not the way he loved her mother, at least. He loved her for what she could gain him, she realized. He loved her because she was the last of House Stark, just as the Lannisters had loved her for being a Stark, just as Tyrion had tried to care for her because she was the pathetic, sad remainder of House Stark. _

_ She was tired of being thought of only as Sansa Stark, not when she hadn’t felt like a Stark in a very long time. _

_ Sansa Stark would have died, in King’s Landing, years ago. Sansa Stark would never have killed Ser Meryn Trant. She never would have fallen in love with Margaery, her ambition and all. _

_ She never would have killed Joffrey the way she had plotted to do, either. _

_ She sniffed, hard.  _

_ “What do I do about Margaery?” She whispered, and Baelish’s eyes were sad, for several long moments, but she didn’t think it was because she had rejected his offer, of becoming this Queen he wanted her to be. _

_ Oh, she had no doubt that a man like Petyr Baelish did not hear the word ‘no,’ even when it was said directly to his face. _

_ Her grandfather had told him ‘no,’ after all, and he had started a war just to prove the man wrong, to prove that he could have been capable of marrying Catelyn Stark, if he wanted. _

_ He still would weave his plans for her, but at least she knew a little more of them, now. _

_ And perhaps he was lying, about his ultimate goal for her, but it did tell her one thing, this look in his eyes; he was determined to try harder, to manipulate her. He had given away much, today, but she had given away something, too, that he wasn’t tricking her as well as he thought that he was, and she knew that he would only work harder at that, now. _

_ “I think that a…symbolic gesture, might help with that,” Baelish said, slowly. “How do you feel about the Small Council?” _

* * *

Trystane had thought that he was finally beginning to understand how to survive at court, after all of this time of being forced to remain here. Had thought he knew what was expected of him, what was expected of the rest of the nobles, in order to keep the peace.

He was beginning to wonder if perhaps he didn’t know anything at all, after all of this time, about the court of King’s Landing.

One moment, half of the nobles were arguing over whether they thought the Queen Regent had lost her mind, and in the next, they were wondering when the next tourney would be, whether it would be appropriate to host one on the occasion of the King’s funeral.

One moment, they were worrying about a full scale war with the Regent’s goodmother, and in the next, pestering him about whether or not he thought the Dornish would be sending anymore Dornish Red, since they had neglected to do so for the past several months and the Regent, in her condition, appeared to not be bothered by that.

He had a feeling that they were specifically asking because it was rumored that Cersei Lannister was already on her way to King’s Landing, would be getting here within a few days, and every time someone asked him, as if he knew anything about what went on in Dorne these days, considering the way his sister had shut him out and left him here as a hostage, Trystane resisted the urge to nastily inform them that the wine would not get here soon enough, regardless, even if Dorne sent it today.

He bit back a sigh, the thought of Dorne reminding him of why he was here in the first place, that his sister had left him here to be nothing more than the Regent’s hostage, and a paltry one, at that.

He found himself wondering whether his sister had taken to ruling like she did everything else, in the time that he had been away from Dorne. She had certainly taken to their father’s level of ruthlessness, in leaving him here alone and stealing away his wife.

He didn’t even understand why she had done what she had; their father may be ill, but he still had many years ahead of him, of that, Trystane was certain, and while he had not exactly been ruling Dorne with an iron fist from Sunspear, preferring instead to delegate from the Water Gardens after Oberyn’s death, Trystane would have thought his sister might have more sympathy for their father before she decided to stage a coup against him.

A coup that, stupidly, Trystane hadn’t even expected, before he’d learned about it in King’s Landing alongside the Lannisters, which felt even more like a slap in the face.

He knew that Arianne hated playing mistress of the castle without any of the power that came along with it; she was quite good at keeping the general state of Sunspear safe, and making sure that the people labored under the illusion that their family was still happily working towards its good, but she had always wanted more, he had known that about her from the moment their father had set her as mistress of the Keep.

Their father just hadn’t been around to see it, much.

But Arianne was the eldest of their father’s children, and therefore would have gotten all of that and more, eventually.

He didn’t understand why she couldn’t have waited. Why she thought she had to steal power from their father while he was still alive.

And of course he knew that a part of that was because he wasn’t there when it happened, but still, plotting against their father wasn’t something he had ever believed her capable of.

Their family had a hell of a lot of issues, but they were supposed to be different from the Lannisters and Tyrells and Targaryens of Westeros.

They were supposed to be better.

He knew that Arianne resented their father, of course, for the fact that he could not spend as much time with his children as normal fathers could. It was something that Trystane had resented the man for as a child as well, treating his children like silent dolls until he had need of them, and then expecting them to come at his beck and call.

That was, until one of his father’s tasks had been to woo Princess Myrcella, recently arrived from King’s Landing, and Trystane had found himself suddenly gaining something of an appreciation for politics, and the many things his father saw to.

Still, he supposed there were some things about King’s Landing which remained the same as Dorne. Their scheming, for one, though he’d ever thought the people of Dorne schemed quite so much as those in King’s Landing, save for his own sister.

And there were some things that were entirely different; the fact that there was a mob going on outside their doors being the main one of these, he thought idly, as he craned his neck in a vain attempt to see the smallfolk from the terrace window, where the soldiers were holding them back by what looked to be sheer force of will.

They seemed to have quite a lot of those, in King’s Landing. Mobs of people angry with their rule, furious with the way that the Crown kept wronging them, though Trystane could not say if they were justified or not, beyond what he knew of the Slaughter of the Sept.

Say what they liked about Dorne, and the nobles of King’s Landing were never shy about doing so in front of him, if they so wished, but at least the people who lived in Sunspear actually liked their rulers.

Well, they had when Trystane had still lived there.

Who was to say how they felt about them, now. He certainly didn’t know enough. His own sister was refusing to write to him, was refusing to let him write to his wife, as well. 

She had, for some horrible reason, decided that he wasn’t deserving of his wife’s letters anymore, or perhaps, for who knew, that she wasn’t deserving of his. All he knew was that absolutely nothing had changed in the relationship between House Tyrell and House Martell at the moment, and so whatever it was that had convinced Arianne not to let them write to one another anymore, it had more to do with them than it did with the Regent.

The Regent.

He still wasn’t sure what he thought of the woman.

Whatever it was that she had agreed upon with his sister, she didn’t seem the sort of woman overly concerned with politics these days, nor had she ever seemed as much when she had still been little more than the King’s wife, and yet, clearly her ambitions were higher than she let on.

When she had been Joffrey’s wife, she had seemed uncaring, almost dismissive of the world around her, obsessed only with her husband’s affections and doing as she pleased and damn the consequences. She certainly hadn’t seemed concerned with the lives of the citizens who had died in the Sept because she didn’t commit adultery against her husband, which he thought frightfully ironic; he didn’t know what sort of idiotic woman would think it was a good idea to sleep with someone else while married to a madman like Joffrey, but apparently this High Sparrow had thought such.

Strangely, she had seemed almost concerned when he himself had demanded to go against Joffrey in combat, but he knew that she had some sort of arrangement with his sister and his cousins by then, even if he couldn’t understand why a woman who seemed to hardly concern herself with politics might have such a thing at all as Arianne’s ear.

Once her husband had died, however, it was as if she had become a completely different person, and he wasn’t sure if that was a better thing or a worse one.

This latest stunt, of outlawing drawing and quartering and then her septa, a woman that the people seemed to greatly respect because she had once been a traitorous fanatic, something that Trystane was still trying to wrap his head around, had gone missing.

Missing for several days, before the news of her death got out, that was.

King’s anding had gone to chaos ever since.

It seemed to him, that when the Regent promised the smallfolk, against the advice of her counselors, that there would be no more executions in King’s Landing, and then not days later, her own septa turned up dead…well, that seemed suspicious enough.

And apparently the smallfolk themselves felt the same, if the way that they were rioting outside of the gates was any indication.

Especially now that the news of the septa’s death seemed to have reached them.

They were rioting even now, and the Regent’s brother had gone out to pacify them hours ago. Apparently, he’d been unsuccessful.

Not much surprise there.

The promise of food and a swift end to the plague overtaking half of the city wasn’t going to do much for a mob of angry peasants, especially if they thought their Regent might turn around and kill them as indiscriminately as their king always had in the past.

Dear gods, King’s Landing was a bit of a shitshow. And he knew that he shouldn’t be thinking it, but trystane was enjoying himself, all the same.

Because he was, after all, nothing more than a captive here, no matter the gilded cage or the placeholder seat they had given him on the Small Council. And he might as well find some amusement from the fact that his captors seemed totally incompetent, these days.

Not that they had fared much better under Joffrey, but still. The riots outside those doors proved that they were not doing better than he had, and they were all Lannisters, no matter what they called themselves.

Save for his wife, they were hardly redeemable people.

Trystane privately thought that this all might have gone easier for the Crown if they had not publicly acknowledged the septa’s death, if they had swept it under the rug because then half of King’s Landing would have forgotten about it in a few days; that seemed to be the way of things here.

But the Regent had insisted on finding the septa’s original family, and returning her body to them, and things had only gone to the Seven Hells, after that. 

It turned out that the woman’s original family did not want her back; they were lower nobles themselves, and didn’t much appreciate the way that their daughter had turned her back on the Crown in order to prop up the High Sparrow.

That or, and Trystane found this suggestion to be the more likely of the two, they were terrified of what reprisals they might find themselves on the receiving end of, after welcoming back the body of a woman who had openly committed treason against the Crown.

He felt something like pity for their family.

He knew what it was like to have a family member’s body withheld from them because he had been considered something of a traitor. It was the same trick that Joffrey had pulled with his own uncle’s body, before Arianne had insisted upon its return.

The one good thing she’d done since whatever the fuck it was she was doing now.

A sudden crash split through the air, and Trystane’s head jerked up as something came sailing through a now broken window, several nobles who had gathered to watch crying out in surprise while two guards rushed forward to assess the situation.

“Prince Trystane,” Elinor Tyrell blinked at him as she walked over from where she had been conversing with one of the Tyrells soldiers who had just returned. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

He lifted his chin, wanted to tell her that she was just a disgraced lady in waiting to the Regent, and she had no right to tell him what to do, either, but he bit the words back, because he liked surviving, even if it involved far too much tongue in cheek.

And, after all, married or no, she was very pretty, and a mother, and he didn’t want to insult her when she might still have the Regent’s ear; that was rather unclear, these days.

“I…” he shook his head. “I keep expecting the Small Council to be called. So far, it hasn’t been.”

She looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. “Lady Sansa told me that you had requested something of her, recently,” she said, slowly, and her eyes roved over Trystane’s form as if she expected him to blurt it out then and there.

But while bastards and women were treated far kinder in Dorne than they had ever been here, Trystane wasn’t foolish enough to put information like that into the hands of a disgraced lady’s maid, as all of the court whispered her to be.

Lady Stark was...something else, and he didn’t still quite understand how she had amassed such power over such a short amount of time without anyone finding out about it, but he knew that she was a far surer bet than Elinor Ambrose was.

He had thought that going to her and appealing to her sense of pity might get him what he wanted, but so far, he’d heard nothing more from his sister or from Myrcella, and he was growing worried.

He couldn’t claim to know his sister’s mind any longer, but Myrcella was an innocent in all of this, regardless of who her parents were. She didn’t deserve to go through anything that Arianne might want to keep from him just because she was a Lannister, something he wasn’t sure that his sister nor any of his cousins had ever understood.

“Has she learned anything?” he asked, hopeful despite the look on her face.

He told himself that she could just be stressed about the rioting outside.

Elinor swallowed. “We have yet to hear an answer from Dorne,” she told him, and Trystane wilted, a bit. Her eyes softened. “But don’t despair. From what I understand, they have accepted the invitation to come to King Joffrey’s funeral, and are sending an emissary for that who should be here any day. If your sister does not respond by then, I’m sure that Lady Sansa...or the Regent might have a word with whomever they send.”

Trystane pretended to feel more relieved by that than he did. If the Regent was speaking to an emissary from Dorne, he doubted that his letters to Myrcella would be high on the agenda.

He nodded towards the double doors separating those within the Keep from those without. “They certainly seem to be angry, out there,” he commented, because he was annoyed and because he could. “Will there still be a funeral?”

He made sure to ask it in the most innocuous tone that he could manage.

He was learning, after all.

It had taken nearly seeing his cousin ripped apart by the Mountain and being thrown in a Black Cell for a few days, accused of conspiracy against the King, but he was finally learning.

And he intended to make it back to Myrcella alive, thank you very much. So long as she was still there, waiting for him, and his sister hadn’t fucked up too much, in Dorne.

Elinor gave him a strained smile. “Of course there shall still be a funeral. It is not for two days, yet. This will all have blown over by then, of that, the Small Council is convinced.”

Trystane’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember that being brought up at the Small Council’s last meeting,” he pointed out, perhaps more mullishly than he meant to.

But he did not have many freedoms here; in some ways, he was still locked in a cage. The time that he spent during those Small Council meetings, studying the people here, all of whom were likely his enemies, and learning what he could about the politics of the kingdom, were his only few freedoms left, even if they did not ask for his opinion at these meetings and his presence there seemed to be for courtesy and not much else.

The idea that they were having meetings that he was not invited to irked him.

Elinor shrugged a thin shoulder. “It was during the night,” she told him. “The Regent herself was not even present, still in mourning for the septa.”

She made a face then, as if she realized she had already said too much, and Trystane’s eyes narrowed.

“How can they have a Small Council meeting without the Regent?” he asked, as innocently as he could, but he thought that Elinor was already unto him, by now.

She just smiled, thinly. “Well, it happened all the time with the last two kings, I’m sure,” she told him. “Besides, the Regent’s pregnancy is nearing its end. One cannot expect her to attend to every duty when the Heir must come first.”

Trystane made a face. “Of course,’ he said, because even then, that didn’t explain why he hadn’t been at the meeting.

Elinor turned to go, and he called out behind her, “They seem to have a lot of riots here in King’s Landing, don’t they? It’s not the sort of thing I’m used to, coming from Dorne.”

Elinor turned back to face him, forcing an obviously fake smile. “I imagine a great many things about King’s Landing are different from what you are used to, in Dorne,” she told him, unpleasantly, before walking away again.

Trystane sighed. So much for finding out something useful from her.

* * *

Margaery had been avoiding her, ever since she had walked in on the septa and found her dead in her chambers.

And Sansa wished that she could have spared the other woman that, could have spared her having to discover the septa’s body. In truth, she had not meant for Margaery to be the one to find the body at all, but then, she supposed, there were few others in King’s Landing who might have gone searching for it.

But it had happened, already, and there was nothing Sansa could do to change that.

And she supposed that Margaery had been avoiding her enough before that that it really shouldn’t matter, that she was avoiding her even more now, but this was getting ridiculous.

If they could just talk about this...if they could, perhaps they could talk about the rest of it, too, and finally get it off of both their chests.

She had gone to Margaery’s chambers to ask her why the fuck she was offering to find the septa’s family and speak to them personally over the woman’s loss, and why, for that matter, she had skipped the last three Small Council meetings, only to be told by an apologetic but firm Alla that Margaery was not seeing her, just now.

“My lady,” the servant called out to her for the third time from where he was chasing after her, and Sansa sighed, turning around to face the young man who had a pile of scrolls in his hands.

“Yes, what is it?” She asked, reaching up to push the hair out of her eyes.

The young man grimaced. “I…These are the new levies, that the Small Council wants the Regent to sign now that we may be going to war,” he said, holding out the papers.

Sansa reached up, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Yes?” She said, because she may be the sole reason Margaery went to Small Council meetings at all these days, as Margaery had once been for Joffrey, but she was not the Regent.

At least, as far as anyone seemed to care.

She glanced down at the levies, having the terrible feeling that signing inot law more taxes against an already strained and angry populace wasn’t the best idea, just now. But it wasn’t as if they had another choice.

They were barely three kingdoms, these days, rather than the usual seven, and someone had to pay for the King’s funeral. 

The young man gulped. “I…ah, the Regent was not to be disturbed, my lady, but the Small Council needs these levies put into place by tomorrow.” He gulped. “Lord Baelish seemed to think that you could…handle things.”

Sansa squinted at him, annoyance building up within her.

She knew what this was, knew what Lord Baelish intended, by having this serving boy bring the levies to her, word that in such a way, rather than try again later, or beg her to have Margaery sign them.

She had known what he was doing for some time now, and yet, knowing something of Baelish’s manipulations didn’t make her entirely impervious to it, Sansa thought, annoyed further. 

Baelish wanted her to get a taste of the power she could have, if only she would take his offer, if only she would run away to the Vale with him and he could…he could…

She liked that feeling, of having power over someone else, over multiple someones, even if she was not the ebst at using it, she had learned, in recent months.

She had gone powerless for so long, and she was a better person than most who acquired a taste for it.

She just hated that the more power she took, the less Margaery seemed to have, and how little anyone, including Margaery, seemed to mind that, these days.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I will present it to the Regent,” she told the boy, and then hesitated, as he began turning away from her. “You can inform Baelish of that, specifically.”

The boy nodded, obviously just wanting to get away from her at thsi point, and Sansa sighed as she watched him go.

She wanted him to get that message to Baelish specifically so that he could know that his minipulations weren’t working on her as much as he’d like, even if that wasn’t entirely the truth.

But sometimes, she’d learned, one had to bluff their way through this shit.

She turned around, intending to go back the way she had come to try to talk her way past Alla again, biting back another sigh.

Gods, seh missed when things were simple. When the only thing she really had to worry about was finding a way to sneak into Margaery’s chambers in the middle of the night, when no one was around to witness what they might do to one another.

She flinched, the moment she had the thought, because that wasn’t quite the truth.

Things hadn’t been simple, back then. They had been forced to sneak around in such a way because their lives had been at stake, because of who Margaery’s husband was and what family was keeping Sansa captive here.

In a way, things were a lot simpler, now. Neither of them had husbands keeping them from one another, even if the High Septon was taking his time annulling Sansa’s marriage without her husband present, fugitive or no, and Baelish hardly seemed interested in marrying her for all that she knew it was what he wanted, but it was harder, in others.

After all, they were about to find themselves at the head of a war, Sansa knew, however much she would like to avoid one.

With Cersei Lannister, that would be next to impossible.

She would only have to hope that Lady Nym succeeded in the mission she sent her on, or they would be fighting that war.

She came to a sudden stop outside of Margaery’s - Joffrey’s - chambers as she watched the door open, Alla nowhere to be seen, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment.

She felt like a silly child, reacting in such a way at the thought of seeing Margaery again after the way the other woman had been avoiding her, but in the end, it wasn’t Margaery who walked out the door.

“Sansa…” Garlan looked pained, where he stood just outside of Margaery’s door, having clearly just emerged. “I...am surprised to see you here.”

She supposed it was perhaps the most diplomatic way he could tell her she was less than welcome, here.

Because Margaery knew what she had done, clearly. She had guessed what Sansa must have done the moment the septa was dead, if the way she had been avoiding Sansa was any indication.

And Sansa knew that a part of her deserved that, but dear gods, Margaery could be stubborn. If she would just let Sansa explain…

Garlan didn’t look like he thought Margaery would listen to any explanation she gave, though.

Sansa felt her stomach sink. “I…” she opened and closed her mouth. “Garlan…”

Garlan’s eyes were sympathetic, though he did not move out of the way for her. It struck her that he was not a member of his sister’s Kingsguard, for all that he acted like an unofficial Lord Commander, these days, and she wondered if Margaery had summoned him to speak more about whether the smallfolk were actually being dealt with, these days.

She was far too focused on that, in Sansa’s estimation, when teh real trouble would be the damned nobles. If only she could get Margaery to understand that.

“I can tell her that you came to see her, though,” he offered, quietly, and Sansa bit back a sigh.

“Do you think I did the wrong thing?” she asked, softly, and Garlan flinched a little.

He took a deep breath. It had been a risk, bringing up the death of the septa to him at all, but she had come to know Garlan rather well in recent months, and she thought that he must know what she had done, and, at least partially, why she had done it.

He wasn’t a fool, after all, for all that Olenna Tyrell seemed to believe the men of her family to be exactly that. Sansa grimaced as she found herself wondering if the other woman now believed the same thing about Margaery.

“When my sister was five summers old,” he said, abruptly changing the topic, and Sansa blinked at him, “I remember the septa who was tasked with her education, before our grandmother took it over...She died, of a sweating sickness. It was over within a day of her first growing sick; she was quite old. I think it was the was the first time Margaery had ever seen death, up close.”

Sansa flinched.

“Margaery was so attached to her, you see, because Loras was the favorite child, then. Our mother...for all her kindness towards her children, adored Loras the most, and I think that even then, Margaery knew that. Knew that whatever she did, Alerie wouldn't love her quite the same way she loved Loras.” He shrugged, as if the words were inconsequential.

Strangely, they made Sansa think of Jon, and her own mother, and she wondered if it was worse to be a bastard or a woman, out of the womb.

“But she never tried to gain her attention,” Garlan said. “She just...knew that she could not compete with Loras, and she never seemed bitter for it, not while her septa lived. The woman...she was exasperated with Margaery, more times than not, but she adored her. Lavished affection on her at all times. And Margaery...Margaery spent any time she wasn’t with her proving herself to be just as much of a boy as Loras. Well, in some ways.”

Sansa licked her lips. “And then she died,” she surmised.

Garlan shrugged. “I don’t know...I don’t know what her agreement was, with this septa,” he continued, “And I only think I know part of the story of why you would...But I do know that she...she needs space, when these sort of things happen. When she feels like she’s been betrayed.”

Sansa flinched, and tried not to think about what Garlan was implying, that a child Margaery had blamed her septa for her death, just as she now blamed Sansa for Septa Unella’s.

It was a childish way to react, of course, but she thought she understood perhaps a little better, between that and the guilt she knew that Margaery still felt over what had happened at the Sept.

It didn’t make her feel any better, though.

“But she’s not the sort of person to hold grudges forever,” he went on, apologetically, and Sansa stared at him as she tried to reconcile what he had just said with what she knew of Margaery’s relationship with Joffrey.

And yes, Joffrey had been a madman and an idiot, and cruel and horrible, but what was what she had done but simple revenge?

She sighed. “I hope not,” she whispered, and Garlan reached out to squeeze her arm, in a way that was meant to be reassuring.

It only reminded her of how much Margaery flinched away from anyone who tried to touch her like that, these days.

Garlan seemed to notice that, dropping his grip and looking rather sad. Sansa avoided his gaze, forced herself to think about other things, besides Margaery, because dear gods, if that was all she thought of just now, she’d get them all killed when Cersei arrived. She had come here for a purpose, and she could sign the levies herself in Margaey’s name, just as Baelish had said, but now that she had Garlan here, she might as well confide in him.

“The funeral is in two days,” she reminded him. “And we cannot...We cannot afford to have a mob in KIng’s Landing when Cersei arrives, or whoever is coming from Dorne. We cannot afford for them to see us this weak, just now, when Cersei is already championing Tommen’s claim to the throne. Tell me you can do something about it.”

He made a face. It was not a reassuring look, despite his next words. “I’ll take care of things out in the city, don’t worry about that,” he reassured her. “Just...focus on what needs to be done here, and I’ll  try to talk her around.”

Not when Margaery refused to even speak to her, when Sansa had only been trying to protect her from herself. 

She licked her lips, nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and Garlan’s eyes were still sad as he started to walk away from her, and then hesitated, turning back.

“Sansa?” he said, softly.

Sansa blinked at him.

He bit his lip, looking almost like he didn’t want to utter the next words. “I know why you and Margaery did what you did,” he said, and had her immediately flinching again. “But she’s still my grandmother. And...she wants to come, to support Margaery. If not for the funeral, then she would like to be here for the birth.”

Sansa swallowed hard.

Olenna was a topic that wasn’t addressed, between Sansa and Margaery. They didn't speak about how Sansa and Olenna had been plotting against Margaery for all of that time, didn’t speak about the things that Olenna had done before Margaery’s “death,” and even directly after it.

Didn’t speak about the fact that Margaery had sent her own grandmother away because she didn’t approve of the other woman’s plan, and things had immediately gone to shit.

And Sansa couldn’t imagine speaking to her, especially now, about Olenna attending what many women thought to be the best moments of their lives.

She shook her head, glancing away again.

Garlan let out a long sigh. “I hesitated to bring it up, with her,’ he said, nodding towards Margaery’s door, a great hulking presence in the empty hall, “But I thought I’d ask.”

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t think it would be wise to bring it up, just now,” she said, even as she felt a pang of guilt, knowing that it must hurt Olenna, to be separated from a beloved granddaughter like this, in this way.

Especially if she was now begging Sansa to let her attend the birthing.

Sansa’s eyes narrowed a little, at the thought. Because Olenna Tyrell was never the sort of woman who begged for anything, and if she was begging for that now, Sansa had to wonder why. Had to wonder if perhaps they should bring this up with Margaery, for no other reason than to figure out why Olenna had been so silent all these months, in Highgarden.

Sansa certainly doubted that it was out of respect for her granddaughter’s wishes, after all. Much as she loved Margaery, such things did not seem to occur to her, save for, perhaps, Margaery’s relationship with Sansa.

She glanced at Garlan. “Perhaps you could bring it up,” seh suggested, gently. “After the funeral, when Cersei is gone again.”

Garlan met her eyes, and then nodded, shortly.

Sansa glanced at that great hulking door, and then walked back in the direction she’d just come from, and kept walking, all of the way back to her own chambers in the Maidenvault.

She could feel a sigh at the back of her throat, though it wouldn't emerge.

Rosamund was waiting, when she walked back into her rooms, as was Brienne. The two of them looked like two conspirators caught in the middle of something, though Sansa highly doubted that Brienne could be confused with a conspirator by anyone.

She had such an honest face, and Sansa, despite herself, trusted the other woman far more than she did Rosamund, these days.

She forced a smile in Brienne’s direction, at the very least to assure the other woman that she was all right; Brienne had known she was going to find Margaery, after all. 

Brienne’s answering smile was hesitant. She was always hesitant to smile, Sansa had noticed, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable with the motion. Still, Sansa found it comforting that she did so, all the same.

“Has there been any answer from Dorne?” Sansa asked Rosamund, remembering the last thing she had asked of the other girl as she flopped down onto the closest chair she could find.

Rosamund blinked at her. “No, my lady,” she said, and Sansa squinted.

“Nothing?” she clarified, and once more, Rosamund shook her head.

Sansa bit back a sigh. “Wonderful,” she muttered under her breath.

She had sent a letter to Arianne, interceding on Trystane’s behalf, not entirely certain why she had, but wanting ot help him, all the same.

And because there was something...strange, about Arianne suddenly deciding not to allow him and Myrella to send letters to one another, when they had been happy to do so before now. Not quite suspicious, perhaps, but strange, all the same.

They had heard nothing from Dorne at all, in fact, since they had sent word that one of their emissaries would be arriving soon to witness the King’s funeral, and the more Sansa thought about that, the more worried she became.

She knew that the Tyrells had their spies, within the court. Olenna Tyrell was not the sort of woman who depended upon only her son’s observation skills, to find out what was going on here in her forced absence. 

She doubted that the Tyrells were the only ones, knew that if not Grandmaester Pycelle or the Mountain, who had not been expelled from the Kingsguard upon the moment of Joffrey’s death out of sheer terror of him, someone was likely sending word to Cersei, as well.

And she was quite sure that the Martells must have their spies here, too, to go along with their plans for as long as they had, leaving their ships in the harbor to protect against the Lannister fleets, or not attacking the Lannisters sooner, as Margaery had once intimated they would like to.

She only wished she knew who they were, so that she could either reach out to them to figure out what the fuck the Martells were up to, for it was obvious that Trystane knew nothing and Lady Nym, at the very least, knew too little, or to find out what they might not be doing.

Gods, sometimes Sansa wished that Olenna were still here. That she coudl go to the other woman now and ask her what the fuck she was supposed to do about all of this, about Baelish and about the fact that the Martells weren’t answering their letters, and about Margaery, too.

She had a horrible feeling that Olenna wouldn't have an answer that she liked, for the latter, but she could use the woman’s counsel, just now.

It would, at least, provide some balance to the counsel that she received from Baelish, she thought, throwing the levies down on her desk.

“Lady Brienne,” she said, turning to her loyal guard, because she very much needed a distraction from all of this just now, if she could not find better counsel in Olenna Tyrell. “With Lady Nym’s absence from King’s Landing these last few days, I was wondering...was wondering if perhaps you could help me with the sword?”

This time, Brienne all but beamed at her, whatever her earlier woes were forgotten.

* * *

“We need to talk,” Sansa said, as she came into Margaery’s chambers unannounced.

“Can’t it wait?” Margaery asked, and the coldness in her tone made Sansa flinch.

It had been a day since the last time that Sansa had tried to talk to her, and been turned away; Cersei would be here tomorrow afternoon.

It couldn’t wait.

They had to present a united front against Cersei, when she arrived, or she would be able to smell the blood in the same way that her son had always been able to.

They had managed to get rid of the protestors, for now, by using more force than Sansa was comfortable admitting to, but gods knew how long that would last. If Cersei found other weaknesses once she arrived, they’d be damned.

And they had not come this far too be damned, no matter the look on Margaery’s face when Sansa burst through her door uninvited.

Margaery looked exhausted, with black circles under her eyes and a smudged face. Like she hadn’t slept since she had found the dead septa, and Sansa wished she could have spared Margaery being the one finding her, but then again, that was what came from not organizing the woman’s death herself.

She thought of all the things that Margaery had told her about her incarceration by the Faith, of how the septa had come to speak to her every day, had been cold and cruel and tried to get her to confess to the sort of sins which could get her killed, and told herself that she didn’t feel guilty for getting rid of the woman before she could do so again, albeit with different methods.

Sansa lifted her chin. “No,” she said, because she had been giving Margaery space, since all of this had begun, because she thought it was what the other woman needed.

But she wasn’t going to lose Margaery, not over this. Not now, after everything they had been through together.

She couldn’t.

Besides, they just needed to provide a united front for a few days, and then Margaery could go back to ignoring her, if it made her feel better. 

Cersei would not be here longer than that.

Margaery huffed out a sigh, turning and sinking down onto the chair, and giving Sansa a disapproving look. “I’ve been having the child kick on my bladder with the strength of a horse for the past six hours,” she informed Sansa, “So if I get up and leave halfway through, we can pretend that’s why.”

Sansa glanced away, sighing. “We need to talk about this.”

“Do we?” Margaery asked, cocking her head, and a part of Sansa had forgotten how nasty she could be, when she wanted to be. Sansa had always found it amusing, if a little concerning, when she directed that nastiness at Cersei while still playing to the niceties of court.

It didn’t feel so nice to be on the receiving end of it, however.

“It didn’t seem like you wanted to talk about things when you had her killed because you didn’t like the influence she had over me, without even discussing it with me in the first place,” Margaery went on, merciless, and Sansa glanced down at her hands.

Margaery’s hands were shaking, the way they did this time whenever she talked about Joffrey’s death, or what had happened at the Sept.

Sansa swallowed. “I didn’t kill her,” she said, softly, and Margaery let out a disbelieving snort, forcing Sansa to clarify, “I didn’t know he...I didn’t know he was going to do it like that.”

“He had her arranged in exactly the same way that Joffrey was, when he…” Margaery cut herself off abruptly, reaching a hand up to her mouth. 

Sansa sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said, because there wasn’t much else she could say, even if the words sounded strangely hollow.

She wished she could apologize, and mean it.

But she couldn’t, and that was the problem, or at least, that was what Sansa thought the problem must be.

“I know you think I’ve…gone off the deep end, since everything that happened with Joffrey,” Margaery said, and she wouldn’t look her in the eyes, which hurt more than Sansa wanted to admit. “And I know that I haven’t exactly been…forthcoming about anything, lately, and that you probably have good reason to worry over me.”

Sansa heaved a sigh, knowing exactly where this was going. “Margaery…”

She almost wanted to ask Margaery how she had found out that it was her, how she knew exactly, but she knew that would only make things worse, in light of this argument. There was no point in the two of them hiding things from each other anymore; that was what had caused all of their problems in the first place.

The point was, Margaery knew, and she was absolutely furious over it.

“But I was finding myself again, Sansa,” Margaery interrupted her, and Sansa flinched. “At least, I thought I might be on the way to that. And the septa…I knew what she was. I knew that at least part of her wanted very much for me to fail. But damnit, Sansa, she was helping me.”

Sansa felt much like a child, taken to task over something she had done wrong, and she wanted to open her mouth and defend herself, wanted to remind Margaery of all the reasons why she had done this, why it had been a terrible idea for Margaery to invite the septa here in the first place, but…

She realized, Margaery already knew all of that. She had known it, and she had invited the risk anyway, and Sansa…didn’t quite know how to react, in light of that.

“She knew about us,” Sansa said, instead, because she thought that might be the one thing which might make Margaery see sense, over all of this.

Margaery blinked at her.

And Sansa…Sansa’s eyes narrowed, because she wanted to believe that she just couldn’t read Margaery well anymore, since what had happened, but she already knew, Sansa could see that as much on her face.

Margaery had already known that; there was no surprise in her eyes.

Sansa flinched back. “How could you tell her that?” She demanded.

Margaery looked away, quickly. “I didn’t tell her that,” she spat out, sounding annoyed that Sansa would even suspect her, though Sansa privately thought that she had good reason to, at this point. “She knew it already. She knew it when they threatened you while I was a prisoner in the Sept, and she knew it when she first approached me about finding atonement.”

Sansa blinked at her. She supposed that made sense, after what Margaery had told her about the High Sparrow’s threats to Sansa’s own life. A naive part of her had simply hoped they had not gone beyond the High Sparrow, that Margaery wouldn't be foolish enough to allow anyone else who knew the truth so close to her side.

“Then why in the hells did you invite her to your side?” she demanded. “You had to know she might be planning something against you.”

“Because I’m tired,” Margaery said, softly. “I’m tired of killing, Sansa. I’m tired of being responsible for the deaths of so many. And I thought that...between the two of us, we might be able to salvage this. We might be able to bring the people back to the Crown. I certainly didn’t want another riot like the one outside.”

Sansa flinched.

“And I didn’t think that any other members of the Faith were going to try to help me. I knew that Septa Unella was just fanatical enough to give me another chance.”

Another chance.

Sansa closed her eyes.

She knew that was what Margaery wanted, of course. Just another chance, after all of the wrongs that she blamed herself for, when Sansa couldn’t bring herself to blame her for any of them. Not when they could all be laid at Joffrey’s feet.

And perhaps that was why she did not understand Margaery’s obsession with gaining absolution from the septa. Perhaps that was why, no matter how many times she wrapped her mind around it, she couldn’t understand it.

_ You don’t need help _ , she wanted to say.

Instead, she found herself saying, “You are the Regent, Margaery. It was exactly what you wanted before Joffrey’s death. That means being responsible for the lives and deaths of others.”

Margaery closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were shining, and Sansa forced herself not to look at them, for fear that she might feel the sudden urge to cry, herself.

“I haven’t been ruling King’s Landing for quite some time, Sansa,” Margaery said, looking at her sadly. “And I’m not fool enough to think that I don’t owe you for that.”

Sansa opened her mouth, wanted to tell the other woman that of course she didn’t owe her, that she didn’t owe her anything, but she bit the words back, because something like despair was welling its way up her throat, as if her body knew already what Margaery was going to say next.

“But sometimes…” Margaery pressed her lips together. “Sometimes, I wonder if you don’t enjoy it too much,” she said, and Sansa felt the breath escape her, at the other woman’s words. Felt black spots spiraling into her vision. “I...I saw, the way you killed Ser Meryn. I saw the look in your eyes when you did it, Sansa. And it...it scared me, a little. It made me wonder…”

She didn’t finish that sentence, but then again, Sansa thought, she didn’t have to.

Sansa flinched back from the other woman as if she had been burned. 

“I…” she opened her mouth, to refute the other girl’s words, to tell her that she was wrong.

The words were meant to hurt, just as Sansa’s towards Margaery had been a moment ago, and they had succeeded.

She hadn’t enjoyed killing Ser Meryn, she told herself.

She hadn’t felt anything when she killed him, and Sansa found that more terrifying than the thought that she might have enjoyed it, after the way that she had built up killing in her mind.

“I’ve done everything I have recently to protect you,” she whispered, but the words felt hollow, even to her own ears.

Margaery bit her lip. “Yes. And then you killed her,” Margaery said, shaking her head at Sansa, looking like she didn’t recognize her anymore, and Sansa could stomach a lot of things, had stomached a lot of things, since coming to King’s Landing, but she couldn’t quite stomach that. “You killed her, after I told you what atonement meant to me, what she meant to me, and do you even feel anything over it?”

Sansa lifted her chin, took a step forward, tried not to flinch at the way that Margaery took a step back from her, obviously overwhelmed by how close Sansa had gotten, in that moment.

But it did fuel her annoyance, with her next words. “I did it to protect you. You...you killed the King, Margaery,” she pointed out, and she hadn’t wanted to bring it up until she said those words, words meant to hurt just as Margaery’s had, of course she hadn’t, but then again, they wouldn’t be in this mess at all if Margaery hadn’t done it, would they?

Sansa was tired of seeing the look in Margaery’s eyes, whenever she did look at her, these days, as if she blamed her for some or all of this, was tired of hearing that accusation that Margaery had just thrown at her even if this was the first time she’d said it aloud, when Margaery had been the one who killed the King.

Margaery flinched back as if Sansa had struck her, and Sansa instantly regretted the words, but she knew as well as Margaery that she could not take them back, anymore than Margaery could take back what had happened to her, that night.

Anymore than Sansa could, how it had changed them both.

“And I have paid for that, every day since then,” Margaery gritted out, her eyes shining with something that might have been unshed tears, and might have been fury. 

Sansa swallowed.

She...she didn’t understand what had happened between them. Didn’t understand why every single one of their conversations, these days, turned into arguments that ended in accusations and the sudden urge to cry. Didn't understand what had happened between the two of them to bring them to this place, just now.

She loved Margaery. Margaery loved her.

And she knew that what had happened to Margaery had been horrible, and that she needed time to heal from it, even still physically, but gods, Sansa was so tired of fighting with her.

Things were supposed to be different, once Joffrey died. They were supposed to be better, the two of them on the same side taking on the rest of Westeros.

It didn’t feel like that, these days, and that too, Sansa wanted to lay at Joffrey’s feet.

“What is that you want, Margaery?” Sansa demanded. “Yes, I’ve been doing what I thought was necessary to protect you, all of this time. But what is it that you want? Because you have to tell me, in order for me to help you.”

She didn’t know where those words had come from. Perhaps from months of telling Margaery what documents to sign and what lords to raise, when she ought to have known those for herself.

Sometimes, these days, Margaery reminded her of a lifeless little doll, and Sansa hated her for it.

Margaery swallowed, leaning back in the chair. She looked physically pained, and Sansa wondered if what she had said earlier about the child was true.

The maesters were reporting Margaery’s condition to her with every check that they did, but perhaps they had missed something. Perhaps…

“I think...I think we’re doing this wrong. I think we have been, since we...I think we should ask my grandmother to come back,” Margaery whispered, and the words were hoarse and full of a shame that Sansa didn’t quite understand.

Until she realized why.

Margaery didn’t think she was doing a good enough job, at whatever this was that Sansa found herself doing. She had sent her grandmother away so that they could do this together, and then, when she had needed Sansa, Sansa had disappointed her. And she had disappointed herself.

And it was hard to pretend that the realization didn't’ sting, horribly.

She licked her lips. Swallowed. “If that’s what you want,” she agreed, because she didn’t think there was anything else she could say, in that moment.

Margaery’s eyes lit up, as if she was surprised that Sansa had made that concession, as if Sansa could ever tell her ‘no.’ She’d helped her kill a king, hadn’t she?

Even if a part of her hadn’t just done that for Margaery’s sake.

Margaery looked strangely relieved, now. “It is,” she said. “I think...she can help us,” she said. “I think we need her help.”

Sansa found herself regretting the conversation she’d had with Garlan not just a day before, now. She had a terrible feeling that, although Olenna had presented herself as the one begging to be welcomed back, Sansa would find herself groveling to the other woman again.

It was one thing to want her counsel once more.

It was quite another thing to be presented with Olenna Tyrell, knowing that she was only back here because Sansa and Margaery had fucked up so badly to begin with.

She felt tears stinging her eyes as she moved away from Margaery, not trusting herself to speak.

“My guards,” Margaery called at her back, just as she was thinking up some excuse to get away from the other girl. Sansa swallowed, not trusting herself to turn around. “They report to you all of the time too, don’t they?” she asked. “Still?”

Sansa swallowed, turning back, then. “Margaery…”

“I’ve noticed that at least Megga and Alla do that, too,” Margaery went on, mercilessly. “And I know why. But after...She was in my rooms when I walked in, Sansa. I don’t...I can’t have that happen again. I can’t have them spying on me for you, if that’s what you and...he use it for.’

Sansa felt her throat go dry. “I don’t tell him anything,” she whispered, which wasn’t strictly true. But she certainly didn’t tell him things like that.

Margaery shook her head. “And I want to believe you,” she whispered, hoarsely. “But you did tell him to get rid of her, didn’t you?”

* * *

She couldn’t make her break from Margaery quick enough, for all that she’d been hoping for so many days to at least speak to her again.

She had known that Margaery would be furious. But the sort of quiet fury she’d displayed in there, the genuine mourning for a woman who could have ruined them...somehow, all of that had been worse than anything Sansa had imagined in her head, before she finally got to see the other woman alone.

Before she could think about what she was doing, she was running, down a hall of surprised nobles, passed guards who called out after her, wiping at the tears that were stubbornly clinging to her lashes until she came to an abrupt stop, surprised and yet not at all by where she had ended up.

Because of course she had ended up here.

She didn’t knock. She just shoved the door open and all but stumbled inside, knowing he would be there. Because he was always there when she needed him.

“Sansa?” Baelish looked surprised at the sight of her, and she supposed that he ought to be, when she had half a dozen other things that she should be worrying about, Arianne’s troubling silence and the riots outside their doors chief amongst them.

Baelish had moved into the Keep when it became clear that he had been the one to round up those “fanatics,” not Margaery. She wondered how long he would stay here, so close at her beck and call.

She walked hurriedly into the room, not caring that the door didn’t quite shut behind her. Baelish was the real schemer, here. The only one she really needed to worry about.

“I made a mistake,” Sansa whispered, as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in for a gentle embrace, the way that her father used to do when she came to him crying. “Having you kill her. It was a mistake.”

About silly, useless things that had bothered her at the time, like Arya threatening to cut off Sansa’s hair while she slept, or Theon and Robb teasing her about being so ladylike. 

But it felt…nice, in a way that Sansa did not want to admit, not even to herself. Felt nice to have someone comforting her the way that her father used to, comforting her with all of the care of a father, even if she knew by now that it was feigned.

That whatever game Baelish was planning, the promise that he had once made to her had been filled with romance because he remembered her to be a little girl who was easily swayed by such things.

That everything he did went towards some ultimate plan that she still was not privy to, because he had been lying through his teeth to her, when he told her he wanted to see her on the Iron Throne, and she had thought that voice to be so sincere, before this.

He didn’t want her in the same way that he had wanted her mother, didn’t lust after her body, the way she had thought in Highgarden.

It had taken her a little while to figure it out, but she thought she knew what it was that he lusted after, when he did look at her.

He had had genuine feelings for her mother, had even loved her, perhaps.

And Sansa was her mother’s daughter, the last of the Starks, almost the last of the Tullys.

A consolation prize, for when he finally got everything that he was working towards.

And she did not want to be that, not after everything she had gone through since her mother’s death. She did not want to be nothing more than his trophy, his reward for all of his hard work, when Sansa had worked damn hard, too.

And still, in this moment, she let herself believe he was genuine. Clung to him as the tears escaped her eyes, as she knew that she ought to be confiding in anyone else.

It had been his idea to kill the septa, after all, some time ago, and Sansa had resisted because she knew how Margaery would react to that, as indeed, she had.

And then, the septa had told her that she knew, and Sansa knew then that the other woman had to die. For all her threats about Cersei, Sansa had to make sure that the two women never met each other, and so she had done something abhorrent, and she hadn’t gone to Baelish about it, when he might have even helped her cover it up from Margaery so that she did not have to feel such guilt when Margaery confronted her about it, because she hadn’t wanted to owe him yet something else.

And yet, here she was, begging him for an absolution that she hadn’t understood Margaery’s need for. Because he was the only other one who understood. Because Margaery didn’t offer up comfort, these days, and Sansa did not know who else to turn to.

Oh, Garlan knew the whole story, as did Elinor, but they hadn’t lived it, not like she had, not like Margaery had, not like Baelish had always stood witness to.

Baelish had always been there, and even if that had not always been a good thing, it had always meant something.

“Sansa,” he said, very softly, petting her hair, “Take a deep breath. There you are.”

She hiccuped, didn’t want to pull away from him. “Even if I had you do it, I killed her, and Margaery’s never going to forgive me for it,” she whispered, and she didn’t know why she was fool enough to give this man ammunition, but she had to tell someone.

Baelish brushed a hand through her hair. “You did the right thing.”

Sansa blinked up at him, startled, before she remembered who this man was, that he had stared death in the face plenty of times without once caring for those who had been lost, save for her mother.

She remembered that her aunt was dead as well, his wife.

She swallowed hard. “It doesn’t feel like it,” she whispered, and the disturbing thing, though she didn’t share that with Baelish, was that she didn’t feel bad about killing the septa.

She had thought she would feel bad, when she killed Ser Meryn, the same way that she had felt bad about killing Oberyn, even if she had not done that deed herself, but she did not feel bad about the septa, either.

She felt bad, of course, that Margaery seemed so affected by it, but the septa had known their greatest secret, their most dangerous one, and Sansa had known from the look in the woman’s eyes when Sansa confronted her that she could not allow her to live.

“And what else would you have done?” Baelish asked her, ever the teacher, ever trying to walk her through her decisions.

If there was one thing that was good about this...whatever this was, between her and Baelish, it was that he forced her to confront each and every one of her decisions. To commit to them or throw them aside.

And she both loved and hated him for it.

Perhaps Margaery was sincere about wanting to bring the Faith and the Crown together, but that wasn’t worth their lives. The smallfolk might hate them, but they had not succeeded in killing a queen before.

Cersei would kill the both of them, if she knew the truth.

Sansa had done what she had because of that, even if it did disturb her that Margaery felt worse about it than she had, when she had been the one who…

“You told me that you thought she could come back from this. When I asked you to do it. And then you killed her like that, and don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Sansa whispered, as she pulled back from him. And she wondered about speaking so much to Baelish about a woman he believed to be his rival, but considering the revelation she’d had about him not so long ago, she thought it didn’t matter.

He didn’t care for her heart, the way she had once thought. He didn’t care that it belonged to Margaery, and for now, he still wanted Margaery on the Iron Throne.

Of course, given what she knew about him, she didn’t know how much longer that would last.

“But I don’t…” she sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly. “The septa, she…she knew about us. Somehow, she knew. And Margaery claims that it wasn’t her, but if she somehow let it be known…I had to do it, but I...She won’t even look at me, anymore.”

And she knew it was wrong, somewhere deep inside, to be giving him this ammunition, but who else could she turn to, now?

Margaery had made it clear, in recent weeks, and in the months before them, that it wouldn’t be her. And she was right; Sansa hadn’t been listening.

Baelish sucked in a breath. “As I said,” he murmured, and for a moment, she thought that he might kiss her. “You did the right thing.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel like it?” she whispered.

Baelish was quiet for several moments. When he spoke again, there was something about his voice that sent shivers down her spine.

“When we were younger, your mother and I were in love, did you know that?” he asked her, and his voice was perfectly tailored in the way that it always was when he mentioned her mother, to manipulate her, because she knew half the things he said in that voice couldn’t be true.

She’d seen it in his eyes, once, and known.

“I wanted to marry her, I really did. But she was promised to your uncle, Brandon Stark, instead. Your grandfather laughed me out of his home,” he went on, in that same lilting tone. “So I challenged him to a duel. And lost. Terribly, I might add. I was lucky that your mother ever gave me the time of day again.”

Sansa felt her jaw twitch, and resisted the urge to say something cutting, to tell him that in all of the time her mother had lived at Winterfell, she had never so much as mentioned his name.

Because she was here right now, in his arms, and that meant something even if she didn’t want it to. And turning him away after she’d already done so to Margaery today didn’t sound like the greatest idea.

Or had Margaery turned her away?

She took a careful breath, and wondered how much of what Baelish was telling her was true. She doubted that her lady mother, who had always been so concerned with propriety, would ever have considered someone of Baelish’s background as more than a friend, doubted that it was anything more than a renewed effort to manipulate her, on his part.

And she liked to think that her mother and father had loved each other as few nobles did.

But the words got through to her, all the same.

“And because of that single moment, I made it my life’s goal that no one should ever laugh at who I was again,” he went on, coolly enough, and Sansa, though she knew this had to be a manipulation, was surprised he was admitting that much of himself to her. “You want something, Sansa. There’s no wrong in that, no matter what anyone tells you. Even her. Always believe that.” He paused. “I am sorry, though, for the way I had that septa displayed. That was...a mistake.”

He didn’t admit to those, she thought, her face buried against his shoulder.

She had him, she realized dully. The one moment she hadn’t been trying, hadn’t been acting for it, and finally, she had him.

It made her feel sick.

* * *

Four washerwomen stood at a well near the heart of the city, close to the Keep because the water in other areas was still unsuitable to drink, according to maesters who sat in the Keep drinking water imported from the Reach, these days.

And thus, the women were forced to trek all the way down here to this well, deemed safe enough, just to get some water and drag it back to Flea Bottom, where their family would then be forced to ration it amongst each other, just to avoid death itself.

So they were already an unhappy bunch when one of them began talking.

“Can’t believe the gall of the Crown,” she said. “You hear they’re planning to dump that septa woman’s body with the rotting food over the side of the Keep, now that she’s dead? I imagine that’ll fuck with the water supply as much as whatever this new plague is.”

The other three turned abruptly to her, looking horrified.

“You might start off with something a little lighter,” one of them admonished, shaking herself. “I have to go back and make my boys a meal, now, thinking about that.”

“They say that the septa was butchered the way she was, and not just gotten rid of quietly, because the Queen confessed something to her that she wasn’t going to keep to herself,” the first washerwoman said, considering. “Something bad.”

The other women around the well glanced at her. “Oh? And how would you know that?” 

The first woman shrugged. “I’m...seeing one of the guards who was asked to...get rid of the body. By the Lady Sansa, of all people.”

The women glanced at one another, silence falling over them, before one hesitantly set down her washing and asked, “And what did he say?”

She shrugged again, leaning over the well, now. It was a strange thing to do, with the rumors of the plague still affecting much of the water in the city, the Tyrells forced to bring in water for the people in order to keep them all from dying after drinking it, though that was a slow and arduous task.

The maesters from the Keep claimed that it was safe enough to wash clothes in, and as many of these women found their water suddenly rationed, they weren’t using their drinking water for that. But still, it seemed a risky thing to do.

But she looked quite at home there. “He said that Lady Stark told him not to tell anyone at the Sept what had happened to the woman, and to make sure that no one found her body. That it was important they didn’t know why she had died.”

The women exchanged glances again, their washing forgotten. 

“That Lady Stark sure seems to have a lot of pull these days, for a tossed aside wife of the King and the wife of the man who they say helped kill him,” one said, almost hesitantly.

There was no one around to hear them, though. It was midday, and terribly hot, and most people were either working for their livings or home where their houses might offer a bit of relief from the sun.

The first woman made a face. “That’s ‘cuz they say she blackmailed her way there,” she said, shrugging. “Who knows? She seems to be doing the Queen’s dirty work for her alongside everyone else.”

The other women exchanged glances. “And here I thought she’d be different,” one of them sighed, as if they knew this woman personally.

The first woman shrugged again. “Well, I’m sure I don’t know everything,” she said. “But I’ve never met a noble who cared about the lives of people like us.”

The other women grunted. “Can’t say that’s a lie,” one of them muttered, darkly; she had lost a son at the Sept, months earlier.

“What are you lovely women talking about?” a new voice joined the crowd, a young man dressed in shabby clothes and wearing a hat that was entirely too fine for him, one that he claimed to have stolen off of a lord while “taxing” him for leaving the city.

He adjusted the hat as he leaned rather suggestively against the well, showing off an impressive array of women’s handkerchiefs tied to his belt. 

He was the sort of character that every single one of these washerwomen knew, who went from house to house attempting to sell such “taxed” items to the highest bidder, if he could find anyone brave enough to reach above their station.

He was regarded as something of a harmless buffoon, who would, sooner or later, be caught and hanged for his crimes, but whom none of them would be turning in unless a city guard came for one of said items.

The women exchanged glances, looking slightly amused that he had joined their conversation.

One of the older ones, as she leaned down to pluck her pile of clothes out of the well’s bucket, smirked at him. “Oh, you know. Treason and sedition.”

“Big words,” the young man said, smirking. “Are you sure you know what they mean?”

She stared at him in surprise for a moment, and then let out a sound of disapproval, swatting him with one of her wet towels. “Why you little scoundrel!” she called after him, as he dove out of her way and the other washerwomen laughed at his plight.

Just as he was caught by the spray of the towel, a group of four men with far more dour expressions joined the group at the well, and the washerwomen almost immediately sobered, the older woman who had begun her chase of the boy abruptly stepping back and lowering her chosen weapon to her side.

“This brat giving you trouble?” one of the men asked, narrowing his eyes at the boy in question, who quickly lowered his gaze and glanced away.

The men didn’t carry swords on them, as that would have been too high of a commodity in the lower levels of King’s Landing, but they were carrying sharp looking knives that glistened against their belts, and they were perhaps double the size of anyone else present.

The older woman shook her head. “No, he isn’t,” she said, lowering her gaze as well when the man abruptly turned and looked her way. “Was just having us on, is all.”

The new man grunted, glancing back at his companions, who merely shrugged. “Oh, is that all?” he asked, hand reaching dangerously close to his knife. He looked at the boy. “Get lost, brat,” he said. “Unless you’ve got anything worth selling.”

The boy shrugged, reaching into his jerkin and pulling out a lady’s purse. “Nobles can’t get out of King’s Landing quickly enough, these days,” he offered. “Perhaps your wife would like it?”

The man glanced at it, grunting in something like disgust, before one of his companions let out a loud laugh. “Or maybe your bitch,” he suggested, and the rest of the men let out a round of raucous laughter.

The washerwomen looked uncomfortable, now, packing up their belongings with relative haste.

All of them save for the first one to have spoken at all, who narrowed her eyes at the group of men, with those words. “We was just talking about the Regent, actually,” she said, loudly, to the dismay of her own companions and the young man attempting to sell the purse. “How much like her husband she’s turned out to be, when she was supposed to be so bloody different.”

For a moment, he looked surprised that she had bothered to strike up a conversation with him at all. And then, he smirked. “Right bitch, isn’t she?” he asked.

The men behind him chortled.

“Her and the rest of them ain’t no different,” another added. “No matter how much she likes to pretend her farts smell of roses.”

“Fuck them,” one of the men agreed loudly, spitting ot the side. “You’re right. They don’t give a damn about us. This new Queen keeps making promises and letting her people fuck us, anyways. Just like her miserable excuse for a husband always did.”

“At least he kept his promises,” another muttered darkly.

“Us against them,” one of the original washerwomen said, looking rather nervous at the thought.

But the first woman to speak smiled, instead. “Us against them,” she repeated, raising a single fist into the air.

The men exchanged glances, and then copied her motion. “Us against them.”

“What did they ever do for us, anyways? But steal our sons and keep our food hostage against us.”

“Us against them.”

The original washerwomen exchanged glances, none of them entirely certain that they wanted to be involved in whatever came out of this, when just this morning they had been complaining about far lesser things, like their husbands and the long walk to this particular well.

Sedition sounded like something entirely other from the rest of that.

But the men had gathered quite a crowd, with their shouted words, with their fists raised in the air, and the washerwomen could only watch in something approaching dismay as the men took advantage of that new audience, of the people slinking down the street or out of their homes to hear what, exactly, was going on.

“They’ve never given a shit about us,” one of the men, the unofficial leader of the bunch, if the way he was raising his voice was any indication, “All those lords in their high castles, laughing down at us while they raise our taxes and do whatever they like with our food supply either fucking way.”

“Hear, hear!” one of the other men in the crowd shouted, not one of the originals, the first washerwomen who had begun this conversation noticed, then.

She bit back something of a smile.

That meant people were catching on.

“And now, they sit up there on their gold and kill any of us who dares to question them when we risk our livelihoods already to do so!” the man shouted, getting up on top of the well’s edge. “Their Queen comes down here making lofty promises, but when has she ever delivered on them? When she had a hundred of her guards run us through for daring to protest her?”

Below him, the crowd hesitated for barely a moment, and then cheered like their very lives depended on it. Perhaps in their minds, they did.

The first washerwoman smirked, her job here clearly done, she thought, as she walked away from the crowd and towards a hooded man leaning against a wall at the back of it.

She paused in front of him, not bothering to meet his gaze and draw attention to herself as she adjusted the clothing on her hip. It had to be washed still, anyways.

“Like that, my lord?” the whore who had, moments ago, been a washerwoman, asked.

Baelish smiled at her, a nasty smile that exposed none of his teeth. But then, he wasn’t the sort of man who ever exposed himself, or what his plans were actually for.

Whatever it was he was really up to, the Regent was going to regret coming to visit their whorehouse, she knew. She had come to them as a gesture, and Olyvar, the idiot, had hardly been subtle, before all but disappearing, and some of the girls said that he was working at the Keep now, in pointing out that she was trying to steal them from Baelish for a purpose.

It was a nice idea, she thought. She would have preferred to work for a woman, even if she was a noblewoman. A woman understood what it was to be like them, to be bartered and sold, whether they were noble or not.

But she had never seen Baelish lose a game that he set his mind to, not in the entire time that she’d known him, and so she knew who she had to follow, in the end.

After all, every whore who found their way into one of Baelish’s whorehouses, whatever their motivations, soon ended up hearing what had happened to the last whore who had dared to cross him.

“That was acceptable,” he told her, and she forced herself to send him a smile, in return. It wasn’t hard to summon up the smile, though she didn’t feel it. After all, she knew how to fake emotions for a man.

She kept walking, past him in the crowd, just in case one of the Queen’s agents happened to see them together. They said that she had something of a little spy network of her own, at least in the Keep, and her master didn’t know if that had expanded to the rest of the city, as well.

But she knew that Lord Varys’ little birds were always around.

A part of her hoped that they would report what had happened before this shitshow got worse. That the Queen might find some way to salvage this, even if she could not work alongside her.

* * *

Sansa had come to ask Elinor for her advice, because, much as she was still a little angry with the other woman, she found that it would be rather hypocritical for her to continue to be so, after what she had done to the septa.

If she blamed Elinor for what had happened to Joffrey’s serving boy, that night, she may as well point the finger at herself for what she had done to Margaery’s septa, and if she didn’t feel much guilt about that, she shouldn’t be so angry with Elinor, she thought.

The thought made her shudder.

After all, they had both allowed someone to die because of their plans. She thought perhaps Elinor might have some wisdom to pass along to her, and it wasn’t as if Margaery would see her, just now.

And she hated the feeling she got whenever she went to Baelish for advice, these days. Hated the way that her mind had reacted, as he whispered sweet nothings in her ear when she went to him because she was hurt over what Margaery had said to her.

She should have known better than to do that. Should have known better than to go to him in the first place, and even worse, to have listened to him, when she knew what he was. Knew what he was trying to turn her into.

Elinor, at the very least, was a fresh voice in the midst of all of this chaos, and she didn’t want to bother Garlan these days, when he clearly had enough on his plate.

It had been humiliating enough, trying to decide how she was going to go about asking him to invite Olenna to King’s Landing now, after their previous conversation.

Until she had realized that she didn't need to ask Garlan to invite Olenna; there was someone else in King’s Landing who still kept a near constant correspondence up with Olenna, someone who’s message might even get to her faster than Garlan’s.

Even still, she would have gone to see Megga to talk about this, but she didn’t think Megga would understand. She thought that Megga at the very least suspected what had happened to Margaery, would understand why it felt like such a betrayal, to take the septa away from her, but Sansa didn't think she could bear explaining it, if she didn’t.

Elinor knew. That was enough.

She found Elinor sitting in her parlor, a far roomier parlor than she had once possessed, but the emptiness of the room impressed even Sansa.

And she didn’t know where Elinor’s husband was, or the child, but Elinor glanced up sharply when Sansa entered, her eyes widening, but that was not enough to hide, from Sansa, at the very least, how very red they were.

Clearly, Elinor had been crying, and Sansa found herself sympathetic, despite herself.

“Are you all right?” Sansa asked, quietly, as she walked further into the room. Elinor gestured for her to take a seat across from her, shrugging.

Elinor pursed her lips. She looked in two minds about answering the question, and then, much to Sansa’s surprise, she did.

“Lord Varys came into my rooms while my son was sleeping,” she whispered, and for a moment, Sansa thought she was joking, but there was nothing amusing about the fear in Elinor’s eyes, a fear that she understood all too well.

In truth, she didn’t understand Lord Varys. Had never understood him, since she had first seen him on the Small Council here. He seemed a man without any true motivations, and yet, he was always involved in something.

But this...this didn’t sound much like him, at all. Intimidating a woman by being in the room with her sleeping son...that sounded more like something that Joffrey would have done, while he still lived, and Sansa didn’t understand what Varys’ interest in Elinor would have been, anyway.

But it was clear that he was up to something, and for that reason alone, Sansa needed more information.

Or at least, that was what she told herself, and not that she was worried about Elinor, seeing her eyes so red like that.

“What…” she licked her lips. “What did he want?”

Elinor grimaced. “I don’t know,” she said, tightly. “But this isn’t the first time that he’s done this.”

Sansa’s head jerked up. “What?” she demanded.

That was new.

And, she had to admit, very strange.

Elinor shrugged her thin shoulders. “He did this once before,” she whispered. “Held my son while I walked in and found him like that.” She shuddered. “I’m scared, Sansa. I don’t know what he wants, but he keeps coming here and asking about Margaery, and I know that he’s sending information to Olenna…”

Sansa cut her off, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Olenna?” she echoed.

Elinor looked slightly shamefaced, shrugging one thin shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, glancing up at Sansa. “I thought you knew.”

Sansa sat back in her chair.

She had known about Elinor, of course. After she had all but kicked Elior out of Margaery’s ladies, she had known that the other girl had no reason to stay in King’s Landing, save for the maesters slowly patching up her husband and her impending childbirth.

But the child was born now, and the maesters, whom Sansa checked with constantly over Margaery anyways, assured her that Alyn was well enough to travel, even if they didn’t think that he would ever be completely better.

She had no reason to stay here now, save for the fact that she was passing information to Olenna, and, much as Sansa disliked that thought, she knew it to be the truth.

But Varys…

She didn’t understand what possible reason that Varys might have to conspire with Olenna, unless he had already given up on Margaery but wasn’t quite ready to accept Cersei back into the ranks of King’s Landing once again, but…

If he was threatening Elinor, who was passing information along to Olenna as well…

“What exactly did he want?” Sansa demanded.

Elnior eyed her. “He...he asked me if I thought that Margaery was...If she was pretending to be so affected by the King’s death,” she murmured. “And then he seemed...disappointed, when I told him that I wasn’t sure that she was.”

Sansa grimaced. After all, Varys had to have something in mind for Margaery, if he was asking her closest companions what they thought of her mental state.

“He...he has some plan for her,” Elinor piped up, as if she had read the words right out of Sansa’s mind. “Something that he wants her for. Desperately, if you ask me.”

And he had some reason that he kept intimidating Elinor through her son, as well, Sansa thought, slightly more concerned about that. After all, if Varys was plotting against Margaery, she would figure out what he was up to, would ask for Baelish’s help, if she had to. Gods knew there was no love lost between the two men.

But Elinor’s child was defenseless, and…

And she thought of the boy who had been meant to drink Joffrey’s poison alongside him, and grimaced.

He didn’t deserve to suffer because of anything that they did.

“Has he tried to hurt your son?” Sansa asked, quietly.

Elinor shrugged one shoulder. “No,” she admitted, “But I don’t know what he wants with him. Don’t know if it’s some sort of sick game, or something else, and…” 

She sounded like very soon, she was going to forget how to breathe.

Without thinking, Sansa moved around to where she was sitting and put a hand on her shoulder. It felt nice to feel a human’s touch against her skin, a human who wasn’t Baelish.

She took a deep breath, and then another. “There’s...something I need you to do for me, Elinor,” Sansa admitted, finally, and the other girl blinked up at her. “And in return, I promise that Varys will never harm a hair on your child’s head.”

Elinor swallowed hard. “You can’t promise that.”

Sansa took a deep breath. “I can if there’s no one left to do the harming,” she said, and Elinor blinked again.

“I need you to get a message to Olenna Tyrell for me. I need you to tell her that the funeral won’t happen without her.”

Elinor’s jaw went slack. “Are you...sure?” she asked finally, carefully.

Sansa grimaced. “No,” she admitted, because she wasn’t. She wasn’t sure about anything, at the moment. But she did know that Margaery would not be able to face Cersei Lannister, for so many days, without her grandmother present.

That, whatever had happened between the two of them in recent months, Margaery trusted her grandmother more than she did Sansa at the moment, which hurt, yes, but which Sansa didn’t have the time to fix, just now.

She had taken one counselor from Margaery’s side, and, much as she felt that Olenna Tyrell was perhaps not the person to replace her with, she felt rather duty bound to offer her a new one, especially when it was something Margaery was asking for.

“Can you do it? In time?” Sansa clarified.

Elinor squinted at her. “I want to go home,” she said, and Sansa stared at her. “Back to Highgarden. My husband will be happier there than he ever was here, and our son won’t terrify me by attracting Lord Varys’ attentions, there.” She lifted her chin. “That’s my price.”

Sansa met her gaze. "Done," she said, because in the end, that was no hardship on her part, these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!


	21. The Reach

_ “Are you...sure that this is something you want to do, my lady?” Varys asked her carefully, as Olenna lifted her chin and met his eyes. _

_ Some men were easy to read. Embarrassingly so, for men who played gods with the lives of others. _

_ Varys was not one of those men, if indeed he was a man. He had the mind of a woman, she had found, and she meant that as a compliment. _

_ Men often did not think beyond the length of their own cocks. _

_ Varys was lucky that he did not have that impediment. _

_ “When Petyr Baelish asked my granddaughter if she wanted to be queen, I believe it was because he thought that the Lannisters were the greatest power that could take on Stannis Baratheon, at that moment, but they could not do it without help. Now, with Stannis fucked off to wherever he has gone, Baelish does not seem so concerned about the affairs of the throne. I understand his little wife has found herself fallen off a cliff.” _

_ “Moon door, in fact,’ Varys said, and he sounded almost...sad about it, though Olenna doubted that he was saddened by much.  _

_ Olenna snorted. “Likely story. Of course, mine own dear husband rode off a cliff, so I suppose one can hardly throw stones.” _

_ Varys eyed her. “Surely you’re not suggesting that a man as...precariously positioned as Lord Baelish would murder his own bride,” he said, not sounding at all surprised by the accusation. _

_ Olenna hummed. “And you wonder why I turn to you instead of to him?” she shook her head. “Though at least he does not hide behind one particular family or another. It makes it easier to guess his motives, I say, than it does yours.” _

_ Varys made a face. “My lady, I have only ever…” _

_ “Been interested in the safety of the realm, yes, you’ve said,” Olenna interrupted him, popping another grape into her mouth from the platter that sat between them in the little gazebo, a platter that he had yet to touch. “Interesting, then, that you’ve thrown your lot in with the Lannisters, who seem determined to run it into the ground, between them.” _

_ Varys sat back in his chair. “My lady…” _

_ “But, as I said, I do not trust Baelish,” Olenna went on. “He is the sort of man who thrives on the chaos going on around him, who...hells, even seems to enjoy it.” _

_ Varys grimaced. “He once told me that chaos was a ladder,’ he admitted, and Olenna harrumphed. “But I do not understand why you would now trust me, when you have made it clear that you had no interest in me in the past.” _

_ She waved a dismissive hand. He had made his offer, multiple times, in fact, and Olenna had turned him down multiple times. It had been useful, to know what was coming when no one else in Westeros seemed to, but she had more present concerns, these days. “I already have one king married to my granddaughter, why should I reach for another when one is bad enough?” _

_ She had never wanted her granddaughter to become the queen. That had been something that Mace Tyrell had wanted, something that Margaery herself had decided she wanted because Petyr Baelish whispered the possibility in her ear, or because she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. _

_ Olenna was just trying to keep their family safe. By whatever means possible. _

_ And it seemed that the woman sitting beside the Iron Throne was always burned. Olenna did not intend for her granddaughter to be the next one lost. _

_ She had already endured the disgusting habits of joffrey Baratheon, or Lannister, or whatever he thought himself to be on this given day, had already seen the handprints on her back, left by a husband who got off on that more than on the thought of sex itself.  _

_ She would endure nothing further, if Olenna could help it. _

_ Varys let out a sigh. “My lady…” _

_ “No. But you can do something for me.” She smiled, thinly. “You can tell me what price the Martells might demand.” _

_ Varys gave her a long, searching look. _

_ She wondered if he knew how she had gotten her information, if he knew that she knew he was so deep in the Martells’ pockets because he had originally approached them about marrying their little princess to his dragon, and not the Tyrells. _

_ If he knew that was why she had held him at arms’ length until this point, why she still didn’t trust him, now. _

_ It didn’t matter. Let him guess, she thought idly. It would change nothing, in the end. _

_ Finally, Varys let out a long sigh. “What do you know of the Viper of Dorne, Prince Oberyn?” _

_ Olenna hummed. “I know that he is a character. A womanizer. And that his hatred for the Lannisters is legendary.” _

_ He had certainly established a name for himself, since arriving in King’s Landing for her granddaughter’s wedding, fucking every whore, male or female, in the brothels of the town and some beyond that, and making vague threats towards the Lannisters at every turn. _

_ She would almost admire him if she didn’t think he would turn up dead within the week, should Cersei Lannister or Tywin Lannister tire of those threats. _

_ The Lannistes never forgave a debt, after all, something Olenna knew well. _

_ It was why Joffrey Baratheon still lived, despite the offer that Petyr Baelish had once made to her, before her granddaughter’s wedding. _

_ Varys’ smile was thin, now. He looked almost relieved. Olenna wondered what else she ought to know about the Viper of Dorne.  _

_ Silly name, just as the Lion of Casterly Rock was one. It was not as if the Tyrells went around calling themselves the Roses of Highgarden, or the Redwynes the Grapes of the Arbor. _

_ “Well, he has a particular interest in the Lannisters, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Varys said, the words almost idle. “In fact, I’m quite sure he will demand nothing less than a golden head.” _

_ Olenna stared at him for several long moments, lost in thought. _

_ She had refused Baelish’s original invitation to help her kill the King because she didn’t trust the snake, didn’t know what sort of thing he might be tempted to do with information like that, once the mad little king was out of the way and her granddaughter was free to marry the next Lannister in line, with half a dozen other Lannisters stuck in King’s Landing mourning the little bastard. _

_ Baelish seemed the sort of man to immediately turn on her with any information he could glean from such a scenario without incriminating himself, and she doubted that Cersei Lannister would carry very much where such information came from, after all.  _

_ He seemed the sort of man who would plan ahead for such a thing rom the moment he had first approached her, and that was why she had refused him, even when he made sure that she knew of all the horrible things that Joffrey had supposedly done to the women in his life, even including a noble girl. _

_ Varys was much the same, playing his own game for his own reasons, but at least when he looked at Sansa Stark, it was not with lust in his eyes, but pity. _

_ Men capable of pity, she had found, were still capable of the same atrocities as men who were not, but at least they were easier to understand. _

_ “Do you think Tywin Lannister would allow any of his children to pass on without burning the whole of the Reach for it?” Olenna asked, scoffing. “What about the brother? I hear that Doran Martell has slightly more of a levelhead.” _

_ Varys leaned forward in his chair, the noise of the garden around them serving to mask his next words. “I believe that particular head is the one that Oberyn Martell and his brother are most interested in, my lady.” _

_ Olenna blinked at him. She sat back in her chair, motioning for one of the servants standing a good way off, too far to listen in on their conversation just in case Tywin Lannister, with all of his gold, might have paid them off. Most of them knew better, but Olenna would not take such chances. _

_ “Finally, something interesting,” she said, smiling at him. _

_ Varys smiled back, hesitantly, the sort of smile of a man who is wondering what monster lurks beneath the eyes staring back into his. _

_ Wondering if it was a monster he himself had created. _

(page break)

Laila took a deep breath as she glanced back at the village behind her, fighting back the tears leaking from her eyes as the smoke rose around it. 

She would never be able to return here, she realized. Would never be able to walk back into her family’s cottage and tell off her brother for sneaking some of their mother’s pie before dinnertime, on the special occasions that they were able to have pie.

She would never see her brother again; she had seen him fall into line behind the other prisoners taken by those monsters earlier, just as she was managing to escape.

Laila took a deep breath, forcing calm.

There was nothing that she could do for her brother now, nor for her parents, who had fallen when the flames had first engulfed their home within the Shield Islands.

She kicked her horse to get it moving, because the stubborn creature had smelled the smoke by now, as well, and certainly didn’t want to run into more of it.

But that was exactly where they had to go, just now. Past her family’s home, the only place she had known her entire life, to the edges of the Shield Islands, in the vague hope that she might find the beacon before-

Laila clutched her aching side, drawing in several pained breaths as her horse finally began moving, charging through smoke and a lack of trees, letting out a loud neigh that had Laila worried that she might be overheard.

After several horrifyingly long moments, she glanced over her shoulder, relief flooding through her as she realized that she was not being followed.

Or, perhaps it was not entirely relief. A part of her, the part of her that didn’t scream that this was what her father had always told her might happen, but which he prayed never did, was yelling at her to turn back. No matter what happened next, at least she would be able to see her brother again.

It had been horrifying, watching her village home burned to the ground around the sound of her parents’ screams, smelling the distinct smell of burning flesh from where she hid in the stables, until the smoke overwhelmed her and she was forced to make a run for it with her horse if she didn't want to end up joining her own family in death.

It had been a mistake that she was even out of her home in the first place. She was supposed to be helping her mother cook their supper, and instead, she had snuck off to see Rhys, a boy whom her parents would never let her marry but who she wanted so desperately, anyways.

It all seemed so silly, now.

She wondered what had become of him. They had been kissing under the few trees that remained on the Shield Islands when they first heard the screams, when they saw the smoke rising in the air from the other side of their own island and realized that something was desperately, terribly wrong.

Laila had started running before she even realized what she was doing. She could hear Rhys calling out behind her, yelling her name, but she ignored him. She wondered if he had made a break for it, or if she would find him at the beacon, would find that the beacon was already lit and she was wasting her time, running her horse all of the way there.

But it didn’t matter, she told herself. Every person who lived on the Shield Islands had a sacred duty to get one of those beacons lit, if they ever came under attack again.

Laila dragged in a quick breath, and then another, the sight of that long, unfurled sail that sat in the makeshift harbor their island claimed flashing before her mind again, and she kicked her horse along a little harder, a little more desperately.

Her breathing became more labored alongside the horse’s, something that brought Laila an idle sense of amusement until she realized she was only focusing on that so that she could not think about what she had just seen.

Could not think about how she had run all of the way back to their village only to find half of it already burned to the ground, men who did not look like soldiers but more like pirates marching through what remained of it, pushing along friends and family members who had watched Laila grow up, now hanging their heads low, in chains.

Her father had still been alive the first time this had happened. The first time they had come and taken away those who lived here to sell them as slaves, the first time these upstarts had destroyed life as it was known on the Shield Islands.

He had never wanted it to happen again, rarely ever talked about it. Only told Laila to make sure that she had a piece of flint on her at all times, no matter where she was, just in case.

Just in case the worst happened again, and the rest of the Reach was not there to defend them, as they had not been the last time.

He had survived, that time, by hiding in the stables until it was over, underneath a newborn, dead foal whom the Greyjoy soldiers hadn’t bothered to remove. He’d been just small enough for that.

He hadn’t survived this time, though, and Laila’s eyes once again filled with tears at the reminder of what her father had looked like, half buried under rubble in front of her, as she reached out to check his pulse in a vain attempt after the pirates, or soldiers, whatever they really were, had gone.

She had known already what she would find. His flesh had already mostly burnt away, leaving behind a pool of skin and charred remains, where he lay alongside her mother, who was in a far worse condition because the pirates didn’t seem to have cared whether she lived or not.

Laila licked her lips, biting back the nausea rising up in her throat at the reminder of what her parents had looked like, after they had been burned alive in their own homes.

There was nothing she could do for them now, she reminded herself.

But if she could get to the beacon in time, perhaps she could save her brother from a fate worse than death, from a life of slavery and suffering. Perhaps, if the beacons were lit in time and the rest of the Reach reacted quickly enough, they could still save her brother.

Could stop these nightmare ships and take off her brother’s chains, and they could find some way to survive this, the same way that her father had survived it, the first time.

She sucked in a breath, and then another, her horse once again hesitating as they crested another hill.

“No,” she whispered to the old mare. All of the rest of the horses, the good ones, the ones who were workers in the fields or who really knew how to run, had been taken alongside the slaves. The young of their village, the agile. “No, Smarza, keep moving. You have to keep moving. Please.”

The horse let out a grunt of what she imagined to be dismay, and kept moving. She acted like she knew the route they were taking as well as Laila did, which was something of a relief, Laila thought, since she was beginning to feel rather dizzy, her eyesight blackening around the edges.

Laila breathed a sigh of relief that quickly cut off into a wheeze, as she clutched at her side, glancing down nervously at it. She shook her head; it didn’t matter now, she told herself.

All that mattered was that she made it to the beacon, that no other families were forced to go through what she had just gone through, what her mother and father had brother had been put through.

And then, just when Laila was beginning to fear that she might fall off of her horse out of sheer weakness alone, she saw it. Standing proudly unlit atop the last hill of this island, before the stone cliff promptly plunged down into the sea.

The waves were beating angrily against the sides of the cliff, Laila noticed, as she pulled her horse to a stop directly before the beacon. A storm was coming, and she did not know how long the beacons would last in the face of that. As if the gods themselves were angry, and taking it out on the Shield Islands.

Those ships had looked like they belonged in a nightmare, not reality.

The beacon stood before her, unlit, and Laila took a deep breath as she slid down from her horse and hurried forward, the piece of flint sitting in her pocket, as indeed the citizens of the Shield Islands were always told to have a piece of flint on their person, chafing aganst her fingers.

She knew what she had to do, she thought, as she pulled the piece of flint out of her pocket and hurried forward.

There was normally a guard at the beacon. When the lords of the Shield Islands saw that an enemy was approaching, the beacons were meant to be lit so that the rest of the Reach could be made aware. It would not be enough to save her beloved home, but Laila had grown up her entirely life in the knowledge that this very act might become her responsibilty, one day.

And she was not going to let her parents die for nothing, was not going to lose her brother to the likes of those cruel men who had sailed in without a single bit of resistance, because the Redwyne Fleet was too busy guarding against other enemies these days to focus on new ones,  on their ships that looked like something out of a nightmare.

There were no guards here today, and she wondered if they had gone running to save thier own skins when they saw those nightmarish ships enter the harbor, or if they had never been here at all, shirking their responsibilites in the same way that Laila had been, when she had snuck off with Rhys.

She glanced down at her side again, as she pulled the piece of flint out of her pocket and began desperately hitting it against the stones whcih held up the beacon. 

She forced herself to remember to breathe, because with every movement her side hurt all the worse, and seh could feel her gown beginning to grow wet and heavy.

The brewing storm above her let out a furious thundercrack.

A spark ignited from her piece of flint, and Laila let out a noise of obvious relief, coaxing it to life and then lifting her new torch up to the top of the beacon.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then, the beacon blazed to life, loud and crackling in the cool summer air, as behind her, Smarza let out a loud cry and then turned and ran back in the direction they had just come.

As Laila stepped back from the beacon, she found that she did not even have the energy left to swear, at the sight of her mare abandoning her.

She could onyl stare with wide eyes into the flames, and hope that what she had just done would be enough. Would be enough of a warning, would be enonugh to stop the nightmares from overtaking the rest of the Reach, from spreading to other famillies.

If only the beacon did more than warn with a light, she thought, desperately. If only she could somehow send a message, as well, to warn what was coming, because even with this beacon, she wasn’t sure that would be enough to stop those particular nightmares, horrible as they had been.

She cluthced her side and sank down to her knees, watching the flames grow and reminded uncomfortably of what her own village had looked like, at the sight. It had not been very different from this, only, it did not stand on a hill.

Of course, that was the problem with beacons. They could relay danger, but not who that danger was coming from.

As Laila clutched her side and felt the life’s blood bleed out of the wound between her ribs her with disturbing force, she whispered a single name, a name that no one would hear, because there was no one left to hear it.

Still, it floated out into the wind and was silenced almost immediately, as Laila’s next breath came in a short gasp and the next did not come at all. 

“Greyjoy.”

The beacon burned for two more hours, but there was not enough oil on it, these days, for it to burn longer than that.

Across the bay, another fire was lit, but Laila never saw it.

* * *

Gendry took a deep breath, glancing in the mirror that the servants had placed in his chambers, and let the breath out slowly.

He felt…strange, in the clothing he wore. Like it didn’t quite fit, which was a ridiculous concern to have, considering the lengths that the Lady Olenna had gone to, to ensure that these clothes did, in fact, fit.

He knew that the clothes didn’t feel comfortable because he was keenly aware of their cost; they were rich silks and velvets, and he’d never worn anything similar in his life, used to the life of a peasant.

But the Lady Olenna said that it was the sort of thing he must get used to, now. 

There were a great many things that she wanted him to get used to, these days.

The first of these being his last name.

Gendry…Baratheon.

The name tasted strange, on his lips, like it belonged to someone else entirely, and he was being forced to pretend that it was his own.

Which, in a way, he supposed, was the truth. He had been Gendry Waters for so much of his life, and it was, after all, his name. His mother had not been married to his father, had been a simple common woman from King’s Landing, and that was all he had known for so long.

And the world didn’t feel any different, for all that he now bore the name Baratheon. He was still the same man he had always been; whoever his father had been, he had not been much of one.

His father’s last name had not done anything for him when his mother had died so young and left him on his own. It hadn’t mattered when he had finally found an apprenticeship as a blacksmith, or when he had been forced to leave King’s Landing in order to find work somewhere else.

It hadn’t mattered to Margaery Tyrell, either. She’d taken it in with the sort of idle curiosity of someone whose plans didn’t factor that in at all. 

But Olenna Tyrell seemed to think that name mattered a great deal, even as her granddaughter stood regent for the Iron Throne, and Gendry…did not understand that. Did not understand why she still wanted him, when her granddaughter had everything they could have wanted. Did not understand why she was still treating him like a pawn for her to use, when now, surely, he represented nothing more than a threat to her.

Servants were another thing that Gendry wasn’t used to. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d been alone, since his new patronness had released him from her dungeons, surrounded by either guards or servants at all times.

He knew that it was because Olenna didn’t want him out of her sight for any given amount of time; whatever plan she had for him, and he still had yet to get an honest answer from her about that, she wasn’t about to let him run away.

He felt very much still a prisoner here, in some ways, though his guards were certainly nicer, and they treated him not like a prisoner at all, but like a lord, someone worthy of respect, which was also not something that he was prepared for.

He wondered what his father would have thought, if one day he had met Gendry. If he would have cared that Gendry was his blood at all. They said that Robert Baratheon had a dozen bastards in every brothel in Flea Bottom, that he had only ever acknowledged one who lived in the Vale, far from here.

Still, it had an interesting ring to it.

Gendry Baratheon.

He remembered telling Sansa Stark, the redhead who reminded him so completely, and at the same time not at all, of Arya, or Arry, as he had known her in another life, when she had been a boy, what it felt like to be Gendry Baratheon, when that had never been hs name.

She had been Arya’s sister, and there had been something fascinating about that, at the time, that, despite the years it had been since the last time he had seen the younger girl, her sister was standing before him, alive and well.

Arya had not talked about her sister much; she had not talked about her family much at all, and Gendry thought he knew why, when he saw the sadness in her eyes the few times she had brought them up. 

The whole of Westeros knew of the tragedy of the Starks, after all. He’d known it before he’d come to know a little boy called Arry, who was really a girl.

He remembered mentioning two half brothers and a half sister that he had never met, but only heard about in the same obscure way that every member of the common learned about their betters. They were princes and princesses, and Gendry had been lucky enough, for a commoner, to have ever even met Arya Stark.

But he had, and now, he had met far more than her.

He knew what they said about his half brother, that he had been spoilt and wicked, that he had enjoyed torturing his own epople as much as he enjoyed torturing the girl who was supposed to be his wife, the one who reminded him almost nothng of Arya, save for that spark he had seen in her, while they talked about Margaery Tyrell.

He wondered if that was what the other two were like, wondered if Robert Baratheon had spoiled his children and Gendry was better off never knowing him at all.

He licked his lips, turning away from the mirror and tugging on those damn boots that the noblemen here all wore. They were uncomfortable, and they pinched.

He hadn’t quite worked up the courage to complain about them to his benefactress yet, though.

There was a knock at the door, and Gendry, who was used to people just bursting into his rooms if they wanted to see him, sighed and called for them to enter.

He didn’t deny the small sigh of relief that he let out when he realized that it was Leonette on the other side of that door, looking like she wanted nothing more than to see him.

She was one of the few around here, he thought, who almost made him feel like he might belong here. He thought it was perhaps because so few people in Highgarden seemed to act like Leonette belonged here, either, no matter that she was married to the future Lord of Highgarden.

He did notice some things, after all.

“You look very handsome,” Leonette Tyrell said as she stepped up beside him, reaching out to adjust his cravat, and it took everything within Gendry not to flinch away from her touch, no matter that he did rather like her.

He reminded himself that these Tyrells all seemed to be very tactile people; Olenna Tyrell did not care how many times he flinched away from her when she grabbed his arm as they walked at her slow, encumbered face, or grabbed his hand to make a point.

And Leonette’s touch was not…unpleasant, especially compared to that of a woman who had left him locked away in her dungeons for weeks, because she hadn’t wanted to believe him when he told her that her granddaughter was still alive, something that he…still did not understand.

He would have thought she would be pleased to learn that her granddaughter lived still, when all of HIghgarden had been mourning her, when he had arrived.

But then, the longer he spent around Olenna Tyrell, the less he seemed to understand her.

She was a terrifyingly intelligent woman, with half a dozen plots up her sleeve at any given time, and the more time he spent with her, though it did not help him to understand her more, made him think that perhaps he understood Margaery Tyrell, a bit better.

Leonette was kind enough, but she was not someone that Gendry thought he could ever grow accustomed to being around. She was a lady, and he was very aware of that any time that they spent any time alone together.

But she was also a mother whom Olenna had decided spent too much time around her newborns, and so, she was spending more and more time with Gendry, these days.

He tried to be kind and accommodate her, in light of that. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like, to be told that you shouldn’t be spending so much time alone with your child, and besides, he hardly remembered his own mother.

Didn’t know if she had wanted to spend more time with him herself, before she had passed.

Leonette smiled at him, as she pulled back. “I dare say, you’re starting to look something like a noble,” she told him, and Gendry squinted at her.

“I don’t feel much like one,” he admitted, because it was the sort of thing that he could admit to Leonette, he knew, while he could not admit it to Olenna.

She did not want to hear his doubts, after all; she had made that very clear, the first time that he had offered them up. 

_ “You are Gendry of House Baratheon, the last trueborn son of Robert Baratheon,” she had said, her fingers digging into his arm, when he questioned her over the things that Stannis and his Red Woman had said about him, and she had confirmed them. “Do you understand?” _

_ He had nodded, and never brought up those doubts again, surreal as all of this had been since then. _

_ He did not feel like the last trueborn son of Robert Baratheon; he had never met his father, after all, and he did not feel like anyone so important. His name was hardly one that sparked terror, the way that Joffrey Baratheon’s had, and yet, Olenna seemed to see some significance in it. _

_ He didn’t understand why she had gone from leaving him in her dungeons to parading him around like a wanted guest in her household, though he was not able to leave it, at the same time. Did not understand why she now thought that his last name was so important, when he was just a bastard. _

_ But then, she had explained that much to him, on the first night she had let him out of the dungeons and the two of them had dinner together, an even more surreal experience than the first time he had learned who his father was. _

_ “You are the last trueborn son of House Baratheon,” she had explained to him, and his brows had furrowed, because Margaery Tyrell had already gone back to King’s Landing to be with her husband again, Joffrey Baratheon, and Olenna had already decided, as far as he knew, to lay down arms against the Lannisters when she learned of that. _

_ “But what about…” he’d begun, but Olenna had lifted a finger to her lips, and he had fallen silent. _

_ “Those children…they are nothing more than Cersei Lannister’s bastards,” she said. “By all accounts, you have a better claim to the throne than they do.” _

_ Gendry stared at her. _

_ And yes, Margaery had partially explained this to him once, as well, but it seemed a very different thing, to be told that when he thought he was about to die aboard a pirate ship, and to be told it sitting across a gilded table, eating food too rich for his stomach and wearing clothes that were itchy and too fine for him, from a woman who seemed very capable of doing something with that information. _

_ A woman capable of raising armies because she didn’t like the current king, and had made no secret of that fact since his arrival here. _

_ “I don’t…” _

_ He wanted to say that he was just a bastard, too, even if the current king on the throne had no claim to it, because it was the only bit of logic that he could still cling to in this moment, with Olenna regarding him so seriously, as if she very much expected something to come of her words, expected a more exciting response from him. _

_ But he didn’t know what she wanted from him. He wasn’t one of these nobles, for all that Olenna seemed to want to make him one, now that he was useful to her. He didn’t know their games. _

_ And she struck him as very good at them. _

_ Her hold on his arm gentled, then.  _

_ “Tell me, Gendry,” she had said, and it had been the most gentle she had ever been around him, “How do you feel about taking back what is yours?” _

Gendry flinched back to the present, realized that Leonette had just asked him something “I…sorry,” he said.

Leonette’s smile was gentle. “It’s all right,” she said. “I was asking whether there was anything that you needed.”

Despite the kindness in her tone, the question left him feeling more than a little overwhelmed. He couldn’t think of a damn thing that Lady Olenna had not provided for him, in the time since she had taken him out of that cell, from the opulent rooms he now slept in, to the money she provided him, to the horses. Hells, he had a feeling that if he asked it of her, she might even let him set up a blacksmith’s shop, even in Highgarden.

Then again, she might not, because that was a rather…common thing to do, and she seemed of the opinion that he needed to be weaned off of such things. 

“I…” He licked his lips. “I feel like you’ve been more than generous to me,” he pointed out, because half a year ago, he would never have expected to be treated like this, and not just because Olenna had kept him imprisoned in her dungeons.

Leonette smiled at him. “Perhaps we should have dinner together some time, Gendry,” she told him. “And you could tell me about your life, before all of this? And your mother.”

Gendry flinched, a bit. “I…would like that,” he admitted, because even if the topic of conversation sounded rather unsettling, he was getting terribly bored around here.

He didn’t know much about his mother, though, he wanted to tell her, but he held those words back. He didn’t want her to think that he was trying to brush her off.

For all that Olenna was kind with her generosity, he was no allowed to leave Highgarden save for the horseback rides that he sometimes took with Dickon Tarly, and even then, he could see little enough that the two of them had in common, the few times that Dickon actually had the time to deal with him, rather than with Olenna’s armies, now that his father was in King’s Landing, serving the Regent.

Dickon was a military man, through and through, and bore the rides without complaint, but they were largely silent.

But Gendry was not allowed to practice at swords, with Dickon or with any of the guards, and that was another unsettling thing about living a noble’s life, that he never seemed to be alone.

He had been more alone as a prisoner in Olenna’s cells, and even then, there had still been guards, guards who were not allowed near him now, lest they recognize him.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, wondering if Leonette knew. If she knew what it was that Olenna was planning for him, if she knew that Lady Olenna intended to do more with him than to dress him up in fine clothes and pretend that who his father had been mattered, when he was nothing more than a bastard.

But Lady Olenna struck him as the sort of woman who did not reveal her plans to anyone who she didn’t immediately need to know them, and so, he didn’t bring it up to Leonette, now.

Leonette was kind, in a sort of motherly way, and she didn’t strike him as the sort of woman who would approve of…whatever it was Olenna Tyrell was planning to do with him.

He swallowed hard. “I’d like that very much,” he repeated, and she smiled at him, pulling away, then.

“You know,” she said, and her voice was suddenly gentle, and he wondered for a moment if she was going to bring up her children again, “I know what it’s like to be something of an outsider, here. You can always come to me, if you need something.”

Gendry squinted at her. “I...I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, because he didn’t think it appropriate to ask why some nobles ostracized another, when they all felt themselves above the smallfolk.

He also didn’t think she quite understood how he felt here, even if she did feel like something of an outsider.

He thought of Margaery, this woman’s goodsister. She hadn’t liked the pirates any more than he had, when the two of them had found themselves their prisoners, but by the gods, she had gone out of her way to befriend some of them.

He supposed this situation was a little like that one.

“Well, wish me good fortune,” Leonette said, over her shoulder, as she moved to the door. “You know, Lady Olenna has…required me to come and eat this meal with her, but I’ll be happy to eat with you some other time, as well.”

He licked his lips, as she walked away, and just barely managed to force out, “Do you think hat Lady Olenna might ...permit me to spend some time in the forges?” He asked, at her back, because he thought that might have a better chance of being granted, after all.

Leonette turned back, raising an eyebrow at him. 

He shrugged a thin shoulder. “It was what I used to do…before.”

Leonette pressed her lips together. “I think Lady Olenna would find such a task…demeaning, for one of her guests, when we already have blacksmiths aplenty,” she said, and her words almost sounded apologetic, for all that they seemed final.

She walked back to him, then, and her eyes were…strangely understanding, he thought.

“Lady Olenna is a great woman,” she said, softly, and he wondered if her words were so soft because of the guards outside. “And she takes care of those under her protection, but you should know that she does not easily take…criticism.” Something in her eyes hardened, then. “Especially not these days.”

Gendry blinked at her, thought about the fact that Olenna Tyrell and her servants seemed to go out of their way to make sure that Leonette’s children wanted for nothing - wanted for nothing so much that their own mother certainly didn’t seem to be needed for their rearing.

He wondered if she had done that with every Tyrell, or specifically with these two.

Twin girls, they were, and he strangest sight of Gendry’s life, perhaps besides a Red Woman leaning over him throwing leeches onto his skin, must have been seeing Olenna’s face twist into a motherly expression as she cooed over the girls, and then twist back into something sharp and cold when Leonette approached them.

“Is that what you did?” He asked her, and Leonette flinched, looking away.

Her voice was very different, when she responded.

“I told her that I wanted to go to King’s Landing and be with my husband, and that I wanted to take my children with me, because I’m unhappy here,” she said, and her voice was whisper soft. “And now, I only see my children when I am accompanied, and my letters to my husband are all read, and I must eat with Lady Olenna once a day. Make of that what you will, Gendry Baratheon, but don’t do anything foolish.”

He swallowed hard, eyes widening slightly at her words. “What’s something foolish you think I might do?” he asked her, out of pure curiosity.

He thought of the way tat Olenna Tyrell had looked at him, hard and calculating, as she asked him whether he wanted to take back what she deemed to be his birthright.

If she was right, that meant that Margaery Tyrell should not be the Regent, because her child had no claim to the throne. It also meant that Robert Baratheon’s prince and princess weren’t related to Gendry at all.

He reached up, awkwardly rubbing at his throat.

Leonette’s fingers twitched, curled around the door. “Just...watch your back, Gendry Baratheon,” she warned him, as if she knew something that he didn’t. “Even when you think you’re finally safe.”

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t think there was much worry about that.

He didn’t.

The door shut behind her.

* * *

“The children are settling in nicely to their new rooms, I hear,” Olenna said, and Leonette glanced up from her bowl of soup, sending the other woman a carefully curated smile that promised fury, if she dared question it.

Olenna did not have to pretend she didn’t understand why; she had been the driving force behind getting the children their own chambers, after all. 

It wasn’t good for the children to be too attached to their mother, Olenna had decided, as she watched the way the other woman practically clung to the twins, at every waking moment.

As she watched her hold onto them like they were her lifeline, and then demand to go to King’s Landing with the Heirs to Highgarden, girls though they were, because Garlan was there and she didn’t like it here.

As if women could have things that they liked just because they wanted them, Olenna thought, with a small snort that seemed to catch Leonette’s attention, if the wide eyed look she sent her way was any indication. 

They were young yet, and could still rely on her, but mothers were for having children. Septas and servants were for raising them. Especially in noble families; imagine if the future Lady of House Tyrell saw fit to spend her time as wet-nurse and maid to her children, daughters no less, for the rest of her days.

That was how she had been raised, and it had never done her any harm.

Olenna sniffed at the false smile on Leonette’s face, and leaned back in her chair.

She knew that Leonette had disapproved of her decision; her children were only a few months old, after all, and she had always been a doting young fool, even if Olenna applauded her ability to land Garlan, considering the disaster of a family that she had been born into.

But there was little that Leonette could do about it; she had already made her appeal, and Olenna had found it rather lacking.

And while Leonette would one day be the Lady of Highgarden, now that Garlan was in line to be its lord, Olenna was so currently, for all that Alerie had the title.

Leonette would just have to learn to get in line, like Alerie had, though Olenna would admit that Alerie had not put up nearly as much of a fuss, in that regard. She had been content to be a loving wife, and known her place well enough from the first few minutes she had spent with Olenna.

Leonette would just have to learn.

It was for her own good, after all.

When they went to war with the Lannisters, as Olenna had no doubt they inevitably would, Leonette would need to be capable of thinking of more than just her own children, as a Lady of their House.

Garlan was not here, and she supposed that the young woman must be bored, indeed. So she’d given her something to occupy her time with, even if Leonette seemed to find it as distasteful as she had being told she would not need to sleep in the same chambers as her children, anymore.

Leonette had not taken kindly to her added, duties, one of them being this lunch with Olenna every week, but she knew that the other woman would, eventually, fall into place.

They always did.

It was the one comfort that she had, just now, besides the weekly letters that Elinor was sending her from King’s Landing.

“So I’ve heard,” Leonette said, through clenched teeth.

She had never been able to perfect the ability to hide what she was thinking. It was useful, in manipulating her, but rather annoying in the future Lady of Highgarden.

Of course, Olenna had not known before that Leonette would be her only choice in that regard, so she supposed this was partially her own doing.

“And Gendry,” Olenna said, into the silence, after she took a loud slurp from her soup. “I notice you spend quite a bit of time with him. How is he settling in?”

Leonette took a careful breath, setting down her spoon. “He’s...troubled, I think, by what his place is here.”

Olenna snorted. “If I wanted to know that, I could have figured it out without your input, dear,” she said, coolly, and Leonette flinched.

This was as much about her need to keep an eye on Gendry as to figure out how well Leonette was progressing, she told herself. It did not do much to comfort her.

“He thinks that he’s still a prisoner here,” she said. “He asked me for permission to go down to the forges.”

“So he’s not an idiot,” Olenna hummed. “I hope you told him no.”

Leonette opened her mouth, and then closed it. “I…”

The door opened then, a servant popping his head in, interrupting her.

Olenna sighed.

“Gods, what is it now?” Olenna demanded, as she waved the piece of meat in her hands and turned a fierce glare on the serving boy before her.

He flinched. “It’s...ah, Lord Dickon Tarly, my lady,” he announced, and instantly, a  change seemed to come over the Lady Olenna.

She set down the piece of meat in her hands, sending a smile in Leonette’s direction, before she got to her feet, reaching awkwardly for her cane. Leonette reached out as if to help her, and Olenna shot the woman a scalding look.

“Well, be a dear and let him in, would you?” she asked, forcing a smile she didn’t particularly feel. “Don’t leave the poor loitering out in the corridor.”

The servant bowed. “Yes, my lady.”

“Dickon Tarly?” Leonette asked, with a raised brow, as the servant went back out into the hall.

Olenna hummed. “Something that you will need to keep in mind, my dear, when you become the Lady of Highgarden, is that playing nice with your vassals is just as important as your husband’s ambitions. It is something that this family has willfully tried to deny for some time now. We can no longer afford to.”

Leonette blinked at her. “The Tarlys-”

“Know how to deal with the other Houses in this dreaded kingdom,” Olenna told her, coolly. “So long as we can keep a handle on them. I don’t want to deal with a civil war on top of dealing with that cunt, Cersei.”

And whatever was happening in Dorne, she added, silently.

Fortunately, the door opened then, and Dickon Tarly, tall and burly as ever, Olenna thought, stepped inside, dipping his head to them like a serving boy, rather than the firstborn son of a lord.

“Dickon,” she said, sending the young man a happy smile, despite the fact that he was just as charming as his dour father.

He was easy on the eyes, though.

She suspected that would be useful, later.

“I’m sorry for the interruption, my lady,” he said, dipping his head to her, and Olenna waved a dismissive hand. 

“It’s no trouble at all,” she said, sitting and gesturing for him to do the same. “Lady Leonette and I were just eating our lunch. Would you care to join us?”

Leonette stared at her.

Dickon, the young fool, looked a bit startled by the invitation. Well, she supposed, as he awkwardly took the seat between the two of them, at least he had manners.

He sat, leg bouncing awkwardly, and she wondered what sort of man Randyl Tarly had raised, in the son that he had so prized above another. Wondered if he even understood how to act in a formal setting; she knew that he was a warrior, strong and battle smart, but she had heard little else to recommend him.

Not that he needed smarts, in any case, for the future that she intended for him.

He would have been a good husband for Margaery, she thought, a pang of something like guilt following the thought. More than a foolish, but brave enough, and eager to please someone so above him, even if she was a woman.

A far better husband than one who loved her brother, or one who enjoyed beating little girls than he did making them.

And it would have gone a long way towards keeping Randyl Tarly in line, she thought bitterly. The man seemed content to do their bidding now that they had placed him on the Small Council and asked him for his help in leading the war that they all knew was coming, but he certainly didn’t ask for much.

His son was not the same, far more content with what he was given, which was a rare enough thing to see, in a nobleman’s son.

Refreshing, almost.

And not in the same way that Gendry seemed to be, taking what was offered to him because he was far too shocked by her sudden turnaround concerning him than truly appreciative.

But he was a bastard, born into poverty, and she did not expect him to ask for more.

He was her maverick, her hidden piece, just in case everything else went to the seven hells, and while he certainly didn’t seem to understand her interest in him, she thought he understood that just fine, where even Dickon Tarly would not.

Gendry had a good head on his shoulders, having been burned before. She would have to keep a closer eye on him than she did Dickon, which was what fueled her next words. 

Dickon Tarly took the plate of cheese that she offered him, looking confused about what he was meant to do with it, and Olenna rolled her eyes when he wasn’t looking up at her.

He took a careful bite, and then another, as if he was surprised by how good it was, and then dipped his head in her direction.

“Now,” she asked, “What is it?”

Dickon pursed his lips as he took his seat, and awkwardly took some of the meat that Olenna forced in his direction. “I’m...afraid that it’s bad news, my lady,” he informed her. “Ah...about the pirates, on the coastline.”

Olenna frowned. “I don’t like bad news so late in the morning, Dickon,” she said. “It’s not good for digestion.”

He grimaced. “My apologies, my lady,” he told her, “but I felt that the situation warranted it. The pirates are getting bolder; we’ve lost three fields, this time, and more than a dozen field workers were taken on to their ships. And, this time...we lost the Shield Islands before we even realized that they had been taken. The beacon was lit earlier this morning. You can see the smoke from the coastline.”

Of course they were, Olenna thought, because it wasn’t as if half the Reach and King’s Landing itself depended on those fields, those laborers.

“We managed to cut them off before they burned the next field, my lady, but unfortunately we are not able to catch up with them in time to stop them, most times. And the loss of the Shield Islands…”

He trailed off then, not needing to say more.

This had all happened before, after all.

Olenna closed her eyes.

She was not surprised by the report; Dorne, for all that their current relationship was...rather fraught, had been sending them warnings of pirates raiding along their own coastlines, taking prisoners that were never seen from again.

The pirates were getting bolder, if they were coming this far, and getting this close to Oldtown. Most of the Tyrell army might unfortunately be needed in King’s Landing, but Olenna might have to recall some of them to deal with it, if the situation escalated.

Dorne certainly wasn’t dealing with it, after all.

Gerold Dayne was doing his best to handle matters, riding out to the Southern villages each day in an attempt to hold back the hordes, but from what she understood, he was having to do so only after the fact; the pirates attacked sporadically, and there seemed to be no sense in their attacks.

Sometimes, they did not even seem like the same pirates, or that they were working together.

And Gerold could barely keep a handle on his new wife, who flip flopped between issues like she didn’t know what she wanted, now that she had finally scraped her way to power.

That was the problem, with young girls taking thrones that didn’t belong to them.

Olenna sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“And we still have no idea who these…pirates are?” She demanded.

She knew the answer before he said it, of course, but it still irked her, when he did respond.

Dickon glanced away. “They leave no survivors to identify them, my lady,” he said, and Olenna let out another sigh, the news not surprising her. 

She thought of that strange, greedy pirate who had kidnapped her granddaughter out of the sea, who had all but sold her to the Martells for a cache of gold, and wondered if he was any relation to these new terrors.

He seemed to have followed the general trajectory of the rest of these pirates, after all, though there was nothing soothing about the fact that he seemed at least amenable to negotiation, while Olenna still had no idea what it was that these pirates even wanted.

All of their attempts at negotiation had come up empty; the pirates terrorizing their borders, as they had terrorized Dorne before this, seemed to have no interest in talks, nor in money that they could not take for themselves, rather than having it handed to them.

And they were exactly the sort of headache that Olenna didn’t need, just now.

She reached out, then, taking Dickon Tarly’s hand again and patting it. “I want you to go to the coastline and deal with this yourself, my boy,” she told him. “Do not return until you have taught these fools a lesson; that the Reach is not ot be trifled with. That these pirates cannot be allowed to continue preying on our subjects without any sort of retaliation, and we must be ready for them, next time. I don’t care if you have to camp out on the beach until they come to you, but deal with them. I am entrusting you with a great deal, Lord Dickon. Please, for the sake of the Reach, do not fail us.”

Dickon blinked at her hand on his, and then dipped his head. “As you wish, my lady,” he said, and Olenna forced herself to smile at him.

“And then, once you have defeated these awful pirates, I think it’s time to discuss your marriage prospects,” Olenna went on. “I find it passing strange that a young man as handsome as yourself has no potential bride to speak of, save a girl of three and ten.”

Dickon flushed. “My father…”

“Do you want to marry this girl?” Olenna asked. “Your father is a wise man, of course,’ she said, biting her tongue, “But I am sure that he did not arrange this marriage with thoughts of the heart in mind. Nor with the realization that we might soon be at war, and heirs may be...gods forbid, necessarily soon.”

Dickon swallowed thickly. “I know my duty, my lady,” he told her, an edge entering his voice.

Good.

Olenna smiled tightly. “Of course you do, my boy. Pay an old woman’s mutterings no mind. I merely think…” she sighed again, glancing sideways at him. “My granddaughter would have been a much happier woman as wife to a lord like you than to the late King, I think.”

Dickon blinked at her. “I…”

He didn’t seem to know how to respond; she wondered if he was a bit dull, as her own husband had been.

It was not an impediment, of course.

“Well, I’ve clearly given you something to think about,” Olenna interrupted him, “And you have a battle to prepare. Good day, Lord Dickon.”

He blinked at her again. Then, “Yes, my lady,” he said, giving her a little bow as he got to his feet and all but fled the room.

Leonette raised a brow, as he left. “What do you have planned for that one?” she asked, sounding more bemused than annoyed at the thought that Olenna was grooming him for something.

Smart girl.

“I’m not sure that’s something you need to concern yourself with just now, my dear,” Olenna told her, reaching for another chunk of cheese.

Leonette let out a sigh. “Then I’ll ask something else, in the hopes that you mgiht actually answer me this time. What are you planning for Gendry?” Leonette demanded, and Olenna turned, raising an eyebrow at the other woman.

Setting aside that she wasn’t sure why the other woman was asking that now, of all times, she was surprised that Leonette was bothering to get involved in her politics. They had never seemed to interest her before.

Like Dickon, she had always been content with her marriage to Garlan, and little else than that.

But then again, Olenna supposed she might have inspired this, with the way she was trying to push the other woman to step up, at least in part.

Even if being questioned was irritating.

“What ever do you mean, dear?” She asked, and then gestured towards Leonette’s bowl. “Your soup is getting cold.”

“You won’t let me see my children, or my husband,” Leonette pointed out, sharply. “I’m not entirely sure why, but I thought it was because you want me doing something else. And I don’t just think it’s because you’re worried about me bringing shame to the family by carrying my girls around on my hips all the time. You’re afraid that if I go to King’s Landing, I’ll let something slip to them that you don’t want them to know about. That’s why you’re punishing me for even considering it, why you’re keeping my children from me so that I don’t try to leave with them in the night.”

Olenna set down her spoon abruptly. “Is that what you think?”

“And whatever it is, I might not even have to know all of it, to let slip something important,” Leonette continued, coolly. “I don’t know much, of course, for all your protests that I need to do more to protect this family by stepping up, now. But I do happen to know about the way you’ve been all but spoiling Gendry. So.” She raised an eyebrow. “I think, if you’re going to insist on keeping me here, you might as well tell me what’s going on. You have all of my letters read, anyway.”

Olenna hummed. “You’re being paranoid, my dear girl,” she said. “No one is reading your letters.”

“Horseshit,” Leonette said, staring her down.

Olenna smirked. “Language, child.”

“I’m hardly a child,” Leonette said. “And I’ve heard you say far worse, my lady.”

She looked angry, Olenna thought, as she turned her whole attention on the girl for the first time in some time. Angry, and her fingers were twitching, around her spoon.

Olenna knew from experience how antsy one could get, when their children were kept from them at such a young age. Knew that need to do something about it, or to do something in general, if she could not fix that particular problem.

Olenna supposed it couldn’t hurt to tell her a little more about why she was doing it.

Leonette was right; she did intend for the other girl to eventually step up, as the Lady of Highgarden, a role she had never been destined for before, and she supposed letting her in on a little of the secret, when she had no way of spreading terror to King’s Landing, wouldn’t hurt, at this point.

There was little she could do to stop it, after all. 

She leaned forward, a sharp smile twisting her lips. It felt strange to smile, after so long, after losing so much.

“What do you know about dragons, Leonette?” She asked, and the other girl’s eyes widened.

“I…I…”

Olenna took another sip of her soup, and then reached for the glass of murky water that the maesters made her drink with every meal, now.

It tasted like horse piss, but she managed to down it all in one gulp, all the same.

“Because I spent a good deal of my girlhood with them, and the one thing that you should know about them, of course,” Olenna continued, at Leonette’s floundering, reminding herself that the girl had wanted to know, and it wasn’t her fault if the girl didn’t take it well, “is that when let loose on Westeros, they like to burn everything within sight, unless they have a firm hand guiding them.”

Leonette swallowed hard. “Are…are we likely to encounter dragons soon, my lady?” She whispered, voice low, and Olenna thought she saw fear flash in the other woman’s eyes.

Good. At least she was taking this seriously.

It proved that she had been right to ask for more information, even if Olenna wasn’t sure where her grooming of this particular young woman might go.

Then again, she had been certain she had known where her grooming of Margaery would go, and she had made a mistake, then.

This time, with this plan, she didn’t intend to leave open many avenues for mistakes to occur. 

Olenna smiled at her. “Perhaps you are sharper than you look, dear,” she said.

Leonette didn’t look impressed by the compliment. She opened and closed her mouth, and then whispered, “And…are we truly to expect these dragons to be allies?” She asked, carefully. “I’ve heard that they can be…temperamental creatures, and she...she has the one thing they surely want.”

The throne.

And she was unlikely to give it up these days, stubborn brat, with everything that she had sacrificed to get this far.

Yes, Leonette may not be the smartest young woman that Olenna had ever met, but she knew Margaery well.

Olenna shrugged. “For now,” she said, and watched Leonette shiver.

“I’ve heard that dragons don’t take well to wrongs, especially not…especially not the Dragon Queen,” she pointed out, softly, worried, no doubt, for Margaery.

It was good to know that people still were, Olenna supposed.

Still, Olenna smirked at her. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that she is not the dragon I refer to, dear,” she said, and Leonette closed her eyes, opened them again.

She didn’t ask, as Olenna had thought she might. Instead, she changed the subject abruptly. 

“And they don’t know in King’s Landing, do they?” She asked, hoarsely.

Of course they didn’t, Olenna thought, scathing. From all reports, her granddaughter hardly knew her head from her own arse, these days.

Olenna hummed. “Some know,” she said. “A snake and a spider. I could hardly keep such things from either of them, even if I wanted to. The rest, though? No, they don’t know.”

She had paid a great price to make sure that the spider and the snake, neither of whom knew the other knew, but both of whom must have at least suspected, made sure that information did not go beyond the both of them, in King’s Landing.

That would be a terrible mistake, she thought. Margaery would no doubt do something foolish like ally with Cersei to chase off said dragons, and then they would all be far too dead to enjoy the spoils of victory.

But Olenna had done a great many things she was not proud of, in recent years, and she intended to live to see those things bear fruit, for Margaery.

The girl might hate her at the moment, but she deserved that, at the very least.

Leonette stared at her. “Why not?” She asked, sounding slightly horrified, and Olenna made a mental note to make sure none of her ladies missed a single letter going out of Highgarden from the other woman, just in case. “Your granddaughter is sitting on the Iron Throne, they say. Don’t you think she ought to know what’s coming for that throne? The Targaryens have never been known to share such things. If she’s surprised by their arrival…”

Olenna hummed, affecting a lack of concern. “You weren’t in King’s Landing during those final days before King Joffrey’s death, by dear girl, but if you were, you would know that she has changed greatly from the ambitious young woman you once knew.” She sighed. “I fear that if she knew the truth, she would…panic, the way that she clearly did when she had her husband butchered, and do something very foolish to get us all killed.”

Leonette grimaced; it was no secret, to Leonette, at the very least, though the rest of the Reach was left blissfully unaware, what had really happened to Joffrey.

Olenna supposed that was her own fault; she had thrown quite the tantrum, in those first few days, after her own granddaughter had sent her away like a disgraced scullery maid, and Leonette and Alerie had been her only companions, in those days.

It did not help, of course, that Olenna very much believed that if Margaery were party to the truth, she would do something foolish, just now.

Varys seemed to believe that the way she was carrying on was an act, designed to make them all underestimate her, and Olenna hadn’t bothered to disabuse him of the notion, not when Baelish was busy whispering in Sansa Stark’s ear this day, and Varys seemed convinced that Sansa was taking on a great role, in the Keep, at the moment.

It was good to have someone paranoid enough to keep an eye on Baelish, but Olenna knew her granddaughter.

She knew that the Margaery she had raised would never act the way she was now, not unless something had…severely changed her. It would not even have occurred to her.

Leonette’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t…I don’t understand what any of that has to do with Gendry,” she admitted, finally. “I thought…I thought perhaps he was going to be a backup plan for you, if the child your granddaughter has is a girl. That you would have him marry her, and paint him as the last true heir of Robert Baratheon.”

Olenna snorted. She supposed she understood where such ideas had come from, given all of the interest that she had shown in Gendry of late, but she was no fool.

Gendry had spent his early days here in a cell, and as grateful as he ought to be if she did place him on a throne and give him a wife like Margaery, she had no doubt that was something he would not forget.

She preferred the sort of king who had no reason to turn against them, one day.

And such kings were in short supply. 

“You do realize that Robert Baratheon left behind other bastards, for all that Cersei and her spawn tried so hard to be rid of them. Gendry is hardly the oldest of these, even if Stannis’ castle will soon…cease to house one of them. You’ve spent a good deal of time with this boy, since he has come to stay with us, Leonette. Tell me: do you think he has the makings of a king?”

Leonette took a deep breath. 

Gendry Baratheon, from what little Olenna had gleaned of him, since he had arrived here, was a nice young man, strangely forgiving, though that might have been from fear more than anything else, and with a strong sense of justice, as well as a fair bit of impetuousness to come all of this way to deliver a message for a girl he barely knew, and with a good head on his shoulders.

He would make a terrible king; he’d be dead within a month.

“Then what are you planning for him?” Leonette demanded.

Olenna sighed, supposing that if she didn’t spell it out, Leonette might cause trouble for her in the long run, and might never let her hear the end of it. She could only hope the other woman was not too attached to him, from all of the time they’d been spending together. 

“The boy is not a stag, Leonette. He is a lamb.”

Leonette stared at her for a moment longer, before she got to her feet abruptly, her chair scraping back loudly.

Olenna winced.

“I can see why she sent you away, now,” Leonette gritted out, before Olenna could say anything, and then turned and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Olenna sighed, reaching for her spoon once more.

She had given up on explaining her actions to the young people around her, these days. They did not understand the meaning of the words greater good, it seemed, but when it was all done, they would.

And they would thank her for spilling blood where they did not have to.

It was the least she could do for Margaery, now, after everything she had put her through.

* * *

Olenna sighed, long and low, as the last of her ladies fled her chambers.

She reached up, unfastening the cloth around her neck, and remembered abruptly how to breathe properly again.

It was getting harder and harder, though she refused to admit it, to keep up the charade. To maintain her ironclad control over Highgarden, when she was already plotting how to move that control beyond, to King’s Landing.

And now, pirates were raiding their shores, and she had to deal with Leonette.

It was hardly endearing her to the kingdoms, she thought, to know that she could hardly bring these pirates under control, when she wanted to control far more than that. 

The fact that she was putting Dickon Tarly in charge of this might help a bit, but Mace was still sitting on his arse in King’s Landing, looking terribly unconcerned with the Reach from his lack of attention to it, even if Olenna understood why he refused to leave his children there again.

Not after what had happened with those fanatics, not that she thought her son would be capable of stopping any new uprisings, either.

Olenna let out a sigh; in truth, if her own granddaughter hadn’t all but exiled her from King’s Landing, she knew she would be there too, now, and the Reach would be in an even worse state of disarray, she was certain.

Still, for the sake of the fragile men who raised their banners for House Tyrell, she knew it would have been better if Mace were here, rather than her.

She took a deep breath, sitting down hard on her bed now that the servants were no longer around to see such weakness, and rubbing at her eyes.

Gods, she was getting more and more tired, these days. She knew that came with age, but she loathed it, all the same. There were hardly enough hours in a day to begin with, and now, she had to deal with this, as well.

Though she had Leonette, now. The girl had almost begged Olenna to use her in some capacity, to alleviate her boredom, and she may come to regret that eventually, but Olenna would be a fool not to take her up on it, now. There were several tasks she could already think of Leonette taking over.

Tasks that Alerie would not have been able to manage, if Olenna bothered to approach the other woman with them. Leonette may be similar to Alerie in temperament, but there was a drive in there that simply wasn’t existent in Mace’s wife, Olenna thought. 

Revealing as much as she had to Leonette had not been ideal, but she supposed it would be helpful to have another person, besides the Spider, to throw ideas off of, when she was still not certain how much she could trust said spider’s webs.

She was not certain how much she could trust Leonette at the moment either, with how desperately she seemed to want to leave this place, but she was better than the mirror, Olenna thought.

And she was running rather thin on allies, these days, especially when most days it felt like she was looking at half of a map, with the lack of information that she got, here.

She knew about the dragons, knew about the Spider’s plans for her granddaughter now, perhaps too late, knew about that pranced up peacock, Baelish, and the way that he was manipulating her granddaughter and Sansa Stark in equal measure, but there were things that she simply couldn’t know, as well, being all of the way out here.

She hadn’t been able to prepare for Margaery to bring some septa into her life and nearly throw King’s Landing into the hands of fanatics once more. Hadn’t been prepared for Baelish and his threats, and of course, had only barely been prepared for that cunt, Cersei, to do her worst, now that she had the freedom to do so, in the Rock.

Cersei, of course, had immediately blamed the Tyrells for what she claimed had nearly happened to her own son, an excuse to crown the boy, as if that had not only endangered him far more.

The bitch seemed to think it was some display of her affection for the little brat, as if it didn’t prove to all of the realms that she intended to see him as nothing more than a placeholder for the Iron Throne, for her throne.

It was absolutely ridiculous of an accusation, Olenna reflected. As if there would have been anything to gain from her killing Tommen Lannister, when all of the Seven Kingdoms would suspect her first of all in doing it.

And besides, she truly had nothing to gain from it. 

Once, a long time ago, she had thought about killing Joffrey, and she had felt no guilt over such plans, when Sansa Stark had informed her about what sort of boy he really was.

In the months after his marriage to her granddaughter, she had greatly regretted not simply allying with a snake like Baelish and butchering the boy at his own wedding, the way the other man had suggested.

Baelish was a snake, and hardly trustworthy, but at least he had not enjoyed torturing kittens and beating his own wife.

She had thought that the boy could be controlled far better than someone like Baelish could, at the time. Now, she wondered if Cersei wasn’t right about one thing; that simply killing anyone who stood in your way, or framing them for the attempted murder of someone you cared for, was a fuck of a lot easier.

She gritted her teeth.

She considered her greatest failure to be the fact that she had not spared her granddaughter from a miserable marriage with that little cunt. If she had, they would not be in this mess at all.

Margaery would have married the boy’s impressionable little brother, and perhaps it would have been awkward, but it would not have resulted in her suffering a traumatic rape, would not have resulted in her granddaughter all but losing her mind, in turn.

And the boy could have been as easily manipulated as Joffrey had been, but without all of the tears, without the need to kill him just to maintain Margaery’s position. No one would have expected a child for many years to come, and Cersei would have been far easier to deal with in that respect, as well.

She pressed her lips together.

What was done was done, and much as Olenna loathed much of the way things had turned out, she knew that it made little difference, now.

What mattered was making sure that Margaery and Cersei, between the two of them, didn’t foul this up any more than they already had.

Eventually, they would deal with Cersei, but at the moment, with the child not even out of Margaery’s womb yet, they could take no chances.

Olenna still had to have contingencies for when everything went to hell, even if her granddaughter seemed to not care about such things.

Her granddaughter, who had not reached out to her since a few days after the King’s death, in a letter obviously written by Sansa and not Margaery at all, asking that Highgarden show its support for the Crown publicly.

Olenna had rolled her eyes, reading it.

Yes, she was furious with her granddaughter, but she wasn’t fool enough to let on about that fury to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, not if they wanted Margaery’s child on the Iron Throne, after all of this.

She knew that Sansa Stark didn’t understand that sort of thing, from the dynamic she had witnessed of their family these past few years, but if she had known them before all of this, she would. She would know that whatever fights they went through, they were all Tyrells, in the end.

Highgarden had been the first to proclaim for the new Regent. The rest of the Reach had followed, with more difficulty than Dorne had, certainly, which was concerning in and of itself.

The thought that Dorne was up to something was never far from her mind. She knew about the fragile alliance that they had formed with Margaery, but she also knew about the things that they had kept from Margaery, the things that Varys was trying even still to keep from her.

She knew that Doran Martell intended to marry his daughter to Aegon Targaryen, despite Varys’ very best attempts to keep that information from her. So whatever agreement they had with Margaery, she doubted very much that it was set in stone.

And the fact that Arianne Martell could scrape together all of the lords of Dorne to agree to proclaim for Margaery’s Regency before Olenna had managed to do so for the Reach lords....irked Olenna more than she could say.

She coughed then, knowing exactly what was happening but unable to stop the stress from leeching straight for her throat, unable to stop the phlegm that coughed its way up her throat as she flailed desperately for the nearest handkerchief, and coughed into it.

That first cough turned into a dozen, and Olenna grimaced, which only made the sensation worse, only made the phlegm clawing its way up her throat stick there, until she had to nearly choke to dislodge it.

Of course, with it came blood.

The door burst open as her coughing only grew worse, as her face reddened and she found herself nearly doubling over on the bed, the handkerchief wasted, now.

“My lady?” The serving girl who entered asked, looking concerned.

Olenna turned, glaring at the other girl. “Get the fuck out,” she snapped at the girl, whose eyes had gone very wide at the sight of the blood on Olenna’s handkerchief. “And send for the damn maester.”

The girl bobbed her head up and down, and all but fled the room.

The moment she was gone, Olenna sighed. The girl would have to be sworn to silence, of course, or moved to some position where no one would bother to ask her whether or not her lady was ill.

No one could know, after all. 

She returned not too long after with the maesters, who was surprisingly agile for a man of his years, but then, she supposed, he had to be, to deal with their family.

He took a deep breath, at the sight of Olenna, her arms covered in blood, and turned to the serving girl. “Get some hot water and towels,” he told her. “And go to my study, and grab the concoction there labeled with her name.” The girl nodded. “Quickly, do you understand?”

The girl fled.

The maester turned back to Olenna, then, walking forward and reaching out to clean her off, a little. Olenna bristled.

He reached into the pack that he had brought along with him, and gave it to her to drink.

Olenna let out a long sigh.

The maester reached down then, to rub at her throat as he often did, to check for lumps there.

“Have you been drinking the concoction, my lady?” the maester asked, sounding more than a little impatient with her.

Olenna lifted her chin. “Yes, I’ve been drinking your horse piss like its fucking wine,” she told him, perhaps a little more snippily than she had intended, but dear gods, she was annoyed. “It’s supposed to take care of this sort of thing. Clearly, you’ve failed in that.”

The maester swallowed. “My lady, it takes some time for the concoction to work. Had I known about it earlier…”

“You’re a maester, aren’t you?” Olenna asked him, coolly. “You’re supposed to be the maester for all of Highgarden. If you can’t manage to deal with this, perhaps I need to find someone who can do it better.”

“My lady,” the maester said carefully, “The concoction will work for a little while, yes, and should have already begun to take effect, but it will not last forever. Eventually, you understand that-”

“If I wanted someone to predict my future, I would have called for a witch, not a maester,” Olenna snapped at him. “I want you to make this work. I have things I need to…”

She broke off again, coughing.

The maester sighed, speaking when she had finally finished. This time, at least, there was less blood.

“You’ve taken on too much, my lady,” he told her. “If you want my opinion. You need to rest.”

“I can rest when these things are done,” Olenna muttered.

He swallowed. “Forgive my impertinence, my lady, but you may not be able to.”

Olenna glared at him. “Can you do something about this,” she gestured down at her soiled gown, “or not?”

He grimaced. “I can,” he agreed. “I can give you more potions to drink, and I can recommend looking down your throat, and removing some of the phlegm.” He cleared his throat. “Blood letting may also…”

“I don’t have the time for that,” Olenna snapped. “Just bring me the concoctions, the moment you’re done with them.”

He sighed. “As you wish, my lady.”

The serving girl returned, then, handing the items he had asked for over to the maester, before she turned hesitantly to Olenna.

“One of the messengers found me in the hallway, my lady,” she reported, holding out a sheet of parchment. “A raven delivered this, not an hour ago.”

Olenna snatched it out of her hand. “At least someone here knows their duties. Go,” she said, as they both bowed to her and left.

For a moment, the serving girl hesitated, looking like she was going to offer to find Olenna a new gown, but then she clearly thought better of it.

The door shut silently behind them, and Olenna sighed, long and hard.

Olenna looked down at the note in her hands, sent by way of raven from within the city of King’s Landing, rather than from within the Keep, because she was paranoid that someone in King’s Landing would find it, otherwise.

She would have preferred a note from Varys, who knew far more than he ought to, but who at least knew more than Olenna did about the goings on in King’s Landing, these days, but a letter from Elinor was good enough, she supposed, considering the scant amount of information that left the capital, these days.

She knew that was Sansa’s, or perhaps, if Varys was to be believed, Baelish’s intention, to make sure that few enough in the Seven Kingdoms knew how fragile the new Regent’s hold on the Iron Throne currently was, but it was beyond frustrating, for a woman who had always depended on information.

And, though a part of her did not want to admit it, she wished for some word of her granddaughter simply because she missed the little brat rather terribly.

She sighed, and opened the letter, skimming it quickly.

Someone - and Olenna did not know if she had Sansa to thank for this, or someone else - had convinced Margaery to allow her grandmother back, even if only for the funeral. 

“Good girl,” Olenna murmured, fighting back a smile. 

Finally, some good fucking news. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spelling errors will be corrected soon, as I didn't have time to look this chapter over. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	22. King's Landing

_ “They’re saying that the plague from the city is spreading,” Joffrey said, and beneath the dismissive interest in his eyes, Margaery thought she could smell fear, as well. _

_ She knew how her husband felt about sickness, after all. He wouldn’t even come to visit her, while he had thought that she was ill with the plague, and she knew that the reports of the plague growing in the city would only provide him with a convenient excuse not to go down amongst his people after slaughtering so many of them. _

_ Even if the people saw it as a convenient excuse for their anger against their king, a proof that what he had done in the Sept had been wrong. _

_ He was sitting next to her at the table, eating a shared supper with her as it was one of the few meals that Margaery could manage to keep down, these days. Her cousins had always made having a child seem so easy, as had Leonette, though she knew the other girl had been far more advanced in her pregnancy when Margaery had come to visit her. _

_ She hadn’t thought she would be sicking up until the noon hour every day. _

_ But she knew that what she was feeling these days was paltry in comparison to the sickness sweeping through Flea Bottom. The maesters said that a dozen people died a day, though it had only begun to interest her husband when he had insisted on seeing one of the bodies of the dead, for all that the maesters warned him against bringing it into the Keep. _

_ Margaery had gone with him, of course, one of the first things she had done since making her way out of bed, since her near miscarriage, and had regretted ever saing she felt well enough to do so. The bloated, blue and white corpse that stared lidlessly up at her had made her want to be sick all over again. _

_ Plague, the maesters said it was. Something new, and horrible, and something that was only just beaten back by a combination of remedies that the maesters were barely beginning ot understand, themselves. _

_ Men, women and children - the plague did not seem to discriminate between any of them, she had found. _

_ She was forbidden from going down to Flea Bottom ever since she had nearly lost the child, but that had not stopped her from sending her ladies out, with the dire warning not to get too close to anyone with the disease unless they become infected, themselves. _

_ And what her ladies reported was increasingly more disturbing. _

_ Margaery hummed. “How terrible,” she said, and then, when her husband shot her a distinctly annoyed look, no doubt at another sign of her weakness, these days, she elaborated, “That it is spreading amongst your people, I mean. I had thought that the Hand of the King could keep it..contained. Did he not promise such a thing?” _

_ Joffrey grimaced, leaning back in his chair. “I no longer know whether my uncle is friend or foe, these days,” he said, a panic light filling his eyes, and Margaery blinked at him in surprise. _

_ She knew that there was no love lost between uncle and nephew, but Tyrion was still the Hand of the King, for all of her father’s attempts to make it otherwise, and she would have thought that meant something. _

_ Then again, she remembered the way that Tyrion had screamed at Cersei and Joffrey, while Cersei had still been here, at that dining hall in front of everyone, airing every grievance he had against them, and accusing them of everything from conspiracy to murder. _

_ She supposed it made sense that there was even less love lost between them, now. _

_ It made him a convenient scapegoat, much as Margaery hated even having the thought, if anything did happen to her beloved husband that was too suspicious. _

_ She licked her lips. “You think that he is deliberately not dealing with a crisis under your nose,” Margaery said, eyes widening with a surprise she didn’t feel. _

_ She had to admit, even if she didn’t believe it to be the case, from what little she did know of Tyrion Lannister, trying to keep her distance from him because her grandmother had warned her that he was a smart Imp indeed, that the thought unsettled her. _

_ The smallfolk might hate them now, but they were still their subjects. They had a duty, even if Joffrey didn’t see it as such, to protect them. To help them, if they were about to be wiped out from a sickness the likes of which the maesters had never seen before. _

_ And the thought that a nobleman was using the smallfolk as collateral against his own nephew... _

_ Joffrey shrugged. “I think that he hates me as much as he hates my mother,” he said. Then, his voice took on a wistful tone. “Sometimes, I wish that I hadn’t sent her away. She knows how to deal with him better than I.” _

_ Margaery swallowed, thinking carefully about her response. The last thing she wanted was for Cersei Lannister to come marching back into the capital. “Well, she spent a good many years suffering as his sister,” she said. “I imagine she knows his tricks, by now. But if you think that he is not a good Hand of the King anymore, then you ought to have him replaced. Don’t you think?” _

_ It would make the idea that he had snuck into Joffrey’s chambers and had him killed that much less likely, but it would be a better solution than Cersei’s return here. _

_ Joffrey waved a dismissive hand; she had found that he cared about her suggestions less and less, these days. “I’ll deal with him if it’s true. I’ve had Ser Meryn following him, as he was following my mother. He hasn’t found anything particularly useful, though.” _

_ Margaery hummed. “I only hope that the whole of King’s Landing does not become infected with this plague because of your uncle’s malice,” she said, softly, and Joffrey’s face darkened at the thought. _

_ “It already dipped into the Keep,” Joffrey said. “Or, we thought it did, when you were ill.” _

_ He moved away from her then, at the sudden reminder, and Margaery bit back a grimace. The last thing she wanted was for her husband to become paranoid that she was still somehow ill. _

_ “I didn’t have the plague from the city,” Margaery reminded  her husband, tiredly. “If I had, the maesters would never have allowed me to leave my rooms again, I fear. I was just ill from the pregnancy.” _

_ “And you had no way of knowing earlier that was the case?” joffrey asked, sounding terribly skeptical. _

_ Margaery pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. _

_ She had thought, with this pregnancy, that she would be able to induce her husband to be kinder to her, to adore her as much as he had seemed to at the beginning of their marriage, but the moment she had nearly lost the babe, she had also lost her husband. _

_ She thought he must have seen it as a sign of weakness on her part, that she had nearly lost the child he had married her to have, that he was so desperate to have, these days, with how weak and vulnerable his own reign was, how alone he felt without his mother here to whisper poison in his ear. _

_ But Margaery hated that he took his fears out on her now that she was finally giving him what he wanted, even if she was at least glad that he was not taking them out on Sansa. _

_ “I…” she swallowed hard, glancing down at her belly, which was hardly distended. She placed a hand over it, rubbing gently, feeling Joffrey’s eyes on her. “We have wanted for a child for so long now, I was beginning to fear that miracle might never come to pass. It was not within my mind that I might instead be pregnant.” _

_ Joffrey’s face darkened. “You thought it more likely you had the plague than that you had my child in your womb?” he demanded, darkly, and Margaery bit back an ironic smile before she responded. _

_ “I feared that I was failing you as a wife, my love,” she said, delicately. “As, indeed, I almost did when I nearly lost this small miracle.” _

_ Joffrey’s eyes flitted down to her stomach again, and then back to her face. “If you had lost him then, I would have the Mountain cut you open,” he said, without any inflection to his voice, and the words were so surprising, when perhaps they shouldn’t have been, that Margaery flinched. _

_ It was not as if she was unfamiliar with her husband’s...darker impulses, after all. She had just not realized she was this close to losing him altogether, even though she had seen the way he looked at her, sometimes. _

_ Her grandmother had wanted her to wait until this child was born from her womb. Now, looking into her husband’s eyes, Margaery found herself wondering if she would have survived the delivery, if the child were not a boy. _

_ She swallowed thickly. “As would have been your right,” she whispered hoarsely, “After I have failed you already in so many ways.” _

_ Her husband blinked at her. And then, a slow smile spread over his features. “They sat that he cut Elia Martell in half, when he raped her to death in front of her son,” he said, and Margaery...Margaery had spent years with this monster as her husband, and she still could not understand how he smiled so happily as he said such a thing. “I’ve always wondered if he did it with the sheer girth of his cock.” _

_ Margaery grimaced. “I would think that Elia Martell would have to be made of sterner stuff than that, Your Grace,” she said, even as she hated thinking about it at all, “After her husband left her to make love to a child.” _

_ Joffrey smirked. “A Stark, no less,” he said, and Margaery closed her eyes, realizing then that she had said something very foolish. _

_ When she didn’t respond, her husband pounced. _

_ “Why do you spend so much time with the Lady Sansa?” JOffrey asked then, suspicion dripping from his every word, and Margaery stiffened. _

_ “I’ve already told you, my love,” she said, reaching out to touch his wrist, “She amuses me, as she amuses you. I will stop,” she said, trying to fight down the pain she felt at making the very suggestion, “If it distresses you.” _

_ Or causes you to give her more attention yourself, she added, silently, still not liking the interest he had in the other girl. Every time he professed interest in Sansa, Margaery had noticed, it did not end well for the other girl, and they only had a little while longer now, that they even needed Joffrey alive for. _

_ She would spare Sansa what she could, before the end. _

_ Margaery swallowed hard, reaching down to place a hand over her stomach, a silent reminder of what she was giving her husband that Sansa could not. A son and heir. _

_ If only he would see it that way, these days. _

_ Joffrey sniffed. “I used to find her amusing, as you do,” he said. “Now...I have dreams about her.” _

_ Margaery stiffened, in her seat. “Dreams?” she echoed, very much not liking the sound of that. _

_ Joffrey shrugged. “In my dreams, I see the Dragon Prince, sometimes,” he said, and his voice was whisper soft, and Margaery felt herself grow very still. _

_ Her husband had always been so obsessed with the dragons, had dragged her along to the crypts where they were buried like a giddy child, regaling all of their stories of bloodshed and fire. _

_ And now, he was dreaming about them...  _

_ Joffrey continued, likely not noticing her sudden worry, “He warns me that there are enemies all around, and that the three heads of the dragon must rise again. Did you know he was obsessed with the idea that the dragons would return, before my father cut his head off? He probably thought, like the Mad King, that when he died on the field of battle, he would turn into one.” _

_ Margaery looked at her husband, who sneered over peasants dying by the plague and laughed over the thought of how Elia Martell had died, and wondered what he would turn into, once he died. _

* * *

“The rioting hasn’t stopped, Your Grace. I’m afraid that they’re saying that down in Flea Bottom, the plague is still rampant,” Varys said, and he sounded pained about it, and for a moment Margaery found herself reconsidering her opinion on him, wondering if he really did care about the people.

She didn’t understand him. He had told her, many times, or twice, that he cared about the fate of the smallfolk more than anything; Margaery had begun to believe that was the reason he had taken such an interest in her, because of her charity with them, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

She thought that he might be up to something else, and it terrified her, not knowing what that was.

“I thought that the sickness there had become contained,” she said, forcing herself to focus on his words, rather than his motives. 

Still, his words alone made her nervous. She knew that the sickness in Flea Bottom, the one that Tyrion Lannister had first discovered and which the world had thought might afflict her, before it became obvious that she was ill with another malady, with pregnancy, had not yet vanished from the poorest and most dirty parts of the city. Her brother was doing his best to keep it contained and to help make those areas cleaner, so that it was less likely to spread, as that seemed to be something each contaminated area had in common, but clearly, it was not enough.

Not if the sickness was still running rampant, as Varys claimed.

She grimaced at the look on Varys’ face. “Unfortunately, Your Grace, while it was contained to a small section of the city for some time, it is spreading once more. There is...concern that those who dislike the...Crown of late are purposely moving to new areas of King’s Landing to infect the people there, and remind them that the sickness is one that the Crown is blamed for.”

Margaery felt a headache coming on. She sat back in her chair, rubbing at  her temples. She could feel the eyes of every member of the Small Council on her.

For, while her husband had done many horrible things for which he was blamed by the smallfolk, this one thing for which they blamed him could also be blamed on her. Could not be swept under the rug or explained away by the fact that her husband was dead.

No, the sickness was still within the city, when Margaery had thought it would not become another headache that she would have to deal with, and it appeared that the people still blamed the Crown, and what had happened at the Sept, for it.

“Then why have I been able to go out amongst the people, of late, without encountering it?” she demanded, idly.

Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. “Your brother has done an admirable job of keeping the sickness contained, Your Grace, but the problem is not only that it is being spread to surprising new areas of the city alone.” He waited for her to acknowledge his words, fear lancing through her heart, before he continued, “It is also that the sickness seems to progress through its victims far more quickly than it did before. That might also be why we have not heard about it as much. Victims appear to die within the day.”

Margaery’s heart skipped a beat.

She knew it was selfish, to think of herself when those victims were her people, but she could not help but do so, could not help but think that, pregnant as she was, she would be even more of a target to such a sickness.

“And the maesters still have no idea what it is?” Margaery asked, nervously, her hand dancing over the fabric of her gown near her belly.

And then she thought of all of those children, in the orphanage that she had ordered rebuilt larger and better able to care for so many of them, and swallowed. They would be the ones most at risk to this sort of thing, she thought, something like worry welling up within her, and not just because she had gone to visit them so recently.

She closed her eyes, and tried not to tell herself what a remarkable coincidence it was, that she was learning of how the plague was spreading just as she lost Septa Unella as a counselor, a loss which still stung.

The septa was gone, and she could not offer Margaery her guidance, now. Margaery did not even think that she would be able to find another septa willing to do so, after the way in which she had lost the last one.

She licked her lips, and thought of something she had first asked Sansa, and then asked the septa.

_ Is this the gods way of punishing us? _

Sansa had told her that she didn’t think the gods cared enough to do so. The septa had told her that the gods’ punishments were unique to the individual, not to the people.

And still, her people suffered and blamed her, and she wondered if they weren’t right to do so.

Varys made a face. “I am afraid that the maesters are still as confused about the nature of this disease as they were when it first appeared, Your Grace,” he told her, and Margaery slammed her fist down on the table.

Trystane Martell, sitting at the other end of it, jumped a little.

“That is unacceptable,” she told the table at large. “When last I heard, dozens of the afflicted could die within a single week. If the disease is spreading more rapidly, that number will grow, as well. If the maesters cannot find a cure, then find someone who can, or we may have to risk evacuating the city.”

The men exchanged glances. “Your Grace…” Baelish began, then. “Many more of your people are not afflicted, and evacuating the city will only leave us more vulnerable to any armies that…” he glanced over at Kevan before continuing coldly, “Cersei Lannister may attempt to bring against us.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I understand you think it a rash action,” she told him, coldly, “And I understand that might be, perhaps, why I have not heard about this sickness earlier. But I will not risk the lives of my people to a sickness that maesters do not have a cure for, nor even an understanding of, when Cersei Lannister is coming here to speak of peace, not war, and because my Small Council jumps at shadows.”

Kevan cleared his throat, then, “Ah, Your Grace, my niece has said that she comes here to speak of peace, but I would advise you not to take that at face value. She-”

“I am well aware of your niece’s duplicity,” Margaery informed him, coldly, as she stood to her feet and the rest of the Small Council stood, as well. “She was the one who brought us to this impasse with the smallfolk to begin with, as I am certain you must remember, though my late husband is ultimately blamed for it. But she is one woman, a woman whom we have an army to defend against, and you sit here and tell me that there is nothing we have which defends against this sickness that the poorest of my people are most vulnerable to. Is that not so?”

The men exchanged glances.

“I would pray then,” she continued, “As I will do, that the maesters find a speedy resolution to this. Before Cersei Lannister gets here.”

She thought then of that maester Cersei lannister kept as a pet, the one who had lost his chain because of his experiments, and wondered if he might not have a better chance at understanding the sickness than theones who had thus far failed her. Megga had told her...horrible things about his experiments, down in the Black Cells, and there were many more things which Margaery was convinced the other girl had not told her, but perhaps those things could be of use.

Wondered what had become of the cruel man. She thought she remembered him leaving for the Rock with Cersei, when she had been banished, but she couldn’t be certain. 

“Now,” she clapped her hands together, “The preparations for the funeral. Lord Baelish? I hope that i do not need to remind you that should anything go wrong with this funeral, my dear goodmother may see it as a slight against my husband’s family.”

Baelish’s smile was thin. “All preparations are accounted for, Your Grace,” he promised her. “The funeral, I dare say, will be one of the finest that a King of the Seven Kingdoms has ever known.”

Good.

As if her husband deserved that, Margaery thought, even as she forced a smile in Baelish’s direction. “I am gratified to hear it,” she said. “And that is all I wish to hear today, gentleman. You’re dismissed.”

She moved towards the door, and then out of it, where her ladies and her Kingsguard waited for her as they always did after these meetings, before she heard a voice calling after her.

Margaery met Megga’s eyes, where she stood waiting with the others, before closing her own.

She should have known, she thought, that she would not get out of this meeting without being forced to confront Sansa again. Sansa, who had sat silently throughout the entire meeting, looking at Margaery in much the same way that a kicked puppy might, and Margaery had spent far too much of the meeting trying to avoid that gaze.

She...she didn’t know what she would do, if she was forced to have a conversation with Sansa, which was why she had been trying so valiantly to avoid it.

Because she was still furious, over the nature of the septa’s death, knew that Sansa had been involved directly in that death, and she didn’t want to say anything to Sansa that she would later regret, because every time she hurt Sansa with her words, Margaery found herself feeling more guilty for it than she thought Sansa did hurt.

So, she had been ignoring her. But of course that couldn’t last. Of course couldn’t leave well enough alone, and give her a little space to think about this.

She hadn’t given Sansa any space since Joffrey had died, though that wasn’t the same thing as leaving her alone, Margaery reflected, for she seemed to do that often enough.

She sighed, forcing herself to turn around and face the other girl, to meet those sad eyes that had sought hers out so many times during the meeting.

“Your Grace,” Sansa said, coming to an abrupt stop before her. “I thought we might have a word.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I’m not sure that there is anything we need to say to one another at the moment, Sansa, and I am quite busy with matters of the realm.”

Sansa flinched. “I…”

And Margaery...gods help her, couldn’t even stay angry with Sansa for long, much though she wanted to.

Sansa could deny it all she liked, but Margaery knew that Sansa had gone to Baelish about the septa. She would never be so cruel as to kill her herself, in such a way, but there were only a few people in King’s Landing who knew the exact manner in which Joffrey had died, and Baelish was certainly one of them.

And he certainly had no reason to be kind to Margaery, these days.

They had talked, of course, she and Margaery, and she wasn’t certain what other reaction that Sansa had expected from her today, after that last talk, when Sansa had all but admitted to her wrongdoing.

She supposed that she was just...still angry, not that Sansa had done it, perhaps, because a part of her did understand why Sansa had done it, did understand her reasons for it, even if she didn’t agree with them, but because she didn’t...she didn’t even seem to realize why what she had done had been wrong.

_ And what about you?  _ A nasty little voice whispered, in her ear.  _ You’ve killed far more than Sansa ever has. _

She forced that thought out of her mind.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“What is it?” she asked, softly.

Sansa looked relieved that she had agreed to talk to her at all, and Margaery felt another spike of guilt, for that.

Once upon a time, she had known that Septa Unella was nothing more than a power hungry fanatic, who believed in the words of the High Sparrow but also knew that they would allow her to hurt a member of the royal family without getting into any sort of trouble for it.

Once upon a time, not even Joffrey had been able to come between Margaery and Sansa.

She found herself allowing Sansa to lead her into the nearest empty room, their guards standing outside the door like pillars, they were so still, as the door closed behind them, as Megga glanced worriedly at Margaery, of all things, and Margaery had to assure her that they would be fine, alone.

Again, she noticed the flash of hurt cross Sansa’s face, before she buried it once again.

“Thank you,” Sansa said, quietly, when Margaery turned to look at her again.

“What is it?” Margaery repeated, and she couldn’t quite help it if her voice was harsh, one again.

Sansa had hurt her, and there was nothing like guilt in her eyes, just now. Just hurt, as if Margaery had been the only one to do anything wrong in this relationship-

She cut that thought off before it could show across her face.

She didn’t want to be that person, the one who traded blows with someone that she loved, the one who counted offenses that they had caused against each other.

She had never thought that she would become that person.

“Your grandmother has accepted to come, as you wanted,” Sansa said, into the silence, and Margaery stared at her for a moment longer before nodding in a way that was almost absent.

“Oh,” she said, with barely any inflection at all in the tone, and Sansa squinted at her.

Sansa stared at her for a moment longer, and then shook her head, started to walk back from the other woman, not entirely sure why she had thought that this time, talking things out would be different.

She licked her lips, glancing towards the door.

For a moment, Margaery found herself wishing that the other girl would stay, that she wouldn't try to run away now that she had finally said what little she had wanted to.

The Keep was cold, without her nearby, Margaery had found.

And then, Margaery spoke. “Do you think it will matter?”

Sansa blinked, turning back to face her. “Sorry?”

Margaery took a shuddering breath, and this time, when she met Sansa’s eyes, she could see the same fear that she felt reflected in Sansa’s eyes, too. Sansa knew what was coming. She knew who was coming, soon.

She understood.

It was something of a relief, to see that same fear she felt reflected on someone else’s face, these days. 

“Do you think having my grandmother here will matter, when she comes?” Margaery repeated.

For a moment, Sansa looked confused. And then, she sighed.

She swallowed hard, hugging herself because she knew that attempting to hug Margaery would go unappreciated, perhaps. Margaery glanced away. 

“I...Margaery, I know it doesn’t feel like it right now...Well, I can’t know, but…” she bit her lip, and then sighed. “You’re surrounded by people who care for you. Let her see that, and not anything else.”

Margaery blinked at her. She thought that the words were meant to have more impact on Margaery than they did, that she was supposed to finally realize, upon hearing them, that she really wasn’t alone. That she really was surrounded by people who would do just about anything for her. 

But Sansa just kept staring at her, waiting, and Margaery...she didn’t know what the other gril wanted, in this moment. Didn’t know what she might be abel to say that could fix this situation, before Cersei arrived for her son’s funeral and blew it all to the seven hells, once more.

Then, “I feel alone,” she whispered, because she didn’t know what else to say, because it was the only thought on the forefront of her mind, in this moment, with Sansa looking at her so intensely, wanting her to believe her words so obviously.

Sansa licked her lips. “I...I’m sorry,” she said, and for the first time since Septa Unella had died, Margaery thought she believed the words.

She swallowed hard, reaching up to rub at her forehead. “I haven’t been sleeping,” she said. “Ever since...Ever since Cersei agreed to come to the capital. I thought that I was doing better, and then…” she glanced down, because looking at Sansa, in this moment, was too impossible. “I keep dreaming about him.”

Sansa flinched.

“Not about his death,” Margaery clarified, because she wasn’t quite certain what else to say, int hat moment. “Just...things I forgot about. Or, things that I’m not quite sure happened. I…” she rubbed at her forehead, again. “I dreamt the other night that he threatened to cut me open and see what was inside, if I did lose the baby.” She shook her head, as Sansa jerked in front of her, sheer horror flitting across her features. “And for the life of me, I can’t remember whether it happened or not.

“You’re...always  welcome to come to me, if you need someone to talk to,” Sansa offered, gently. “Or you can’t sleep.”

And it should have felt silly, for Sansa to offer such a thing, when she had never needed to in the past, when they had never needed such permissions with each other at all, not really, but Margaery felt...oddly touched, by the words.

As if she hadn’t been certain whether seh could, before.

She dipped her head. “Thank you,” she whispered, and told herself that she might actually take Sansa up on such an offer.

And then she reminded herself that she had been acting rather cruelly towards Sansa lately, and wondered if she actually would. 

* * *

Sansa took a deep breath, as she stepped outside of the room that she and Margaery had entered to be alone and found herself surrounded by Margaery’s Kingsguard.

It was a startling thing, these days, when she kept telling herself that it should not be. The Kingsguard who now surrounded Margaery meant Sansa no harm; Garlan had been instrumental in picking each and every one of them out of the noble Houses of the Reach, just to make sure of that.

Of course, there was still Ser Robert Strong, that horrible creature whom Joffrey had brought into the ranks of the Kingsguard while he still lived; they had been rather too worried about expelling him from the Kingsguard, and what his response might be, to formally expel him when they weren’t even certain whether anyone might be able to take him on.

But, thankfully, he had not shown up at the Keep since Joffrey’s death, almost as if he had known he was not welcome here.

Sansa only hoped that it remained so.

She took a deep breath, stepping daintily through the throng of Kingsguard and Margaery’s ladies, not meeting Megga’s eye when the other girl purposely tried to get her attention. 

She didn’t have time to talk about Margaery with Megga, didn’t have time to worry about whatever it was making Megga pinch her lips together and look at Sansa in something like annoyance for purposely ignoring her.

Instead, she kept walking, back towards the Small Council chambers, where Varys was already hovering outside the door, as if he knew that Sansa wanted to speak with him.

As if he’d been waiting for her.

Sansa licked her lips, forcing herself not to cross her arms defensively over her stomach. 

“Lord Varys,” she said instead, forcing herself to smile warmly at him.

Varys gave her a shallow bow. “My lady,” he said. “I was hoping to speak with you about what just happened at the Small Council meeting. As I”m sure you’re aware-”

“Lord Varys, I have received a few complaints about you, from one of Margaery’s ladies in waiting,” Sansa interrupted him, smoothly. “Now, normally, I would not take these complaints at face value, because the woman in question is in something like disgrace, but I have to ask, considering the interests of another soon to be mother in King’s Landing.” She folded her hands together. “What is your interest in her infant son?”

Varys blinked at her. For a moment, he actually looked surprised that Elinor had brought something like this to Sansa’s attention. Perhaps he thought Elinor would have kept quiet about such a thing, considering that she was spying for Olenna.

But it wasn’t as if Elinor needed to keep such a thing secret from Sansa, who already knew that well.

And then he stood a little taller. “It is not her son that I have an interest in, my lady,” he informed her, archly.

Sansa licked her lips, trying to pretend she didn’t hear the way he said ‘her,’ trying to pretend that wasn’t what she was suddenly focusing on.

“I see,” she said, even as her heart started to beat a little faster. “Well, I’m afraid that if such behavior continues, Her Grace might have to rethink your position on the Small Council. It is already a disgrace that one member of the Small Council is known for his clandestine meetings with young serving girls, and another owns half of the whorehouses in King’s Landing, if not more. The Regent would like to avoid being seen as a...degenerate, amongst her own people.”

Varys raised a single brow. “I assure you, my lady, I am the last of those on the Small Council that Her Grace should be worried about removing. And I would wonder why, then, she would not also considering the clandestine relationship between two members of her Small Council as also worthy of scorn.”

Her and Baelish, Sansa realized, fuming.

Sansa hummed. “I am only a humble messenger,” she told him, smiling sweetly, but Varys just stared at her, clearly disbelieving.

“You do understand that ordering those who are not infected by this plague out of the city if we cannot find a cure for it is an absolutely foolish decision,” he told her, slowly. “Cersei will see it as the perfect chance to strike at us, especially with what your ladyship and the Lady Olenna are planning.”

Sansa swallowed hard. “Let me worry about that,” she said, calmly. “I have no doubt that Cersei Lannister will have no intention of attacking us...any time soon.”

Varys squinted at her. “I suppose you know something that I don’t,” he said, the words almost idle, as he cocked his head, staring at her in something like a new light.

Sansa’s smile was thin. “I just know that Lady Cersei might be rather...preoccupied, in the coming days, when she does finally arrive in King’s Landing. I just need to know…” she took a deep breath. “This plan that Lady Olenna has, for when she does arrive. What do you think of it?”

Varys stared at her. “You’re asking for my opinion,” he said, slowly.

Sansa blinked at him.

Varys let out a sigh. “I think...whatever this plan of yours, you had better hope that it will successfully keep Cersei from attacking, as you seem to think it will,” he said. “I spent many years alongside that Lady, and I found that she can be rather...impetuous, from time to time.”

Sansa lifted her chin. “I spent many years alongside her son,” she reminded him. “I know what she’s capable of, Lord Varys. Now, do I have your word that you will stop bothering Margaery’s lady?”

“Former lady, i thought it was,” he murmured, but Sansa just kept staring at him.

He let out a long sigh, finally. “As Her Grace wishes, of course,” he agreed, and Sansa just eyed him a moment longer, before sighing and moving away from him.

He was right, of course. Right that this plan that she had, this dangerous mission that she had sent Lady Nym on and had, as of yet, heard no response about, might just fail. That if it did, if she was not entirely certain that Lady Nym had succeeded in her task, Cersei may well arrive in King’s Landing with the armies of the Westerlands behind her, and then they would be well and truly fucked.

Though, Sansa could believe that the other woman would wait until after the funeral. She had just that sort of flare about her.

And hopefully, she would have heard at least something back from Lady Nym, by then.

As if thoughts of her had summoned the other woman, Sansa suddenly found herself blinking down at a young messenger boy, who had clearly run all of the way here from where Sansa had assigned him to wait for Lady Nym’s raven, and to bring it to her the moment it arrived.

She swallowed hard, taking the letter from his hands almost before he had the chance to speak, as he stood panting in front of her.

“My lady,” he began, but Sansa had already torn it open, reading it over carefully.

It was in code, of course; a code that the two of them had decided upon already, before Lady Nym had ever left, because, after all, she was traveling deep into territory that belonged to the enemy, and if they weren’t careful, anyone could have come across this raven before Sansa did.

But the words she did read reassured her completely. She closed her eyes, breathing out a sigh of relief.

Finally, something she had planned out was going right, as it should.

When she opened her eyes again, the messenger boy was still standing in front of her, waiting. Sansa bit back a sigh, reaching into the pouch at her wait and pulling out a gold dragon, handing it over to him.

He skipped away quickly enough, after that. No doubt trying to avoid being handed new orders, Sansa thought idly.

She turned the missive over several times in her hands, and then glanced around the corridor, before her eyes fell on the torch hanging from the other end of the hall.

She moved over to it, holding the letter up over the open flame, and watched as it burned away to ash before her, the sight strangely transfixing.

She supposed she should have known that this was one thing in which not even Lady Nym would fail her. If she was being honest with herself, though, a part of Sansa had been rather terrified that she was going to hear, secondhand, that Lady Nym had not only failed in her mission but rather...killed it.

She took a deep breath. Lady Nym was not the woman she had thought she was when, she first met her. She knew that Lady Nym would not fail her in this, even if a part of her had worried that she might be a bit...overzealous. She knew how much they were depending on this very thing, knew how Cersei would respond if they mucked it up in any way.

But none of that mattered, now. Lady Nym had done exactly as Sansa had asked of her, and, beyond that, the Boltons had sent her a message not yesterday letting her know that Shireen Baratheon was already on her way to King’s Landing.

Everything else may be going wrong at the moment, but at least Sansa knew that these two things were not.

Now, she just had to make sure that Cersei didn’t walk into the Great Hall and accuse Margaery of adultery, first thing.

And for that, she needed to find Rosamund.

Which was not difficult, she admitted, as she walked back into the Maidenvault and found Brienne and Rosamund alone there, once again.

A part of her was disturbed about the amount of time that Rosamund and Brienne seemed to spend together, when she trusted Brienne so well and Rosamund so little. But then, she supposed, it was useful that someone on their side was at least trying to reach out to Rosamund, and Brienne was the least duplicitous person that Sansa knew.

If anyone could convince Rosamund of their sincerity, when Sansa knew the other girl was still questioning it, and that part of that was Sansa’s own fault, it would be Brienne.

They both glanced up, as Sansa entered the room. Brienne even sent her a little bow, and Sansa found herself flushing, a little.

“Rosamund,” she said, turning to the other girl so that she didn’t have to think about why, “I need you to do something for me, starting tomorrow.”

Rosamund swallowed hard, exchanging a glance with Brienne before giving Sansa a little curtsey. “Whatever my lady demands,” she said, and Sansa resisted the urge to roll her eyes, because they both knew that she did not really consider Sansa to be her lady.

“When Cersei comes, I want you to keep her as distracted as possible,” Sansa told Rosamund, crossing her arms over her chest. “Make something up, if you have to. But I know better by now than to let Cersei alone.”

Rosamund licked her lips, looking suddenly nervous in a way that Rosamund had not seen her look in some time. “And what about Baelish?” she asked, carefully. “If he goes to her…”

“Let me worry about Baelish,” Sansa snapped, interrupting her. She noticed the way that Rosamund flinched from her tone of voice, and forced herself to calm down. Rosamund, for all her failings, was a very scarred young woman; Sansa didn’t intend to scare her further, and she hadn’t meant to shout at her, either. She sighed. “I...I just need you to keep Cersei occupied, do you understand? I don’t care what sort of information you have to make up, to keep her attention. Yes?”

Rosamund looked like the last thing that she wanted to do was keep Cersei distracted, but she nodded.

Sansa smiled. “Thank you,” she said, genuine relief filling her. “Now, go. I need to...I need to be alone, for a little while.”

She needed to go and speak with Baelish soon, about their plans for the funeral, and for Cersei’s arrival - they were planning on putting her in her old rooms, the ones that used to be Margaery’s, before she had taken Joffrey’s - and because she needed to know exactly what it was he was planning, for Cersei’s arrival, that he had not told her about.

And she thought she might have a way of figuring that out, without letting him know that she was onto him.

Rosamund dipped into another curtsey, and then was gone.

Sansa let out a sigh when she realized that Brienne was not going to leave. That, instead, she had crossed her arms over her chest and was watching Sansa intently.

“Is something wrong, my lady?” she asked, finally, and Sansa shook her head.

“Look, I just need…” No, she didn’t think that was going to work. It would only serve to make Brienne more worried about her, something that she certainly didn’t want.

“I did something terrible,” Sansa whispered, hoarsely, and the words felt almost good to say. “Something that...something that I’m not sure I can be forgiven for.”

For once, she thought she understood the obsession Margaery had with gaining absolution for the things she had done, even if she didn’t want to. Because that would mean that, in some ways, Margaery was right.

Brienne eyed her, carefully, as the door shut behind Rosamund for good. “My lady..” she hesitated for a moment, and then said, gently enough, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She had talked to Baelish about it, and he had told her that she was making the right decision, but Sansa knew who he was, these days.

Knew that she would be a fool to trust him with much more, when it came to Margaery, because Margaery was, for him, something like the competition.

And it felt...nice, to think of getting these words off her chest, to tell someone else what she had done and hear what they had to say about it, even if the way that Brienne was looking at her made her feel uncomfortable.

Brienne was a good woman, Sansa knew. She may not know everything about her, and may regret that, to some extent, but she did know that Brienne was good, that she was honorable. 

“I…” Sansa took a deep breath, not certain that she could. She took another deep breath, and then another, finding it suddenly felt rather difficult to breathe.

She told herself that was just the panic of even thinking about talking about it with another person.

She swallowed hard. ‘Cersei is coming, and I’m not sure that Margaery won’t break down right in front of her and confess everything,” she whispered, because she needed to say it to someone, and Brienne...she could trust Brienne, she knew that.

And she didn’t know who else she could trust, these days.

Brienne blinked at her, clearly surprised. “My lady…” she began, and then swallowed hard. “Do you think that...perhaps, keeping the Regent away from Lady Cersei might help?”

Sansa was already shaking her head. She hadn’t wanted that. She’d just wanted…

“Cersei will know something’s wrong, then,” Sansa admitted. “She has to face her. And I can’t be there next to her, holding her hand, like I’d like to.”

Both because Cersei would find a reason to declare war for that alone, after what she had once accused Sansa and Margaery of, and because she didn’t think that Margaery would allow it, either.

Brienne looked sympathetic; Sansa found herself wondering if the other woman had felt something like this for teh Kingslayer, before he had left King’s Landing. If she really did understand.

And the thought of that made her feel a little ill.

She took a careful breath. “I...I shouldn’t be saying these things, Brienne,” she said, softly. “I...I don’t want to…”

Burden you, she thought.

But then she reminded herself that she had shared all of this and more with Baelish, and that Brienne was at least more trustworthy than he was, and she ought to trust the other woman as well.

Besides, she thought, it had felt good to get things off of her chest, with Baelish. Perhaps it would feel so again, with Brienne.

Brienne’s eyes were gentle, as she opened her arms to Sansa. “You can tell me whatever you like, my lady,” she told Snasa, gently. “I promised to protect you.”

Sansa stared at her for a moment, and before she even knew what she was doing, she was stepping into Brienne’s open arms.

It felt a little like hugging her mother had, as a child, when she awoke from a particularly intense nightmare.

When she started to talk, this time, unlike all of the times that she had gone to Baelish in the last few months, it actually felt...good.

* * *

When Margaery closed her eyes, she saw her husband’s laughing features, as he talked about cutting her open to see what was inside after she had failed to give him the son that he wanted.

She awoke with a gasp, her whole body covered in sweat despite the chill of the night, and sitting up fully. She told herself to breathe, told herself that she was fine, that she didn’t need to feel so panicked; Joffrey was dead, she had made sure of that.

He was never going to hurt her again. Was never going to be able to threaten her again, outside of her dreams.

Still, she found it difficult to breathe.

She reached down, placing a hand on her bulging stomach as she dragged in one ragged breath, and then another.

Her child was fine, she told herself. He was fine. He was fine.

She could feel him kicking against her fingers, even now. He was fine.

She tossed her hair, short and irritating as it was most days, behind her ears, and sighed, forgoing the thought of sleep despite the exhaustion already settling in her bones.

The maesters kept warning her that she needed to rest as much as possible. They said that she was taking on too much, that the stress of her new position was getting to her, that she should be resting as much as she could.

Margaery hadn’t felt safe enough to rest in a long time, and sometimes, from the way her child kicked against her stomach at the worst of times, she wondered if he didn’t, either. If he somehow knew the life that he had been born into, the danger that would follow him for the rest of his days, so long as any of his enemies lived.

She sighed, reaching up to rub at her temples.

She had thought that moving into her husband’s chambers, where there were no monsters under the bed because she had already faced them here might help her, but tonight, she had tossed and turned for hours with no relief.

Her husband was dead. She had thought that moving here, sleeping in these chambers, would serve as a reminder of that, when she awoke in the middle of the night and needed that very reassurance, but lately, it only seemed to be making things worse.

Her husband was going to be buried in the crypts in two days, finally laid to rest amongst the old Kings of the Seven Kingdoms, but it didn’t feel like she was finally laying him to rest, just now.

It felt like he would always haunt her.

Cersei was arriving tomorrow, to attend her own son’s funeral, and the thought of her arrival made Margaery’s heart beat wildly, in her chest. She knew why inviting the other woman was necessary, but the thought of facing her again, after she had bashed in Joffrey’s brains, terrified her.

She had the terrible feeling that Cersei would take one look at her and know exactly what she had done, would want to kill her then and there. Would know that the child in her womb could not keep Margaery safe, because it didn’t belong to Joffrey.

A part of her wanted to beg off, wanted to pretend to be ill so that she wouldn’t have to face Cersei at all, but she knew that would only serve to make the other woman more suspicious. She certainly wouldn’t believe any excuses about Margaery mourning her husband so deeply.

Somehow, from the beginning, she had always known how Margaery felt about Joffrey, even when no one else, not even Sansa, had seemed to understand that. Which meant that Margaery was going to have to be strong, in front of her, if she wanted to survive.

She swallowed hard, remembering the last time she had so nervously tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Remembering what had helped her finally succumb to a worriless sleep.

She took a deep breath, sliding off of her husband’s bed and slipping her feet into the sandals beside them, even as the child within her made his displeasure known at the movement, this late at night.

She knew where she was going before her feet even started moving in that direction, and a part of her hated herself for it. Hated herself for the weakness of needing Sansa when she had been so thoughtlessly cruel to her lately, but she couldn’t quite help it.

Couldn’t stop herself from walking through the night, passed her concerned guards who called after and were ignored, all of the way to the Maidenvault, where she could only hope that Sansa was meeting with her and not having another one of her secret meetings that she thought the whole of the Keep didn’t know about with Baelish or Garlan.

She was aware of her guards following behind her; the Regent, and the mother of the future king, could never be left alone, of course, but they were like gnats, flying around her ears, and all she wanted in this moment was to be left alone, with Sansa.

It had been easier to escape her guards when she had just been the consort of the King, after all.

Margaery hesitated outside of the door, the septa’s disapproving eyes lashing before her eyes first, and then the hurt look on Sansa’s face when Margaery had ignored her at the Small Council meeting.

She remembered knocking, before. Back when she was never sure whether Tyrion Lannister would open the door, or whether his wife would. She thought it would feel strange to knock now, on a door that used to belong to her own chambers.

And yet, she wasn’t certain if Sansa would welcome her with open arms tonight, after the way that she had treated her.

And she did feel guilty about that.

She knew why Sansa had the septa killed, after all. Once upon a time, she would have understood the sentiment rather too well, would have seen what Sansa did, that the septa was nothing more than a threat to them.

But Margaery had been trying to turn over a new leaf, and she was surrounded by nobles who didn’t give a damn who she had killed, just as they had not truly cared about her husband’s victims, either. They were nothing more than the collateral, next to the opportunity to be the power behind the throne.

And Sansa..she remembered a time when Sansa had made herself sick, even thinking about being responsible for Oberyn being found guilty of murdering Tywin Lannister. When she had almost been willing to let herself be brought down for the murder, rather than implicate him as she had, when the whole of King’s Landing already knew that he was guilty.

They had both changed. Had both become different women, since Joffrey’s death, and Margaery would have once thought that Sansa had changed for the better, but now, with Baelish whispering in her ear and Sana having a penchant for the death of those who got in her way, Margaery wasn’t so sure.

Sometimes, it terrified her, thinking of what Sansa might be willing to do, the lengths to which she might be willing to go, to protect Margaery. And Margaery that was what she had been doing ever since Margaery had returned from the dead, from Dorne. She had been doing her best to protect her, and Margaeyr knew that she ought to be grateful for that, but it was terrifying, to think about.

Margaery had been willing to let all of those people in the Sept risk death by the hands of her husband’s army, in order to protect Sansa.

And she was only beginning to realize what Sansa was willing to do for her.

Margaery let out a careful breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding, and knocked on the door.

A moment later, Rosamund Tyrell was squinting out at her, and the girl’s eyes widened at the sight of her.

In truth, though she had seen the other girl with Sansa often enough lately, Margaery was surprised that Rosamund remained as Sansa’s new lady’s maid. She could have arranged to find one who wasn’t so untrustworthy, one who had not been placed there because Cersei wanted to hurt her and spy on her, and Margaery wondered why she didn’t.

She had that sort of power, now.

Margaery licked her lips. “Is Sansa…”

And suddenly Sansa was there, all but running out of her bedchambers, Brienne at her side, her eyes going wide at the sight of Margaery.

Margaery supposed she deserved that look of shock, at the sight of Margaery here, at Sansa’s rooms. She didn’t think she could remember the last time she had come here of her own accord, after all.

Rosamund glanced between them, and then pushed past Margaery, all but disappearing into the hall behind her. Margaery raised a brow.

It made less sense than the other doubt, niggling at the back of Margaery’s mind, after all. The doubt that had been plaguing her ever since Sansa had elected to give her some space, to let her figure things out, something that Margaery could admit she had wanted, in the beginning, because what she had done to Joffrey, just as what she had done to the smallfolk, had terrified her, and Sansa was a living reminder of that terror.

Sansa had been there, that night. She had seen the aftermath, had seen everything that Margaeyr had done to him long after his brains were bashed into the carpeting.

But the doubt was still there, remained long after she realized the answer: Sansa was still here.

Sansa was still here, even though the only thing keeping her here; the fact that the Lannisters were using her as a hostage, as a claim to the North, was gone. Kevan Lannister might put up some paltry attempt, and Margaery knew that her own family would be less than pleased at the thought of losing the North, as well, but there were no guards holding Sansa back.

Hells, she was practically running things, now.

Yet she was still here.

Margaery closed her eyes, and swallowed hard. When she opened them again, Sansa was still staring at her, with that awestruck expression Margaery knew she didn’t deserve.

“I…” she eyed Sansa, realized that the other girl wasn’t in her dressing gown, and therefore probably hadn’t been sleeping, as Margaery had been trying to do. “I was wondering if I could speak with you.” She glanced at Brienne. “I could...I could come back another time…”

“No,” Sansa said, with an urgency that made Margaery feel nervous, and then she stepped forward, hesitantly. “No, I’d like it if you stayed.”

Margaery knew that. Sometimes, she thought that was the problem.

“It’s late, my lady…” Brienne spoke up then, an implicit warning in her voice that made Margaery’s heart skip a beat.

She knew, of course, that it would be foolish not to let Sansa’s only guard these days know about the relationship between them, but dear gods, it felt like the whole of King’s Landing knew, these days.

Septa Unella had known.

Margaery closed her eyes, and saw the other woman’s brains bashed in, exactly the same way that Joffrey’s had been.

She grimaced.

“It’s all right, Brienne,” Sansa said quietly, placing a hand on the other woman’s arm. It was only then Margaery noticed the tear tracks on her cheeks. She didn’t remember the last time that she had sene Sansa cry in front of her. “You may go.”

Brienne sent Margaery a look that was almost suspicious, before dipping her head in Sansa’s direction and heading for the door, following Rosamund out. The door shut silently behind her, leaving the two of them alone once more, and Margaery felt suddenly, unaccountably nervous, as if she had made a terrible mistake, in deciding to come here.

She opened her mouth, and realized she didn’t know what to say.

Sansa was staring at her as if she were something breakable.

“Don’t say it,” Margaery said, as the silence grew too uncomfortable, and Sansa’s eyes leapt up to meet her own.

“I…”

Margaery hugged herself. “I couldn’t...I couldn't sleep,” she admitted, thinking of the last time that this had happened, thinking of how Sansa had agreed to be with her, then, had wrapped her arms around her despite Margaery’s hesitation, and slept beside her until Margaery had fallen asleep.

When Margaery had awoken, Sansa was gone, and that ache was back now, familiar and too deep.

Sansa’s eyes softened. “Well, I...I haven’t gone to sleep yet, but...Would you like me to escort you back?” she asked, and there was that damnably hopeful tone in her voice again.

She sounded nervous, like Garlan had in the first few weeks after he had married Leonette; it had been a better match than he might hope for, but in the beginning, they had loved each other without really knowing each other, and she remembered how nervous he had been with a crystal clarity, now.

She wondered if Willas, yet another of her victims, had been nervous upon learning that he was to marry Cersei. He had been kind enough in her letters, but she knew her brother well, too.

“I was wondering, actually…” she knew it was a horrible idea, but the idea of sleeping in Joffrey’s chambers the night before his mother arrived sounded like a worse one. “I was wondering if I could sleep here, tonight.”

The words tumbled out of her mouth like vomit, teh easier to say.

Sansa blinked at her.

Margaery took a step back then, arms falling to her sides. “Actually, it’s a terrible idea. I didn’t tell my ladies. I…” She moved as if to go back out the door.

“All right,” Sansa interrupted her, the words sounding terribly impulsive, and Margaery froze, before she turned back around. Sansa’s smile was rather sad. “You know you can sleep here whenever you want, Margaery.”

She wouldn't be able to sleep here when Cersei was back in King’s Landing, Margaery didn’t remind the other girl. She would have to sleep the night that she buried her husband in his own bed, because she had been stubborn enough to claim it, to think that it might help her, somehow.

But she didn’t say any of that. Because Sansa looked so hopefully, and tonight was all that mattered, in the moment.

Margaery licked her lips. “Are you...are you sure?” she asked, quietly, and Sansa’s smile grew.

“Of course,” she whispered. “Come. Sit.”

Margaery didn’t feel like sitting. She only felt like sleeping, but she had a feeling that telling Sansa that would only cause hurt to flash across her features, yet again, because of Margaery, and that was something that Margaery very much wanted to avoid, tonight.

For just one night, she wanted to forget that so many of their conversations ended in argument. She wanted to believe that they were on the same page, once again.

So she didn’t say it.

She just sat down next to Sansa, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, and pretending that she didn’t feel the terrible awkwardness permeating in the air. 

“I…” Margaery bit her lip. “I’m sorry for the way I snapped at you, earlier,” she said, because Sansa had apologized for the septa even though she hadn’t meant it.

Sansa blinked at her, and seemed to realize that, as well. “I…” she cut off then, clearly not certain what to say.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Margaery interrupted her, and Sansa just stared at her again. 

“I...I wasn’t sleeping,” she said, and Margaery hugged herself, sliding a little furhter away from Sansa on the sofa.

“Neither was I,’ she admitted.

“Joffrey?” Sansa asked, into the heavy silence that followed. “Or the baby?”

Margaery swallowed thickly. “Both,” she whispered, and could almost feel the sympathy coming off of Sansa, though she wasn’t even looking at her.

She couldn’t look at her, because if she did all she would be able to think about was how Sansa had killed the septa, or, worse than that, how Sansa had found her standing in a pool of her own husband’s blood, had been the only other person still living who had seen her like that.

Weak. Vulnerable, and not just because of what her husband had just done to her. Because Sansa knew what she had done to him.

Because she hadn’t just killed him, had she? No, she’d done much worse than that. She’d butchered him, like the animal he’d been, and Sansa had seen that.

And Sansa didn’t seem to care that she had done it at all.

Margaery looked away, swallowing thickly.

“Come on,” Sansa said, waiting, and Margaery blinked up at her, confused, wondering if Sansa was about to kick her out of her rooms. She would be within her rights to do so, she supposed, but still, she wouldn’t have expected that. Not from her.

“You came here to sleep, didn’t you?” Sansa asked, and her words were almost gentle.

Margaery flinched. The gentleness was not something that she was used to, it was not something that she was prepared to deal with, at the moment, when she had done hardly enough to warrant it, of late.

But Sansa just waited, almost patient.

Margaery took a deep breath, and took her hand. 

Sansa led her back into her chambers like she thought that Margaery was a scared animal who was going to take off running at any moment if she pushed her too hard, and honestly, Margaery couldn’t say that she was wrong.

But still, she followed her.

Followed her all of the way to the bed, where they both stood stock still, neither one sure where to go from here.

That hadn’t been their domain in so long.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for the septa,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely, after Sansa had finally moved, had blown out the single candle in the room.

She felt Sansa’s hands running through her hair, and for the first time the touch wasn’t grating since the last time her husband had touched her. “I know,” Sansa said, softly.

Margaery grimaced; that hadn’t been the answer that she wanted, even if she wasn’t certain what answer it was she was looking for. 

Septa Unella was dead, and Margaery wanted to pretend that she hated Sansa for being the cause of that death, for taking the choice out of Margaery’s hands, but that was not what she was angry about.

She hadn’t cared for the septa as a person, after all; horrible as it was to think it, even in the privacy of her own mind, the septa had been nothing more than a symbol of redemption, for Margaery.

And now, she was dead, to help protect yet another of Margaery’s sins, even if thinking of what she had shared with Snasa, what was in her belly, as sins made her physically ill.

But she was dead, and there could be no clearer signs from the gods that she still wasn’t certain she believed in, that there could be no redemption for her. That she had to keep moving forward in this life of sin and cruelty and murder, no matter what she might truly want.

Every time she closed her eyes, these days, she thought of that little boy in the orphanage, the one who had wished her a son because his own sister had been murdered due to her own actions.

The septa had told her that everyone could find absolution from the gods.

Margaery wasn’t certain that she was right, about that. That there was any coming back from something like that, no matter what the septa believed, no matter what Margaery had wanted to believe.

And yet, Sansa kept petting her hair, and Margaery remembered the way the thought of facilitating someone’s death had nonce broken her, and how she cared so little about it, now.

She wished that she could feel that way about the smallfolk, about Joffrey. That they would stop eating away at her the way Oberyn’s death seemed to have stopped eating away at Sansa.

“I’m sorry,” Sansa said, after a lengthy silence, and Margaery’s heart skipped a beat. She forced herself not tot urn around in the bed to face the other girl, with the horrible thought that something would happen then, if she did, which could not be taken back. 

So she lay still, motionless.

“I didn't want to take her away from you,” Sansa whispered, into her hair, and this time, Margaery could actually hear the apology in her voice. Not for killing the septa, but for stealing her away from Margaery after Margaery had finally confided in her what the other woman meant to her. “I should have done it myself, too.”

Margaery closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

She wanted to contest those words. Wanted to tell Sansa that she shouldn't have done it at all, and yet, bothersome as the thought was, Margaery knew she wasn’t able to. Because she knew why Sansa had done it, knew it intimately, and once, she wouldn’t have been able to blame her for it.

Ut she supposed that this was as close to an apology as Margaery was going to get, for what had happened to the septa.

She didn’t think she could forgive Sansa for it so quickly, but then, Sansa had once taken some time to forgive her over the way she had manipulated her into speaking against Oberyn.

Perhaps she wouldn’t mind, even if it did make Margaery feel guilty, to hurt her anymore.

But she was hurting, too.

Gods, her head ached. The child in her stomach kicked out angrily at her bladder, and Margaery grimaced, resolving herself to the thought that she might not find sleep at all tonight, not even in Sansa’s arms.

“I’m scared to face her again,” Margaery whispered, into the darkness, because she thought she might as well say it now, while they were alone and she could.

She felt Sansa’s forehead wrinkle, against her neck. “Margaery…”

“Cersei,” Margaery clarified, wondering if Snasa truly thought her that far gone. “I’m terrified of what it’s going ot be like, seeing her again, when she arrives at the capital. I’m terrified that...somehow, she’ll know the truth the moment she looks at me.”

She felt Sansa’s fingers in her hair tighten, and tried not to flinch away from the other girl. For a moment, there was nothing but silence.

Then, “I won’t let her hurt you,” she whispered, and Margaery felt her heart ache.

She wanted to tell Sansa not to make promises that she couldn’t keep because, regardless of her bravado at the Small Council meeting, she knew Cersei. Cersei was a force to be reckoned with; every time she was down, she found a way to get herself back up again, and make her enemies pay.

She was taking some time to get herself back up again now, and Margaery was terrified at the thought of what her vengeance would look like, when it finally came.

This time, Sansa fell asleep long before she did.

* * *

While the septa had been here, amongst the living or in the Keep, Margaery wasn’t sure which, they had encountered the simple problem of not being sure what to do about Margaery going to the Sept. Of course, if she went to the Sept too often, there was the concern that the smallfolk might tear her apart for it.

But she could not be seen to be blatantly ignoring the Faith, either.

So the septa had come up with what Margaery had not been certain was an acceptable solution, but one that she had found rather relieving, all the same.

A smaller version of one of the prayer rooms of the sept, with a septon who had agreed to come and pray with her when she needed it, an unassuming man who came from a rich family and reminded Margaery nothing of the High Sparrow, and with the Seven staring down at her from above.

It had been converted out of a room she thought had once belonged to one of Robert Baratheon’s whores, when he had them spend the night, since it was so close to Joffrey’s chambers, which she found rather ironic enough to be likable.

But today, she found herself kneeling on the floor of this tiny sept, the words that she would say to gods that she wasn’t sure would ever forgive her caught on her tongue.

When the septa had been here, she had known exactly the words to say, to remind Margaery of what she had done and how she might atone for it. Now, forced to read from the Seven Pointed Star as the septon laid it out before her, a mockery of her time as a prisoner of the Faith, but then, she thought the septa had asked for it to be this way on purpose, and she had not had the courage to object, Margaery didn’t know what words of comfort she was supposed to find from this.

She wasn’t sure what prayers she might utter, after the things she had done, to pray to the gods for protection against Cersei Lannister, when she arrived in just a few scant hours.

After all that she had done, she wasn’t certain that the gods would care to shield her from Cersei Lannister, even if she was even less loving towards the gods than Margaery had ever been.

She took a deep breath, raising a hand for the septon to stop speaking.

He did so, almost immediately. “What is it, Your Grace?” he asked her, quietly, glancing down at the bulge in her stomach as if he expected her to say that she was about to give birth to the thing in her belly, and he was the last defense against it.

Come to think of it, he looked rather green.

Margaery sighed.

She still had a little time before the child was born, at least, but...men. And men of the cloth, she doubted knew about the rigors of childbearing even less.

“I...I can’t hear any more, today,” she said, quietly. “I find I’m getting overtired, and I need to prepare for her...for the arrival of our guests.”

She forced the thought of Cersei’s smug, accusing gaze out of her mind.

Cersei didn’t know, she thought. Cersei couldn’t know. They’d done their best to cover it up as best as they could, using even Baelish for it, which felt like a last resort, now, and Cersei might suspect that Margaery had been less than helpful towards her husband in his final moments, but there was no way for her to know.

The septon looked concerned. “Is there anything that you would like to unburden yourself with, Your Grace?” he asked her, quietly, and Margaery bodily flinched, thinking of the septa.

Thinking of how the septa had told her that if she just unburdened herself to someone, that not only would the gods forgive her, but that she might find the ability to forgive herself.

And then Sansa had killed her.

Margaery shook her head, trying to tell herself that she knew why Sansa had done it, that Sansa had just been trying to protect her, and hse shouldn’t think of it any other way.

But she couldn’t quite help thinking of it that way.

Sansa, who always wanted to talk about what had happened, when Margaery didn’t. Sansa, who treated her these days like some fragile, breakable thing when the septa let her know what she really thought about her.

Sansa, who had killed the septa.

Margaery squeezed her eyes shut.

When she opened them again, she thought that she could breathe once more.

“I just...need to prepare,” she told the septon, getting to her feet and moving away from him. “I don’t have time for anything else, at the moment, I’m afraid.” She forced a smile, so that he would know that she was joking with him, but he still looked rather concerned.

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said, giving her a shallow little bow, and Margaery quickly moved away from him, before she could find herself thinking about how the septa had bowed to her in much the same manner, like she didn’t really see Margaery as a queen, at all.

She swallowed, nearly running out the door, to find her Kingsguard and Megga waiting for her. They looked concerned about the way she had just run out of that room, but none of them said a word about it, and Margaery breathed a quiet sigh of relief as they started moving again.

She remembered how difficult it had been to convince her Kingsguard the first time to leave her alone in that room, and she didn’t want to give them cause to think they needed to be with her there, again.

Megga stepped forward as they started walking back to Margaery’s chambers, as they left the Kingsguard behind there, as well.

“Is something wrong, Your Grace?” she asked, and Margaery wondered why people kept asking her that, the last few days.

She forced down a retort.

Dear gods, what was it with everyone around her wanting her to talk about how she felt?

“I’m fine,” she said.

Megga just gave her a knowing look, and gestured for her to walk inside those rooms before her. Margaery grimaced, and stepped inside, jumping a little as the door shut behind Megga.

Her ladies were waiting for her, of course. They always were, these days.

Hovering around her like they wanted to witness the first breakdown themselves-

Margaery closed her eyes, told herself that she was only thinking this bitterly today because of who was arriving, because of what today was.

Tomorrow would be Joffrey’s funeral.

Today - Margaery shook her head.

She supposed if she didn’t think about it until it happened, it would be better.

It didn’t feel that way, though.

“Let’s get you ready, shall we?” Megga asked, then, and Margaery flinched again.

She moved forward, let one fo the girls get out one of the black mourning gowns that she would need to wear before the realm if she didn’t want anyone - Cersei - making a scene about what she was wearing, especially today.

Margaery still felt strange, changing in front of these girls, girls who had known her almost her entire life. Alla still flinched, every time she saw the burns on Margaery’s skin.

The dress she wore was made of black satin with red roses sewn into the sleeves, and Margaery sneered down at it, longing for one of the gowns she’d started to wear after her husband’s death, the ones that looked like armor and reminded her entirely too much of the gown that she had once complimented Cersei on, while eating dinner with her and her son, and she had first realized that Cersei was going to be an enemy.

But gods forbid if the other woman thought that she was trying to copy her.

Megga reached out, smoothing down Margaery’s gown, and Margaery forced herself not to flinch away from the other girl when she did so.

Megga pretended not to notice. “You’re nervous,” she said, softly.

Somehow, the other ladies seemed to have vanished since Margaery had pulled her gown over her head.

Margaery sent her a scorching look.

Megga looked almost apologetic, but the look faded fast. “You can’t afford to be nervous,” she reminded her, and there was something hard an unapologetic in her voice as she spoke. Margaery took a deep breath, wanting to look away and finding that she couldn’t, just as she could never look away whenever the septa had reprimanded her for something. “Cersei will take one look at you and strike where it hurts the most.”

Margaery gave her an unimpressed glance. “You think I don’t know that?” she demanded, coolly. Then, she sighed as Megga just blinked at her. “Sorry. I just...nerves.”

Megga’s answering smile was sad. “You won’t be alone,” she promised, and Margaery wondered how she was always so easily able to read Margaery these days, when they had never been the closest of companions, before.

No, that had always been Elinor, not Megga.

And yet these days, Margaery hardly saw Elinor, and Megga seemed to know her more than she knew herself, sometimes.

“Sansa said the same thing,” Margaery whispered, softly. And she had been right, the night before. Sansa had stayed with her the whole night, and it had been the first time in a long time that Margaery hadn’t felt alone.

But when she woke in the morning, Sansa had already been gone.

She swallowed hard; she knew that was her own fault, after all. She knew ta seh had made it very clear to Sansa that she wasn’t really welcome around Margaery, not after what she had been through.

It hadn’t been her intention, but nevertheless, that was what had happened. That was where they had found themselves when Margaery had all but begged to spend the night with Sansa, and had awoken alone, in the morning.

Megga eyed her carefully. “She’s a very smart girl,” she told Margaery, and Margaery wanted to bristle, wanted to tell her that of course she knew that, but she supposed she deserved such a response, after the way she had treated Sansa lately.

It was comforting, in a way, to know that Sansa, too, had someone.

Margaery swallowed hard, smoothing down her gown and giving Megga a simple nod.

_ Here we go _ , she thought, as she stepped through the door to her chambers, and the Kingsguard outside of her room all bowed as one, and then escorted her down the hall, her ladies falling into step behind her.

She could feel the stares of the nobles that they did pass, the ones who weren’t already in the Great Hall, the nobles who had come here to gawk at their mourning little queen and see what new foolish decisions she would make along the way, but Margaery forced herself to look straight ahead and not at a single one of them.

Today, they were all beneath her, because if she put herself on equal footing with them, she wouldn’t be prepared.

Wouldn’t be prepared for Her.

She could feel Megga at her side, and a childish part of Margaery wanted to reach out and grab the other girl’s hand, for strength or comfort or something in between.

She didn’t.

She wasn’t wearing armor today, and she couldn’t afford to show any weakness besides that.

Still, when she walked into the throne room and could feel the stares of so many on her, wondering if this was it. If today would finally be the day that their Regent snapped.

They all knew something was wrong with her, whether they thought it was because she was mourning her husband, or terrified of Cersei, of the new responsibility that she had assumed.

She met her father’s gaze, as she walked forward, and pretended that she could gain some comfort from the way that he nodded to her, from the look in his eyes that she thought was meant to be reassuring.

She couldn’t remember the last time her father had made her feel comforted, and not because he was cruel to her, by any means.

She had just never expected it of him.

But he was the only one here; Garlan was out in the city even now, making sure that they weren’t about to have another plague within the city walls while Cersei was present.

And there was Sansa, of course, standing entirely too close to the Iron Throne already, but when she smiled at Margaery, Margaery could admit that she did feel some measure of comfort, from the other girl’s smile.

Like she used to.

She didn’t know if anything had changed, after last night, but she supposed that she had realized, to some extent, how much the two of them needed each other. How much better they always were, together.

She hadn’t slept, but just being next to Sansa had felt...nice.

Margaery sat down primly on the Iron Throne, giving the chair beside it, where the Regent was meant to sit, the barest of glances before she did so.

The effect would be lost on her, of course, because she was not yet here, but Margaery thought her point would be made well enough by the number of people who were still here.

She stretched her arms out onto the arms of the Iron Throne, and nodded to one of the guards to open the main doors of the Keep to their newest ‘guests.’

For a moment, she thought that she was about to come face to face with Cersei again, for the first time since she had murdered the woman’s son, but it was not Cersei who came hobbling through the main doors of the Great Hall, leaning heavily on a walking stick and ignoring the outstretched arm of one of her guards.

Margaery didn’t feel relief at the sight of her, though.

“The Lady Olenna Tyrell,” a herald called, as if Margaery needed someone to tell her who the woman before her was, as if half of the court had not already flinched back from the other woman, as if they could feel the irritation bleeding off of her in the same way that Margaery currently could.

Olenna walked forward slowly, ignoring all of the stares and the murmuring - most of the court knew by now that Margaery had been the one to send her grandmother away, even if they didn’t know why and never would - as she came to a sudden halt before the Iron Throne.

She didn’t bow, just inclined her head, and Margaery felt her breath catch in her throat.

She knew the look in her grandmother’s eyes, after all. It was the same look that she often gave Margaery as a child, and Loras and Garlan far more than that, every time that they had disappointed her in some way, no matter how small.

It had always terrified them, to receive that look.

“Grandmother,” Margaery said, affording the woman a genuine smile, telling herself that seeing her grandmother again almost made up for that look.

Her grandmother was here now, and that meant they could figure this out, she thought. Her grandmother would know exactly what to do, if only Margaery could hold it together for long enough.

They may not have parted on the best of terms, and Margaery would freely admit that she had been very much responsible for that; she knew what sort of a woman her grandmother was, from the beginning, knew that she was the sort of woman who meddled in the sorts of things that took lives, that she was the woman who made the hard choices when Mace could only think a few steps ahead, rather than then.

No, her grandmother had always been like that. Had been almost predictable, in that way.

The problem had come when Margaery had changed. When she had started thinking that her grandmother’s plots weren’t worth the death toll that they wrought, not after all of the deaths that had come before them. When she had started thinking that she could do better.

Hubris, that had been, she could admit that now.

Now that she needed the sight of her grandmother to remember how to breathe again, because her grandmother always knew how to fix her son’s collasal fuck ups, no matter how bad they were, and Margaery could only hope that Olenna could fix hers, now.

Olenna gave her a long, knowing look, and Margaery felt as if her grandmother was slowly peeling away her skin and looking beneath, was finding every single one of the faults and weaknesses that Margaery had exposed since she had assumed the throne, here.

Assumed the throne.

Margaery swallowed hard, and lifted her chin.

Her grandmother finally murmured, “It is good to see you again, Your Grace,” rather than calling her granddaughter, and Margaery forced back a flinch.

“I…” she took a deep breath, aware of the many eyes on them. A pair of them belonging to Sansa. “It is good to see you, as well. You will have your old accomodations in the Maidenvault, of course. I hope...I hope the journey was not too taxing.”

She had never seen her grandmother lean so heavily on her walking stick before, not even when she was trying to appear more feeble to the lords of the Reach in order to gain their sympathy.

Her grandmother harrumphed. “The Kingsroad is filthy, Granddaughter,” she said. “Your green cloaks should be watching it more carefully, lest bandits take up the road.”

Margaery cocked her head. Apparently her grandmother had no intention of making crawling back into her good graces easy. 

“Were you accosted by bandits?” she asked, carefully.

Her grandmother made a noise of contempt. “It is only a matter of time,” she said, and Margaery bit back a sigh.

“My dear brother Garlan will look into it immediately, of course,” she promised, even if Garlan certainly had no time for such things, these days.

Olenna just eyed her, and then, as if she had given up on finding out anything else about Margaery’s weaknesses, or had decided her not worth her time already, something that made Margaery’s heart beat a little faster, Olenna’s eyes sought out Sansa, in the crowd.

The moment they had, Margaery remembered how to breathe again, even if she didn’t like the silent communication that seemed to run between the two women then, a communication she couldn’t understand.

She knew that she had been unfair to Sansa, lately. That they hadn’t been talking, as they should. But something about the sight of Olenna and Sansa speaking to each other in front of so many people without moving their lips made Margaery unaccountably annoyed.

She told herself it was not jealousy, because in this case, she wasn’t certain who she was jealous of.

She cleared her throat, and the herald stepped forward then, to announce their next arrival. Olenna let out a deep sigh, and gripped the arm of one of her guards, who led her into the crowd.

And thus began a good hour of Margaery being forced to greet each and everyone of the Reach lords who had arrived to mourn the death of her husband, a man none of them even knew and whom many had disliked her House for marrying, in the first place.

“Lord Ryon of House Allyrion, the delegate from Dorne,” the herald announced then, his voice reflecting some of his confusion, and Margaery sat up a little straighter in her chair as the Reach lords began to murmur amongst themselves.

Margaery resisted the urge to roll her eyes; she had known that it would be difficult to convince the Reach to play along with the people of Dorne when she needed it, but she didn’t need to remind them of the fleet sitting even now in their harbor. The last thing she needed was for some lord from Dorne stirring up trouble amongst a bunch of angry Reach lords.

Even if this had not been what she was expecting, from the letters she had been getting from Arianne.

“You are not Lady Tyene,” Margaery said, cocking her head at the man standing before him. “I understand that was the delegate that Her Highness was meant to send, for this funeral.”

A pause. The man shifted forward, his elaborate robes swirling around his feet. He looked like a man who was not used to politics that did not stop at the end of a spear, Margaery thought, appraising him. The robes, too, looked strange on him, as if they were meant to hide the body beneath.

A body made for war.

He cleared his throat, bowing lowly before her. Margaery raised an eyebrow.

She regretted that she knew so little about the lords of Dorne; it was a requirement, for the young lords and ladies of Westeros to learn the names of other Houses, generally, but the rivalry between the Reach and Dorne was such that Margaery knew little more than that about them, most times.

Her brother had loved Oberyn Martell, in his own way, but he had been one of the few in the Reach to admit to such a thing.

She knew nothing about House Allyrion, save that they had one been a reigning power in Dorne, when House Martell had not.

She wondered what they thought of the new power structure, there. She knew that they were closely allied with House Yronwood, but that told her nothing, in all truth.

But she was not surprised that a daughter of Oberyn Martell had refused to come to the funeral of Joffrey Baratheon, but Lady Nym was not here, sent away for whatever reason despite the fleet she had left outside, but they needed to present a united front, today, more than ever, and she could not deny being more than a little annoyed by the snub.

“I am afraid that the delegate from Dorne was unable to attend on behalf of Princess Arianne, due to an unfortunate illness,” the man said. “She extends her deepest apologies. I am here in her place.”

Margaery hummed. “I see,” she said. Then, she shrugged. “Well, do you have anything else to say, or are you simply going to take up the rest of the day with Lady Tyene’s apologies? I confess, I’m not entirely sure why Dorne felt the need to send you at all, when Prince Trystane is here amongst us, if the Lady Tyene truly could not come.”

The man didn’t even have the grace to look offended by her words. Instead, he simply bowed to her again, and stepped back into the crowd.

Margaery noticed Trystane staring at him, rather wide eyed, another hint that this man wasn’t some ambassador as he claimed to be.

She bit back a sigh; wonderful. This was just what she needed, right now.

The Reach lords were still muttering angrily amongst each other, as Lord Ryon took his place in the crowd.

And then, Margaery forgot all about Lord Allyrion, as the herald announced their next visitor, and it was only then that Margaery realized someone - Sansa, or perhaps Baelish - must have arranged this on purpose, so that Cersei was one of the last to be welcomed into the Keep.

So that she was left waiting outside of it, surrounded by angry smallfolk and knowing damn well that she should have been one of the first to enter, as the mother of a King.

But then, her own son had exiled her.

It would mean nothing to Cersei, but Margaery found herself hoping that it would mean something to everyone else in the crowd.

“The court recognizes Cersei Lannister, Queen Mother,” the herald announced her, and Margaery took a deep breath as the woman walked into the room, because she knew that she could not afford to do so once the other woman had actually entered it.

Cersei walked forward surrounded by guards who Margaery knew had lost their swords the moment they had entered King’s Landing, lest they try to instigate something.

Yet another insult, but at least this one was not so petty.

Cersei looked...different, from the last time that Margaery had seen her, and she would know. That last time that she had seen Cersei was emblazoned in her mind now, Cersei’s indignant shouts and furious expression as the guards all but dragged her out of the room, as Joffrey screamed at her that she was lucky he had not taken her head, for the treason she was accused of.

Older, somehow. As if she had aged a dozen years in far less than one.

For a moment, Margaery felt something like a spark of pity for her, knowing how she had cared about Joffrey. Knowing that she had been perhaps the only person who had actually cared about him, madman though he was.

And she had not been there, when he died.

Even with her child not yet out of her womb, Margaery could not imagine how that must feel, hateful as Cersei was.

“Your Grace,” Margaery greeted her, lifting her chin as she did so, summoning up the woman she had been, once. “I am happy to welcome you to King’s Landing again, and that you accepted this invitation.”

Cersei glowered at her.

That, at least, was familiar.

“It was not as if I could refuse,” Cersei all but hissed out, and the murmurings of the crowd started up again, Lord Ryon seemingly forgotten. 

Margaery forced a smile. “I am glad to hear it. I know that things between our House has been...difficult, of late. I hope that between the two of us, while we are here, we might be able to resolve some of that conflict. Your coming here is a necessary first step towards that, and-”

“Make no mistake,” Cersei interrupted her then, teeth gritted. “I am here to lay my son to rest, and for nothing more than that. I was not there to be with my son, when he died.”

She looked Margaery up and down, and dear gods, she should have pretended to be sick, rather than meet with Cersei, no matter how suspicious it might look if she refused to see her. Should have pretended she blamed her for Joffrey’s death, anything to avoid facing her now.

“And I blame you for that,” Cersei continued, coldly. A long, calculated pause. “Your Grace.”

Margaery forced a thin smile. “It was not I who got myself banished from King’s Landing for turning on the King, Your Grace,” she reminded Cersei, coldly. “You are here because I felt pity for you, where my husband, may he rest in peace, did not.”

Cersei raised her hand as if to slap her, and Margaery flinched before the hand ever touched her cheek. It did not, f course; one of her Kingsguard moved forward to intercept it with a furious look on his face, and Cersei looked almost surprised at the interruption before her eyes swept over the Kingsguard and she realized, perhaps for the first time since entering the Keep, how few of them were familiar to her.

Silence fell.

Cersei took a step back, properly chastened.

Margaery licked her lips. “Of course, I would never keep the mother of a child away from her son’s funeral,” she went on. “That would be...terribly cruel.”

Cersei eyed her, sharply.

“But I find it strange, Your Grace,” Margaery said, and told herself that talking to Cersei again like this was still terrifying, that it wasn’t more terrifying how easily her mind had slid back into the words she always used with Cersei, the way that she riled her, every time that they were forced to speak with each other.

She had barely been able to keep track of her own kingdom, days ago. And yet, talking to Cersei, a woman whose arrival she had been dreading ever since Cersei had accepted her invitation to come here, was disturbingly...easy.

She would not say enjoyable, she told herself.

She could not look into this woman’s eyes and think about the fact that she had bashed her son’s head in.

And had enjoyed that, too.

“That your son is not here to pay his respects to his brother,” Margaery went on, forcing such thoughts out of her mind as Cersei glared at her. “Did he not want to honor his brother, after so quickly claiming said brother’s throne?”

A gasp; Margaery was fairly certain that it belonged to Elinor, somewhere in the crowd.

“I don’t recognize you as the Regent, dear, when my son is the rightful King,” Cersei sneered. “I don’t suppose your father is coming for the funeral, after the lovely things that he had to say about my son when you supposedly died?”

Margaery’s smile froze on her face; Cersei raised an eyebrow. After all, that was interesting.

“No, he won’t be, though he sends his regrets for any such remarks,” a familiar, old voice said, and Cersei closed her eyes. “Clearly, he was...misled.”

Cersei breathed out slowly through her nose. “Lady Olenna.” She turned around, slowly. “I wasn’t aware that you were in King’s Landing. Or fit enough to make the journey here.”

Olenna Tyrell hobbled forward through the parting crowd, leaning heavily on her cane. “Lovely to see you again, dear Cersei,” she greeted. “I was beginning to wonder why things were so quiet here.”

Cersei glowered at her. “I haven’t found them to be quiet since my own departure here, let alone yours.”

Olenna’s answering smile was shimmering. Margaery shifted in her chair. “I understand there are other lords yet to be introduced to Her Grace,” she said. “Unless you intend to stand around trading barbs until suppertime. I must warn you, though, we of House Tyrell are rather hungry, after such a long journey.”

Margaery’s eyes narrowed, because her grandmother was clearly giving her an out, but she was not aware of yet more lords meant to be introduced to her, before the meal. They had practically exhausted her already, making her smile and wave at every member of House Tyrell and the Reach who had come to pay their respects to a husband she was pretending to mourn.

Cersei, too, looked suspicious, but as if she expected this new lord to be carrying a hatchet he might then attempt to bury in her skull.

Margaery supposed she could not blame the other woman for thinking such a thing. She knew that, were their situations reversed, Cersei might at least try to do the same thing.

Instead, she sighed, watching as Cersei fell back into the crowd, and leaned back in her chair, gesturing for the herald to get on with it. She didn’t have all day, after all. 

“The Crown recognizes Lord Gendry of the House Baratheon, heir apparent of Storm’s End, and last legitimate son of his father, Robert Baratheon,” the herald announced then, and Margaery felt her whole body grow cold as she turned with wide eyes towards the door, as the doors to the Great Hall opened then and the young man she had once known as Arry stepped through them, dressed in Baratheon colors and looking rather uncomfortable in them.

But rather like he had always been meant for them, at the same time.

Beside Margaery, Cersei’s breath left her in a whoosh of air, and Margaery felt her own breath escaping her in the next moment.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“What the fuck is this?” Cersei gritted out, but Varys was stepping forward then, damn him, holding out a letter for her to read, which Cersei snatched out of his hands with fury.

Margaery glanced between him and Olenna, who looked unpleasantly unsurprised by all of this, and Margaery took a deep breath, lest she start shouting in front of all of these people.

She should have damn well known this was going to happen. She had invited her grandmother back for less than a day, and already she had done something like this.

“The Crown has legitimized Gendry of House Baratheon in light of the fact that there are no other heirs to Storm’s End loyal to the Crown, and it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of traitors such as Stannis Baratheon,” he said, far too smoothly, as Margaery glared at him from Cersei’s side.

Clearly, this had all been planned, and without her permission, too.

She didn’t remember signing any documents which had legitimized the boy she had met aboard a pirate ship.

“The Crown” her arse, she thought, with annoyance, even if it made a sort of sense.

She remembered that she had sent Gendry to her grandmother, before all of this, and had foolishly enver thought to check on him again. From how uncomfortable he looked now, she didn’t think this had been his idea, but clearly, he had moved up in the world, and she couldn’t help but be a little annoyed with him, for that.

The Crown had legitimized him, she remembered. The Crown had legitimized him as the last heir to Storm’s End not standing in open rebellion against the Crown.

Against her.

She swallowed hard.

And now, with a loophole like that, a loophole that other kings and queens had made use of in the past well enough, they could claim that Tommen had no real claim to Storm’s End, because he was in open rebellion with the Crown, even if he wasn’t a bastard…

Gods, she knew exactly why they hadn’t told her about this ahead of time. It was a dire warning, a slap in the face much like the one Cersei had just wanted to give her, to Cersei, but it terrified Margaery, all the same.

Because if Tommen’s legitimacy as Lord of Storm’s End could be questioned, Cersei could so easily turn this around and question the legitimacy of the child in Margaery’s belly, even if the word ‘bastard’ was never mentioned.

“You would steal Storm’s End from my son and hand it over to a bastard?” Cersei hissed out, glaring down her nose at Gendry.

But Margaery wasn’t looking at her at all, now. Instead, she was looking fearfully in Sansa’s direction. Sansa, who did not look surprised by any of this.

Sansa, who had been taking over more and more of Margaery’s responsibilities ever since her husband's death, since the announcement of her regency. Sansa, who had been signing documents in her name, documents thrown in her direction by Baelish, in all of his scheming.

She closed her eyes, wishing that she could feel surprised.

So. It had not just been a ploy of her mother’s.

And of course it could not be; Varys had said he had the official pardon of the Crown, after all, and there was only one person who could have given him that.

And she was now refusing to meet Margaery’s eyes.

Margaery took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. 

Well, it had already happened; there was no turning back at this point.

She saw that now; there would be no alliance, out of this funeral. There would be no negotiations.

She didn’t know if that was what Sansa and her mother had always intended; she remembered that Sansa, out of all of the members of her Small Council, had been the one to insist that they come to some sort of peace with Cersei, and she was ashamed to admit that she had not been paying enough attention to the other girl to tell if that had been genuine, or not.

She did not know if her grandmother and Sansa had insisted on Cersei coming here so that they could make this war seem more her fault than theirs, to every noble who was still on the fence about their options, these days.

She swallowed hard, and went for it, telling herself that Olenna and Sansa had given her no other choice, not really. 

“It is a pity,” she said, as Cersei turned to face her, absolutely livid, now. “That your son could not be here to defend his rights to Storm’s End, and bend the knee to the Crown,” she said. “I suppose that his claim to a throne that does not yet belong to him means more to Prince Tommen than respecting his departed brother.”

For a moment, she thought that Cersei was going to lunge at her from across the room. Instead, Cersei swallowed hard, clasping her hands together in a way that Margaery had once mocked, and said primly, “My son’s actions were taken in light of what he believed to be his duty, nothing more.”

Ah, Margaery thought. An interesting approach to take, she supposed.

“Well,” she said, slowly, “Perhaps in the coming days, we might come to a different understanding.”

Let it not be said by anyone in the crowd that she was not trying, Margaery thought, even if a part of her knew that she was only baiting the other woman.

Her gaze sought out Kevan Lannister in the crowd, who already looked defeated.

Cersei lifted her chin. “As I said,” she said, coolly, “I am here to lay my son to rest.”

Margaery bit back a sigh. “Is that all of them?” she asked of the herald, conveying her annoyance that the list of courtiers did not match the one that he had originally given her, this morning, with Gendry here.

The herald gulped. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Margaery got to her feet, then. “Very well,” she said, loudly enough for the whole hall to hear. “My husband shall be laid to rest tomorrow morning, and I hope that you all can attend. I am...grateful, on his behalf, that so many of you have come to pay your respects.”

She thought Cersei might have been rolling her eyes, but couldn’t quite tell.

Either way, she ignored the other woman, gesturing to her guards that she was leaving, then.

The nobles all but scattered, the moment she left, none of them wanting to find themselves alone with Cersei, Margaery imagined.

But she had one person in mind, and once she walked out of the Great Hall, she found herself waiting for the other girl to make herself known, annoyance still bubbling up inside of her.

And then Sansa walked through the doors that Margaery had just left out of, and Margaery chewed on her lower lip for a moment, debating whether or not she really wanted to poke this beast when it had finally started to feel like things were going well between them, of late.

But she hadn’t known about their plan for Gendry, and while a part of her understood it, another part of her was furious, furious that the two of them didn’t seem to have even considered the other dangers that such a claim could make, rather than invoking Cersei’s anger.

“Sansa!” she snapped, when the other girl kept walking.

Finally, Sansa turned around to face her, and Margaery found herself placing her hands on her hips for a moment, terribly disturbed by the look on Sansa’s face.

As if she thought that Margaery was overreacting to all of this, before Margaery had even spoken.

Margaery took a careful breath, grabbing Sansa by the arm and all but dragging her the rest of the way back into her chambers in the Maidenvault. Margaery’s old chambers.

There was nothing about them anymore that reminded Margaery of when she had lived in them.

“Was that my grandmother's doing, or Baelish’s?” Margaery demanded, bursting into Sansa’s chambers.

She knew the answer already, of course, but she wanted to hear it from Sansa’s own lips.

Sansa blinked at her. “I…”

“What the fuck was that?” Margaery interrupted her, because she could tell that Sansa was about to gie her an excuse rather than an answer, and dear gods, this was not something they could afford to play around with, not with Cersei Fucking Lannister back in King’s Landing.

Gods, she had told Sansa how terrified she was at the thought of Cersei’s return, and this was how Sansa reacted? How her own grandmother reacted, at a time when they could not afford to look weak?

Sansa blinked up at her. “What?’ she asked, and dear gods, margaery had never been more annoyed with Sansa than she was in this moment. Then, shamefaced, “It was a joint decision, Margaery. I didn’t tell you because…”

Because she thought Margaery had enough to deal with, these days.

That was the excuse that Sansa always used, these days, and Margaery only ever found out the important things when it was far too late, because of it.

“You just...You just announced to the entire court that Gendry was of House Baratheon was the last trueborn son of House Baratheon,” Margaery cried. “Why the fuck do you think I’m angry?’

Sansa closed her eyes. “Listen to me,” she said. “I...Your son is the King, Margaery.”

“The King?” Margaery repeated, laughing incredulously. “My son isn’t the King of anything. Cersei has made that damn clear, by refusing to bend the knee, by championing Tommen. The Martells haven’t even lived up to their end of the bargain. Their fleet is here, and every second it is I’m afraid they’re going to turn on us. Hells, my son isn’t even a son, yet. He is holding on by a thread, and he isn’t even born yet, and you just let the whole world know, yet again, that there is no reason to believe his father was even Robert Baratheon’s son!” She reached up, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “Godsdamnit, Sansa, he’s a bastard son of a bastard son! My son is not a king’s blood. He is the bastard son of a whore, and Cersei only needs one guess to wonder why we’re so damned defensive about Tommen.”

“No, Margaery, you dont’ understand,” Sansa said, and her eyes were alight with...with something that Margaery hesitated to put a name to, and dear gods, how could she have been this stupid? How could she have done this to her? 

“I had to do this. For us. For…” she reached out, placing a hand on Margaery’s stomach. “For this child.”

“You’ve killed me,” Margaery hissed out. Sansa flinched. “And this child. Dear gods, how can you not see it?”

Sansa shook her head, taking a step back from Margaery. “No,” she said. “No, you don’t understand. Margaery, this is good for us.”

“Good for us?” Margaery demanded, and fuck it, if her voice was shrill. If everyone in the vicinity could hear. They were all Tyrells, after all. “How?”

But Sansa looked disturbed, by her raised voice, and walked over to the door, latching it shut. She turned around then, hissing, “Yes, good for us. Good for taking away any claim that Tommen has to the throne. If he has not bent the knee to whom the rest of Westeros agrees is the natural heir, he has no right to it.”

Margaery felt her heart sink in her chest, as she realized then what Sansa was planning, what her grandmother was planning. “That will never work,” she whispered, but Sansa spoke above her. “The Westerlands will not agree to sit by and do nothing while Tommen gives up that claim. Cersei will never agree to that.”

“If this doesn’t work, and it will, we’re going to claim, through the whores of King’s landing, through all of Baelish’s and Varys’ spies, that Joffrey was the only trueborn son of Robert. That Cersei gave him an heir, and then turned to the comfort of her brother.”

Margaery sucked in a breath, shaking her head. “No one will believe that,” she said.

They all looked just the same, even if Myrcella and Tommen were nothing like their brother.

Sansa raised an eyebrow. “Do they have to? No one believed Joffrey was Robert’s son when Cersei put him on the throne, but they bowed to him, all the same.”

Margaery let out another ragged laugh. “There were plenty who didn’t.”

“And what if you have a girl?” Sansa asked, and Margaery flinched. “I know you don’t want to talk about that. But if you have a girl, Tommen is the natural heir to the throne. Cersei is more than prepared to make that claim, so long as there is breath in her body. So long as Tommen has one.”

“Myrcella…” Margaery closed her eyes. “Fuck. The Martells will see this as an act of war, Sansa. As a sign that we’ve dropped our alliance with them!”

Because Myrcella was their assurance that the Tyrells would not turn on them, and now, she was nothing more than a bastard wasted on a marriage to one of their princes.

Sansa shook her head. “No they won’t. Nym agreed to this.”

“Nym is not Arianne!” Margaery snapped at her, and Sansa fell silent.

Then, “If you have a girl, you won’t be able to claim the throne for her, either. The rest of Westeros is not Dorne. Tommen will be the natural heir, and everything we’ve done to get to this point will fuck us over. I am trying to protect us, and your child.”

“And Tommen?” Margaery rasped out. “If he’s a bastard, the logical choice would be to kill him so that he’s not a threat to us.” She felt sick at the thought. “Is that your next step, Sansa? To kill him the way we killed that serving boy, the way we killed all of those random beggars off the streets, pretending they were Sparrows?”

Sansa flinched. “I didn’t think…”

“What?” Margaery interrupted her. “Didn’t think I knew? My husband slaughtered all of the Sparrows in front of me, Sansa. I knew.”

Sansa closed her eyes. “I...Tommen won’t be harmed. This is the only way I can see, to make sure that none of us are harmed. That Cersei can’t raise an army against us, without a way to make it happen.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “And what is that?” she asked, even as she placed a protective hand over her belly.

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek. “Tommen is...he’s on his way here, Margaery. If he’s here, and a bastard, he can’t harm us.”

Margaery licked her lips. “Were you going to tell me he was on his way?” she asked.

Sansa hesitated, and Margaery let out a long sigh.

“I know...I know I’ve not been myself, since…” she trailed off, looking away. “And I know I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to trust me, either. But I am still the Regent, and I’d appreciate not being left in the dark like my grandmother tried to do. I think we both know that I do better with more information, rather than less.”

Sansa sighed, actually looking apologetic, in a way that she hadn’t when she had apologized about the septa, and that was how Margaery knew to believe her. “I’m sorry.”

Margaery chewed on her lower lip. “And besides, do you think kidnapping Tommen and keeping him prisoner here is going to stop Cersei? She’s already crowned him king, and she’ll be able to scrape her way out of that situation. She’ll declare war, Sansa, officially. And she’s here, now. She won’t leave without him, once she realizes what we’ve done.”

Sansa shrugged. “We both know she would have declared war, anyway.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m sure we can win it!” Margaery cried out.

Gods, how could Sansa be so blase about all of this? Just thinking it made Margaery feel sick.

Sansa opened her eyes, then.

“I have something better than a larger army,” Sansa said, and Margaery scoffed, even as, inwardly, she wondered if Sansa had lost her damn mind.

“I have both Tommen and Shireen Baratheon, now.”

Margaery gaped at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, now that everyone's finally back together!


	23. King's Landing

Shireen couldn’t remember the last time that she had been to King’s Landing. Certainly before her father had declared himself the rightful King of Westeros and they had stopped traveling there altogether.

They had been riding for days, days that had dragged on with only her Onion Knight to talk to; while the Tyrell guards who had met them on the Kingsroad did not stare at her in the unsettling way that Ramsay Bolton’s men had, they didn’t try to talk to her, either.

She thought, in fact, that they were going out of their way not to talk to her, for all that they kept her surrounded at all times, not letting her sleep in a tent by herself, either, as terrifying as it was to be watched while she slept.

Even Ramsay Bolton had afforded her that courtesy.

But the journey was long, and for all that Shireen was used to riding horses by now, she found that she did not particularly care for it, so many days in a row, with her knight forced to ride behind her, and surrounded by guards whom she knew to be disloyal to her father.

So it was almost a relief, to see the tall towers of King’s Landing branching out before them on the Kingsroad, after so many days’ travel of near silence, even if Shireen still had no idea what awaited her, within those walls. Had no idea why the Tyrells, who had first been sworn to her Uncle, the false King Renly, and then to her cousin, the false King Joffrey, should want her.

She had hoped...well, she had hoped that her father, whom she couldn’t really remember negotiating with anyone, in the past, had finally paid some ransom for her to be returned to him, when Ramsay had first told her that she would be leaving Winterfell.

She had not liked being his hostage. She did not know what the Tyrells would be like as her captors, but she did not like the idea of being theirs, either.

For all that Ramsay had told her she was going to the Tyrells, however, it was Baratheon colors, interspersed with the green of House Tyrell, which hung from the ramparts of King’s Landing, she noticed, the closer that they got to it.

“Do you know what she’s like?” Shireen whispered, glancing up at her dutiful Onion Knight. “The Regent, I mean.”

It seemed strange, to her, a pregnant woman ruling on the Iron Throne that her father so desperately wanted.

The Onion Knight grimaced, looking genuinely sad that he didn’t have a better answer for her, she thought. “I don’t, Princess,” he told her, and the words were almost gentle. “I’m afraid I’ve never met her.”

Shireen bit her lip; she’d feared that. She knew that the Regent had been her Uncle Renly’s wife, once, when he had named himself the False King, and her knight had not been with them, before that, or at least, not for long, if he had been. 

But still, she was scared. She thought her knight knew that, from the way she kept feeling his gaze on her, where he sat behind her on the horse, worried and unable to do much about it, surrounded by so many guards.

Tyrell guards, wearing Tyrell green, which she knew only from her books, because it was not as if she had ever met one. She knew the stories, of how her father and her Uncle Renly had been held captive in Storm’s End by Reach soldiers, reduced to eating rats to stay alive during her Uncle Robert’s Rebellion, and she wondered if they were going to force such an existence upon her, now.

A part of her hoped that her knight would find a way to get them out of this before that happened, even if she knew how unlikely that was, when he was only one man, alone, and seemed just as nervous as she felt, though he was trying to hide it for her sake, she knew.

He had been like that in Winterfell, as well. Sitting beside her, looking nervous every time the door to the crypts opened, every time she whispered in the darkness with the Shadow, as if he thought someone was going to come along that he wouldn’t be able to protect her from.

They said the Regent had an army controlling King’s Landing, at the moment, and as much as she adored him, she knew that her knight would not be able to stand up against all of them any more than he had been able to stand up against the ragtag remains of the Bolton army that had retaken Winterfell the moment her father turned his back on it.

“Do you think she’s nice?” she asked, quietly, nervously, because she supposed that mattered, now, where it had never mattered before. Her father hadn’t been nice, when she had trapped Shireen’s father in Storm’s End and eaten feasts outside their home for weeks on end, but perhaps this false regent wasn’t like her father. “They say that she’s going to be a mother, to the bastard’s son.”

The Onion Knight made another unreadable face, and Shireen blinked up at him in confusion, even as she noticed the Tyrell guards around them shifting on their horses, looking suddenly very irritated but as if they weren’t certain what to do about it.

“What is it?” she asked.

Her knight sighed. “Where we’re going, it’s probably best that you get used to not thinking of him as a bastard, Princess. Or calling him that,” he warned her. “They won’t like it.”

He said it like he thought they might try to do something about that dislike, if she said it too many times, and Shireen felt her heart claw its way up her throat.

Shireen blinked at him. “But he is a bastard,” she protested, brows knitting.

Again, the soldiers looked annoyed.

She wasn’t trying to be contrary, which for a moment she feared he thought, she just...genuinely didn’t understand. Her father had told her, with her uncle Robert’s death, that she was now the only rightful princess of the Seven Kingdoms, and while she pitied Myrcella and Tommen for the fact that they were mere bastards, she had liked Edric Stone well enough, and he hadn’t seemed very sad about the fact that he was a bastard.

Hadn’t; he was dead now, she knew. Had been killed after her father had decided to send him to Winterfell with her, at her own insistence. Dead at Ramsay Bolton’s hands.

And now Ramsay Bolton, another bastard, was handing her over to this Queen Regent Margaery, who wasn’t really a queen, but who Shireen had to pretend to recognize as a queen, now.

It was all terribly confusing.

She noticed the Onion Knight looking at her in something like concern. “It’s like how Joffrey called himself a king even though he wasn’t,” he told her, in a whisper, as if he thought the guards around them couldn’t hear. “You have to realize they see you that way, now.”

Shireen’s forehead wrinkled further. “But...I am the Princess,” she said, because she didn’t understand much about the war that her father was waging, that she was no longer certain he was winning, but she did know that.

He had sat her down and explained that to her, once, near the beginning of all of this, right after they had received the news that her uncle had died, and she had thought that she finally understood it, though apparently not.

She was the only true Princess left in the Seven Kingdoms, as his legitimate daughter, and all of the rest of these, her Uncle Robert’s children whom she had never really played with, as a child, and Renly, they were all false pretenders to a throne that belonged to her father, as her Uncle’s natural heir.

It hadn’t made a lot of sense to her, at the time, but she knew that her father was always right about these things.

And now, her Onion Knight was telling her that wasn’t true, anymore. That these people, the guards surrounding her as well as the ones in King’s Landing, all believed this false regent to be true, while she was not.

She was the pretender.

It was a strange new reality, for Shireen.

“I haven’t been to King’s Landing in such a long time,” Shireen said, quietly, as she stared up at the great spires of King’s Landing.

She hadn’t been allowed to go much of anywhere, when she was younger, because of her affliction, but she had still been to King’s Landing several times, had enjoyed it there, even though she didn’t spend much time out of her rooms when she was there. It was so warm, and pretty.

She wouldn’t say that she had missed it, during all of this time at war, but seeing it now made her think, just a bit, of how she had enjoyed it.

The Onion Knight leaned down beside her, and got several harsh looks from their guards - captors, Shireen reminded herself, no matter that they were much kinder than Ramsay Bolton’s guards had been, and she got the idea that they pitied her.

Her Knight held up his hands. “I just want to talk to her,” he said. “It will only take a minute.”

The soldiers - in their Tyrell green - glanced at one another, and then one of them, the one that Shireen thought was in charge of them, shrugged. “Just one moment,” he said, climbing down from his horse, and her Knight turned back to her.

Shireen swallowed hard.

They had been allowed to share a horse, though her Knight’s arms were bound, and Shireen hated seeing him like that, hated seeing that he was being treated badly by the people holding them, even if they weren’t treating her so badly.

She licked her lips.

“Whatever happens in there,” her Knight told her, “I promised your father that I would protect you, and I will.”

Shireen forced herself to meet his eyes, twisting around in the saddle to meet them. “I know,” she whispered, and after a moment’s hesitation, her Knight smiled at her.

“Enough. Let’s get moving,” the soldier yelled, and they were moving again, their horse pulled along by two guards holding it between them.

Shireen grimaced as the sensation startled their horse and it started to move a little faster, as her knight wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her upright, as King’s Landing grew ever closer.

She hoped that the Tyrell regent was different from her father.

She knew that her father had hated that she knew that story, at all. She knew he wouldn’t want her to live it.

But she had to believe that if she did end up living it, her father would come back for her.

She swallowed hard.

He would come back for her.

He had to come back for her.

* * *

It was ironic, Margaery thought, that in killing her own husband, she had all but assured that he would have one of the most magnificent funerals any King of the Seven Kingdoms had ever received.

Anything less than that would only make Cersei suspicious, of course, and it was not as if the Tyrells had the excuse of not having enough money for it.

Even with the threat of war looming, if her husband’s funeral was less costly than his wedding had been, she knew that Cersei would try to use that against her, at some point.

And Margaery did not intend on giving Cersei Lannister any more help in this battle waging between them, be it of the mind or otherwise, than she already had.

So, while she had spent so much time recently trying to avoid her duties, Margaery spent the whole of the morning before the funeral putting the finishing touches on how her husband would be immortalized, making sure that every choice made was the most expensive it could be, citing that House Tyrell personally would be paying for it, now that her grandmother was here to give that reassurance.

Baelish had done a fairly good job with the preparations already, and Margaery supposed she owed him for that; it certainly looked like she had been the one to put such care into preparations, with the way he had done it. Just enough finery, a woman’s touch. 

And yet, just now, she found even that suspicious, for all that he had helped her cover up this murder. She knew, after all, that he had only done it for Sansa’s sake.

But damned, if the brothel owner didn’t know finery well enough.

Her husband was to be buried in robes made of spun gold, with a beautiful new crown made of golden stags, with no hint that he was anything less than Baratheon and Lannister both, about him. 

And the procession that was to lead his body through the streets to the Sept, now that it had been carefully prepared, was to be surrounded by Tyrell guards, lest any member of the smallfolk decide to incite another riot in his death, not that Margaery might blame them for it.

It was a perfectly understandable reaction, after all, where her husband was concerned.

But it couldn’t be allowed to happen. Not while Cersei was here.

She got to her feet, standing from the table where she’d been at work for some hours now, making sure that every detail was finalized, and smoothed down her gown, a thing made of midnight black with long sleeves that covered her burns, and a high neck that nearly made her forget how short her hair had gotten, in the past year.

Green lace covered her breasts, the closest thing to armor that she could have, with Cersei here, knowing the other woman would know where such a look had come from, as badly as Margaery yearned for it.

It had taken most of the morning to deal with some of these issues - for all that Baelish was a man of taste, some of the things he had called for had been suspiciously extravagant - and she had dressed for the funeral, first, as uncomfortable as the gown she wore was, after several hours in it.

And she had been extremely annoyed when she noticed that he’d ordered Sparrows to be released when her husband was placed in his tomb, alongside Elia Martell and dozens of Targaryens.

She’d make him pay for that, eventually. Not today, though.

The servants kept following her even as she walked out to find Sansa, though, and to let her know it was time.

While they walked, Margaery supposed there was more she could come up with.

“The feast needs to have more food and drink than we can make do with,” Margaery told the servants. “Of course, the mood must still be somber. Meat and wine. Dornish Red, of course.”

Gods forbid Cersei accused her of celebrating her husband’s death, rather than mourning it.

“Ah, but Your Grace…There is barely enough Dornish Red for that,” one of them said, and Margaery paused in her walking, turning to face the man.

“Come again?”

The servant gulped. “There have been no more shipments of Dornish Red for a fortnight, Your Grace…” he began again, but Margaery was already stomping off, her servants following after her.

She tried to hide some of the worry she felt, but already, Margaery could feel her heart pounding.

The Dornish had sent the wrong emissary for the funeral, and now she learned, far later than she should have, that they were no longer sending their wine, either.

Something was wrong with the alliance, if, indeed, there even still was one.

“Your Grace?” her servants called after her, sounding rather desperate, and Margaery reached up a hand to run it through her short hair before nodding, forcing calm.

“Right. Then find as much mead as you can. Bribe the lower merchants, if you have to. Something strong enough that our lords and ladies won’t realize how strong it is. Understood?”

The man hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. 

Margaery kept walking. “And I want anything anyone drinks or eats tasted,” she told them. “Myself, the Lady Sansa, Lady Olenna. See to it.”

“Your Grace,” she heard Megga call out, even as the woman started walking down the hall to meet her. Margaery resisted the urge to roll her eyes; she was hardly in the mood for another lecture from Megga, today. 

Today, of all days.

And she could see from the look on Megga’s face that the other girl was getting ready for a lecture.

“Your Grace, I think that Cersei knows something,” Megga said, tightly. “She…” A pause. “She’s been acting strangely. And she’s keeping a close eye on Rosamund.”

“I can’t talk right now, Megga,” Margaery told her, blithely, even as those words made her wince.

Dear gods, just when everything was starting to feel like it was coming back together, something new always happened. Something like this.

First the Dornish, and now Cersei.

Megga made a face. “Shireen Baratheon is in the throne room, Your Grace.”

Margaery stared. “Why didn’t you lead with that?” she demanded, irritation leaking into her voice.

* * *

“Princess Shireen,” Margaery greeted, forcing a welcoming smile and standing to her feet from where she sat on the Iron Throne as the Princess was led into the Great Hall, surrounded by Tyrells and a single knight whom Margaery was, frankly, surprised was still alive, because she thought that the little girl must be very frightened, to be standing before so many of her father’s enemies. “Welcome to King’s Landing.”

Shireen looked like she was resisting the sudden urge to hug herself. Margaery supposed this must be very frightening for her, indeed, to be standing here in front of all of her father’s enemies, almost totally alone save for an old man who had refused to leave her side.

She wasn’t much different in age from Tommen, from what Margaery remembered, and a part of her felt a stab of pity for the little girl. 

Their world was terribly cruel to little girls.

Shireen blinked up at her, doe eyed and soft, and Margaery didn’t pay much attention to the affliction that covered half of her face in stone, because she knew that her own body was scarred, and that at this age, it didn’t matter, for Shireen.

She had never seen greyscale, before.

Children could be cruel, and she remembered a cousin, the same one who she had told Sansa had porridge face, telling her that if she ever did anything bad as a child, the gods would smite her with greyscale, leading to a long and painful death.

Margaery licked her lips.

She wondered if Shireen Baratheon was lonely, and that was why her knight had survived this long. Sheer force of will, in not wanting to leave her in a place where she was entirely alone.

As Shireen walked forward to greet her, Margaery caught the look on Cersei’s face, out of the corner of her eye, and went suddenly still. It seemed to spook Shireen, who halted where she stood, not daring to come any closer as a little of the real Margaery flashed across her face, and Shireen recognized it.

Margaery swallowed hard.

Cersei ground her teeth together, meeting Margaery’s eyes, and Margaery knew, then. She didn’t know how she knew; she remembered that Sansa had told her that there had been other...bids, for the girl, and a part of Margaery had wondered if Sansa meant her own mother, Selyse, but it made sense, now.

Of course Cersei had wanted her. She may be impulsive, and a bit mad, though not in the same way that her son was, but she wasn’t a fool. She would have known, as Margaery did, as Sansa had, what a prize Shireen Baratheon was.

Stannis Baratheon was the only person standing between Margaery, Cersei, and the Iron Throne, these days. Or, well, the only one who mattered, especially if Cersei and Margaery did manage to come to some sort of accord, in the coming days.

Oh, who was she kidding, Margaery thought.

The only accord the two of them could ever come to was a knife in the other’s throat.

“I know that you must have had a very frightening journey, to come here, but you’re here now, and you have my word that you shall not be harmed, here,” Margaery went on, meeting the girl’s gaze as she reached out and gave her hands a gentle squeeze.

There was something sharp in those eyes, despite the fright that Margaery also saw there. Margaery found that almost reassuring; it meant that whatever else the Bolton bastard was, he had not broken the little girl, yet.

And she knew that she wasn’t supposed to be thinking such things, that Shireen Baratheon was the daughter of perhaps her greatest enemy, if Cersei Lannister was not that, but she found it reassuring, all the same.

She was not sure what she would have been able to do with a broken princess. 

Shireen squinted at her, as if she was not sure what at all to make of her, and Margaery forced herself to smile gently. 

“Now,” Margaery said, “We’ve had nice rooms prepared for you, near my own, and I thought perhaps you would like to get settled for a little while, before the funeral. I know I am happy that you made it in time for the funeral, as well.”

Shireen kept squinting at her, intelligent enough to know that Margaery probably didn’t care about her at all, but looking like she didn’t know whether she should call her out on it, or not.

Brave little thing, Margaery thought, idly, as another pang of guilt filled her.

She had not wanted it to be like this. Had not wanted to become Queen merely because she was keeping Trystane, Shireen, and Tommen, apparently, if Lady Nym succeeded in her mission, as her captives, forcing the other kingdoms to bend the knee or see children suffer.

She understood the political advantage in having Shireen as a captive, here, but Margaery had not wanted to become a Queen merely because she kept children captive in fright, terrified of the day when Margaery might decide they were no longer useful, as Sansa had been for years under Joffrey’s reign.

She had not wanted to be that sort of queen.

She had not wanted to be the sort of queen who was remembered for imprisoning her rivals’ children and slaughtering a sept of people and killing her husband, but here they were.

She glanced once more at Cersei, and wondered what sort of Queen Cersei wished she could be, or whether she had ever given that any thought.

She got the feeling that Cersei would not necessarily mind, if she was never loved by her people, so long as she was able to rule them.

But things did not have to be bad for Shireen, she told herself, like they had been for Sansa.

She only hoped that Shireen would realize that, as well.

Shireen stared up at her silently, and then, ever so slowly, dipped into a small curtsey before the woman who now held her prisoner.

The motion was so unexpected that Margaery startled, staring down at this little girl who had already so easily come to understand her situation, and felt another pang of guilt.

Then, she cleared her throat, turning to the crowd so that she didn’t have to look down at Shireen and wonder if, one day, her child would be forced to bow and scrape before their captor who sat on the Iron Throne because Margaery had wanted it so badly.

She didn’t like that thought.

“In fact, I invite you all to attend to my husband’s funeral, today,” she said, loudly enough that the whole Hall could hear now, though she knew damn well they’d been hanging on her every word, before. “After the funeral, which will take place at the Sept, we shall have a feast commemorating my husband’s life, may he rest in peace, as he would have wanted.”

Cersei, once again, was grinding her teeth together.

Margaery nodded, slightly, as she reached down and placed her hand on her stomach, watched Cersei’s eyes track the motion. “I am grateful to see so many putting aside their differences to honor my husband’s life.”

The room was suddenly clapping and bowing before her, and Margaery pretended that the sensation meant nothing.

And then she was dismissing them, because she was keeping track of time, after all, and she wanted the funeral to take place as early in the day as possible, lest the people of King’s Landing suddenly decide that they had no food in their bellies and wanted to revolt the moment they saw her husband’s corpse, a reminder of all of their suffering so far.

She walked out into the hall, surrounded by her Kingsguard and with most of her ladies seeming to have scattered, though Margaery wondered if that had something to do with the presence of Olenna, so nearby. She didn’t give it much thought, however.

She found that she didn’t have the time.

Sansa joined her out in the hall not long after, and Margaery lifted her chin and tried not to think about all of the ways that Sansa had been trying to protect her while also keeping secrets from her, lately. Wondered how much of that had been Sansa, and how much of it had been Olenna.

Nobles milled out after them, eager to pay their respects to a man that they had never respected in life, because Margaery and Olenna had their eyes on all of them.

And, she supposed, because now Sansa did, as well.

“Cersei looked rather unpleasantly surprised to see Shireen here,” Margaery said out of the corner of her mouth, as the other woman came to a top alongside her in the hallway.

Sansa hummed. “As I understand it, she also made a bid for the Princess,” she said, quietly, so that the nobles trailing past them could not overhear the words. “Failed, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Margaery echoed, as her grandmother came to a sudden stop in front of the two of them, glancing between them sharply.

Then, “We are about to attend your husband’s funeral, my dear,” she said, reaching out and grabbing Margaery’s hands in a vice-like grip. “Should you not be at the beginning of this circus, rather than skulking around at the end of it?”

Margaery resisted the sudden urge to grind her teeth together. “What did you promise the Boltons, to get them to hand over Shireen? Besides, of course, House Frey?”

Sansa swallowed hard, glancing with wide eyes between Olenna and Margaery, mouth parting before she shut it, abruptly, remembering once again that they were being watched.

Olenna lifted her chin. “It was a fair enough price,” she said.

Margaery shook her head. “Trust a rabid dog, and he’ll only learn that he can bite you,” she muttered, and Olenna harrumphed.

Sansa cleared her throat as one of the nobles came up to bow before Margaery, and Margaery forced a smile towards the man. And then he was moving away, and her smile fell from her face, so easily.

“I suppose some good has come of this, then,” Margaery muttered, reaching up to rub at her forehead. “Are we going to name her Lady of Storm’s End now, then, or just leave that to...Gendry?”

Sansa, where she stood beside Olenna, flinched a little. 

Olenna glanced between the two of them, looking supremely annoyed. “And here I would have thought that you appreciated my finding a way to...spare your friend,” she said, very coldly. “I understand that loss of life is rather important to you, these days.”

This time, it was Margaery who looked away. 

“Margaery…” Sansa began, and then bit her lip. “I wanted to tell you. About Gendry, and Shireen and Tommen. I just...wasn’t sure how you would react, if you knew ahead of time.”

No, she had known how Margaery would react, Margaery thought, the retort dying on her lips before she ever breathed life into it. She had known that Margaery wouldn’t like it, that she would see it as a threat to her own son, and so she hadn’t told her, on purpose, in order to avoid that.

She had done enough things that she felt guilty for, of late, and Margaery hated that she had done this, as well. 

But now wasn’t the time.

“We can talk about all of this after the funeral,” Olenna interrupted the two of them, frowning. “Though I would have hoped that the two of you could have managed to talk about it for a little bit, before that.”

She looked between the two of them then, calmly assessing.Then, she let out a long sigh.

“There will be guards surrounding us at all times,” she promised. “There shall be no issues, today. And with Cersei there, it is even more important that the both of you do not show weakness. So stop looking at each other like that.”

Sansa flinched, opened her mouth to say something, and Margaery did as well, perhaps only because Sansa had opened hers.

“Very well,” Olenna said, interrupting the both of them. “If apparently this cannot wait, I suppose we’re just going to have to have this conversation here.”

Margaery flinched, recognizing that tone well enough from her childhood.

Sansa, bless her, did not.

“I have given you two the time that you wanted,” Olenna said, into the silence that followed, and Margaery bit the inside of her cheek to keep from retorting that Olenna had not made much of a choice in that, because it was becoming more and more clear to Margaery, these days, that Margaery had never had control of the situation to begin with.

If she had wanted to, Olenna could have remained behind in King’s Landing then, and there would not have been much that Margaery would have been able to do about it.

“I have let you run amok here,” Olenna continued, gaze flinty as she glanced between the two of them, “For the past several months, for all of the good it did, and here we are. In those past few months, you’ve nearly confessed all of your crimes to a septa, gotten yourselves fucked by Baelish, and handed the keys to the Kingdom over to Cersei. You have accomplished very little in that time, besides destroying the faith placed in you by most of the Seven Kingdoms, and you,” her gaze turned to Margaery, “especially, by your own family.”

Margaery gritted her teeth together. 

“You are lucky to still be hanging onto the Throne by a thread,” Olenna continued, harshly, “but with Cersei here, gods know how long that will last. Sansa has done a remarkable job of cleaning up your messes since you’ve taken the throne, but she is only one girl, and an inexperienced one, at that.” Her gaze turned to Sansa, then. “Letting you both get under the thumb of Petyr Fucking Baelish was a foolish decision, but here we are.”

Sansa flinched.

Olenna pretended not to notice, or just simply didn’t care, Margaery imagined. “So. I am here now, and you’re going to do as you’re told, whatever might be going on between the two of you at the moment. I don’t care why you’re fighting, I don’t care what you both think is best for the realm at the moment, when you have both squandered that opportunity. Is that understood?”

Margaery and Sansa exchanged glances.

Margaery hated that she felt something like a rivalry for the girl she had fallen in love with while married to the man she was burying, today.

It was never supposed to be like this, she thought, and thought perhaps Sansa saw something of those thoughts in her eyes, if the look she gave her was any indication.

“I said,” Olenna repeated, “Is that understood?”

After a moment’s hesitation, both girls nodded. 

Olenna hummed. “Good.”

* * *

The funeral for her son had been extravagant; whatever she thought of the Highgarden Whore, Cersei supposed, the girl certainly knew how to plan an event.

And that only made her think about why Margaery Tyrell, who had only ever loved her son for show to begin with, might put on such an extravagant show in his death, as well. 

She had been the picture of a mourning wife, silent and cold as marble, as she walked along right behind her husband’s coffin, being carried by a litter, walked along beside Cersei, who had wanted nothing more than to push her down in front of it, or in front of the silent crowd.

Silent, Cersei was sure, because they knew that they couldn’t attack that litter, but dearly wanted to.

But they had made it to the Sept without any incident, neither Margaery or Cersei speaking two words to each other as they walked along, because there was no reason for them to do so, with so many eyes upon them. Cersei had been glad of that; for just a few moments, she had wanted to forget how much she hated the little whore so that she could mourn her son in peace.

Because her son was dead, and she hadn’t been able to properly mourn him, not really. Not when she had not been able to see his body, back in Casterly Rock, not when she had to focus on protecting the children she had left, instead.

And she was not about to let Margaery Tyrell get in the way of her finally being able to mourn him, now.

So they walked in silence, all of the way to the Sept, listened to this new High Septon who, rumor had it, Baelish had appointed, jape of all japes, give a halfhearted and yet somehow passionate speech about the young being taken from this earth far too early, about what a great king Joffrey had been, despite the tumultuous reign he had led.

Cersei had closed her eyes and pretended that she was listening to someone who did not likely loathe her son speak, and for a moment, everything had been all right.

Her son was being buried in the same building where he had slaughtered hundreds, they said.

Cersei had not been there for that, either. Had not been allowed to be, and much as she wanted to forget her anger at the moment and grieve her son in peace, she found that she couldn’t, not in this building, not with Margaery Tyrell standing beside her, not even pretending to have the decency to shed a few tears over her dead husband, Cersei’s son.

Simply standing there, stone faced, as she stared down at the covered coffin that Joffrey was still inside.

That wasn’t normal, Cersei realized suddenly, and wondered if it was the shock which had made her take so long to realize that.

Usually, his body would be on display for all of them to see, and maybe Margaery had thought that the smallfolk might try to cite something, if they saw a physical body, but it was surrounded by guards, now.

And she knew that he had been attacked, they said, by those fanatics, who had beaten him to death, so of course his body would not look good, but she thought that she had a right to see what her son looked like in death, either way.

And Margaery was keeping his body covered.

Cersei gritted her teeth, as she walked back from the halls of the Sept now that the funeral was done, now that she had been given so many condolences by Tyrell ladies and lords who wanted to know if they might name their sons after her monster of one, one day in the future, who told her they cared about her son when she knew that they were all secretly relieved he was dead.

She nodded and forced a smile through all of it, however, because the funeral was over now, extravagant as it was, and it would be noticed if she was not at the funeral feast, later.

But she had every intention of seeing her son’s body, now that he was laid to rest in his tomb beneath the Sept. She had that right, as his mother, even if he had not been seen by anyone else.

And it was not, it turned out, particularly hard to find him.

The room he had been laid to rest in was surrounded by Tyrell guards, and she told herself that they were only guarding the room because Margaery was worried that the smallfolk might try to get in and vandalize it, now that the funeral was over, but a small part of her wondered if that wasn’t the case, at all.

The guards did not move aside as she walked up to them, as she paused before the door they guarded, waiting expectantly.

“Let me pass,” Cersei hissed out, and the guards flinched for a moment, before the one on the left lifted his chin.

“I am afraid that the Regent has declared that no one be allowed to see the King, may he rest in peace, before he is entombed, Your Grace,” he said, though he at least had the decency to look ashamed over it, over his refusing to let a mother see her own child’s long dead corpse.

Cersei gritted her teeth. “Excuse me?” she hissed out, ire rising at his words.

He looked uncomfortable. “Orders of the Queen Regent, Your Grace. I am to allow no one at all to pass.”

Cersei stared at him. “I am the Queen,” she hissed out. “I have a right to see my son, and you will let me pass.”

He wasn’t looking at her at all, now. “Forgive me, Your Grace.” He actually looked guilty, the fucker. “You may speak with the Queen Regent, Your Grace, and she may give me different orders. But I have mine, now.”

Cersei leaned forward, forcing him to meet her gaze, then. She wasn’t going to let this guard run away from this, not when the Regent was not even here, and he did not have the compassion to let her see her son.

She turned to the other guard. “And you will do nothing, either?”

He looked even more uncomfortable than the first guard, but he, too, did not try to move out of her way. Cersei ground her teeth together until she could feel a migraine coming on.

“One day,” she hissed out, voice cold as ice, “I will make you pay for this. Personally.”

The guard gulped; she had no doubt that he believed her, but that was a cold comfort to the knowledge that she was still not going to be allowed to see her son’s body.

(page break)

“You were not at the funeral, Lord Varys,” Baelish said, as he stepped into the room.

The funeral was over now, of course, but the majority of the nobles had not returned from the Sept, all trying to get in their moment with the new Regent.

Varys and Baelish were some of the few who did not need to bother with such frivolous acts these days, it seemed.

Varys turned, squinting at him. “Won’t it look strange for the man who has so insinuated himself at the very base of the throne to not be there, either? Perhaps far stranger than it is for me to be so absent.”

Baelish raised a brow at him. “I have not insinuated myself, as you claim,” he muttered. “I have only ever sought to do exactly as the Regent asks of me, to prove my worth to the Crown.”

“Oh?” Varys asked. “And is that what you were doing when you had your whores go about in the city, blaming the pestilence on our good queen and stirring up the mob?”

Baelish’s face darkened. “I have always considered us friends, Varys,” he said, and ignored Varys’ answering snort. “I have done more for this new Regent than you seem to have, Lord Varys. Especially in these past few months. Forgive me, but you’ve seemed almost...idle, in all of that time. Uncaring anymore than Grandmaester Pycelle.”

Varys harrumphed. “The Grandmaester chose his side some time ago, from what I understand.”

Baelish sent him a nasty smile. “A turncoat, I know. I’m sure that our Lady Cersei shall have some way of...dealing with that, in time.”

Silence fell between them, the both of them staring up at the Iron Throne, sitting empty before them.

“You know, Lord Baelish,” Varys said, far too calmly, as the silence grew too long, “For a man who plays this game so carefully, you seem to have lost sight of the bigger picture. Unless, of course, this is all merely your audition.”

“Audition?” Baelish asked, cocking his head to turn and stare at Varys, rather than at the throne, now. Good. I”m not sure what you mean.”

Varys snorted. “Oh, I think you do.” He pressed his lips together. “You forget that I valued the girl, Ros, far more than you did. She told me of the sick things you ask your girls to do their first night, to make sure that they never cause trouble with clients down the road. To each other, no less.”

Baelish hummed. “It seems to me that the Regent might have avoided some heartbreak herself, if she’d known what she was getting into.”

Varys grimaced. “Yes. She does seem...worryingly ill suited to the part, these days. Though I still hold out hope.”

“Perhaps it is you who have lost sight of the bigger picture then, old friend,” Baelish said, with a cold smile. “For I begin to wonder if perhaps you have had the thought that there aren’t others...better suited to this role, who have yet to play the part.”

Varys eyed him as he walked out of the room. “Lord Baelish,” he said.

Baelish’s answering smile was nasty. “Tell me, Lord Varys,” he called after him, and Varys came to a sudden halt, then. “Do you think, when he arrives, that he’ll make you a real lord? I suppose it won’t make up for your lack of a cock, but at least you’ll have that cold comfort.”

Varys went very still, where he stood in the doorway. Finally, he turned around. “And here I thought you were serving our Regent,” he said, slowly, something like horror splashing across his face.

Baelish’s smile thinned. “I have never served anyone save myself, Lord Varys,” he said, pointedly. “I would have thought that you, of all people, would know that about me, by now. But I would warn you...I don’t think that this lordling will...be as profitable as perhaps you think.”

Varys’ eyes were hard. “And I would warn you, my lord,” he said, voice cool, “That not everything can turn a profit just because you will it. There are some who value honor more than a gold coin.”

Baelish raised a brow. “I have yet to meet one, my friend.”

Varys looked him up and down, and then said, “This game you’re playing, with the Regent and Sansa Stark...Perhaps it won’t end the way that you hope it will, either.”

* * *

Dear gods, things were worse here than Olenna had thought, she realized, as she sat down hard on her bed and watched her servants mill about her, preparing to get her ready for the funeral feast, which was not for several hours yet.

And that gave Olenna a little bit of time to think, something that she apparently rather desperately needed.

The funeral itself had been fine; Margaery and Sansa had managed to pull themselves together for long enough to not tip off Cersei that something was wrong, thank the gods, but that still left Olenna needing to find the most expedient way of cleaning up their messes.

The messes that she felt partially at fault for, having left them to them, these past several months.

It was not as if that wasn’t what Margaery had wanted; she had made that painfully clear when she had banished Olenna from King’s Landing in almost the same way that Cersei had been, with so little fanfare and with a sneer.

Dear gods, things used to be so different between them. Her granddaughter used to listen to her, used to be so loving.

Now, she hardly recognized the girl, and that was not only because since she had become Queen Regent, she was constantly reacting, rather than acting on her own. Not only because she now seemed like a shell of her former self.

And Olenna, of course, had never experienced the thing that Margaery had suffered to come to this point in her life, not really, and perhaps that meant she could never understand.

But at the moment, she didn’t have the time to understand. She only had time to clean up Margaery’s mess and make sure she never made the same mistakes again, before Cersei did something like declare war on them.

There was a knock at the door, then, and Olenna bit back a sigh.

She knew who it would be, who it had to be, just now, and still, she found herself...oddly disappointed.

Men.

Her serving girl glanced back at her, got a nod before moving to open the door.

“Lady Olenna,” Baelish said, bowing slightly.

She sneered at him, sitting up on her bed. “I am old and sickly, Lord Baelish, or so my maesters say, and I certainly have enough of them, these days. I don’t have time to pretend that we are friends. Stirring the pot already, when Joffrey is barely in the ground? Hm. I expected more from you. What the fuck do you want?”

Her servants, without much more fanfare than that, excused themselves.

Baelish grimaced as he watched the door shut behind them all. “The King, may he rest in peace, has been dead for several months now, my lady,” he pointed out. “Just because he is being buried today…”

Olenna sniffed. “I think that there is only one person annoyed by how long it has been since his body was respected,” she said. “And she is perhaps fortunate that there was a funeral at all, I hear.”

Baelish grimaced. “Yes,” he said. “It is sad, isn’t it, how many families have been split apart in recent years, due to these wars, isn’t it?”

From any other person, they might have sounded like condolences.

Olenna thought they sounded like a threat. Her eyes narrowed.

“As I said,” she sneered out, “You have hardly been a true friend to me, in recent months, so what the fuck are you meddling in, today?”

Baelish gave her a long, assessing look. He would have to be a fool to have not guessed that she and Varys were allies these days, or, at the very least...mutually using one another. She had expected this visit to happen, but perhaps not so quickly.

It made him look desperate, something she would have thought Petyr Baelish would give anything to avoid.

But then again, she supposed, he had to know the position he was in, these days. Had to know that just now, Olenna was the reason that Margaery was on the Iron Throne, even if he wanted to take credit for it. She was the one providing the armies, the gold.

Baelish was just keeping his mouth shut, and he could do that easily enough when he was dead, as well.

“May I sit?” he asked her, gesturing to the sofa in front of her bed.

Olenna did not like that he was in her bedchambers at all.

She shrugged, and watched him take a seat, as if he were a much older man than she knew him to be.

She wondered what sort of death he wouldn’t be expecting.

He fidgeted, and she knew him as a man who did not fidget. He was putting this on for her benefit, she knew, and she knew just as well that whatever it was he was about to say, she was not going to like it.

Not at all.

“It is just...there is something that I think you should know, Your Grace. About the Martells, and about the death of your favorite grandson, Willas Tyrell.”

That caught her attention, and her head jerked up, her eyes cold. “You know, when you first approached me about poisoning my granddaughter’s future husband, I thought about it. Truly considered it, I’ll have you know. It seemed a stroke of luck that two of us might benefit from the chaos that death would cause. But then I realized. You were the one who approached my granddaughter, and then my son, about her marrying the boy in the first place, and for you to suggest such a thing afterwards...well, I have never enjoyed being anyone’s puppet, my lord. And I certainly won’t become such now.”

Baelish shook his head. “You misunderstand, my lady. I serve the Regent now…”

“You had better have a damn good reason for invoking my grandson’s name, in the hopes that you might turn me against an ally, Baelish,” Olenna said, pulling out her handkerchief to cough into it. “For something better than your chaos, surely.”

He grimaced. “I’m afraid I do, my lady.”

* * *

The funeral feast had been planned meticulously, before they were even certain that Cersei would be attending it, from the food that would be there to the seating arrangement. Cersei was sitting very close to Margaery, and Sansa hated it.

Hated that Cersei, as one of those most aggrieved by Joffrey’s death, was allowed to sit beside Margaery, who was also meant to be aggrieved by it, and that Sansa could not sit between them, as a buffer between the two of them, lest something happen.

For she knew that they had been lucky, so far.

Gods, she just knew something was going to happen.

She grimaced, taking another sip of the bitter wine in her glass, watered down because they did not have enough Dornish Red to pass the night, and later they would be switching to horse swill. It was surprisingly good, but then, she did not enjoy drinking, overmuch.

She watched Cersei lean over and say something to Margaery, watched Margaery pass her a piece of bread, and grimaced, hating how far away she was from them, that she could not hear whatever it was they were saying.

Instead, she was relegated to this seat, a full table away, beside Trystane, another reminder of how badly things were going lately, another reminder of her guilt, for keeping him a prisoner here, just like she had been kept as a prisoner for so long.

She had been trying not to look at him, as they began their meal, but she knew that she was not going to be able to avoid speaking to him forever, sitting beside him.

It was at moments like these that she almost missed her husband, sitting beside her. At least if Tyrion were here, some antic or comment of his would have been able to distract her from that sick feeling twisting in her stomach, reminding her that anything could go wrong at any moment.

But he wasn’t here, and she was left to sit beside Trystane, because she had helped to frame him for Joffrey’s murder.

She grimaced at the thought, and took another sip of her watered down, bitter wine on an empty stomach.

And of course, that was the moment when Trystane decided that they were going to have to talk.

“Have you happened to hear from my sister yet, my lady?” He asked her, and he sounded terribly hesitant as he did so.

Sansa felt a stab of pity for him, even as she set down her wine glass. She remembered that he, too, had been kept in the Black Cells, for a little while after Joffrey’s death. She hadn’t wanted to order that, hadn’t liked that Baelish had done so, but understood why it would be necessary, why Cersei might be suspicious if they didn’t look at everyone.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and found that she honestly meant it. “I haven’t heard anything from her, but you can rest assured that the Crown is going to get to the bottom of this. Communication is...vital, in alliances. You will speak with her soon.”

Trystane’s gaze swept, almost unbidden, to the corner of the room, where the Dornish emissary who wasn’t Tyene Sand was standing, and Sansa bit back a grimace as she had the same thought that he inevitably was, that there must be some reason that Arianne, who had up until now been so very cooperative, might have changed her mind about communicating with them, just as she had changed her mind about the emissary she had sent.

But that was a problem that didn’t exist today, and Sansa wasn’t about to invent one, not when she had damned enough things to worry about, just now.

Chief amongst them Cersei, where she sat at the head of the room with so many eyes on her, and so close to a gooddaughter whom she hated.

It was only because she was keeping such a close eye on the woman that Sansa noticed the way that Rosamund and Cersei held eye contact for several long moments, before Rosamund’s eyes flitted to her.

And, predictably, so did Cersei’s.

Sansa closed her own, and took another sip of her wine. Beside her, Trystane was saying something, but Sansa’s ears were already ringing, and she took another sip of her wine in an attempt to center herself.

Perhaps it wasn’t as watered down as she thought, Sansa thought, as she set it down and pushed it away from her, reminding herself that drinking on an empty stomach wasn’t a good idea. She wasn’t her husband, after all; she couldn’t pull off such a thing.

She took a bite of the bread on her plate, and found that it tasted more bitter than her wine.

Sansa sighed, pushing it away from her in disgust, not bothering to disguise the way that she was staring over at Margaery, for all that Olenna was giving her a rather harsh flare for it.

She knew she was being obvious, but that was the problem; these days, Margaery could be fairly obvious, as well.

She didn’t want her giving anything away to Cersei without Sansa at least knowing about it.

And it was killing her, to be so far away from the both of them now, not able to reach out and take a handle of the situation, if she had to.

Without thinking about it, Sansa reached for her wine glass again. Trystane raised an eyebrow, but didn’t dare comment, it seemed.

* * *

There was only so long that Margaery could sit beside Cersei Lannister without wanting to drive her fork through the other woman’s eye. It was something of a struggle, to sit still and frown over a husband she had killed beside his mother, and pretend she didn’t see the way that Cersei kept glaring at her.

Halfway through the feast, she just wanted it to be over. But she knew that she could not make up some excuse about needing to rest for the sake of the child until she had at least toasted her husband, in some way.

She bit back a sigh, and reached for her wine glass, feeling Cersei’s sharp, silent glare on her.

“I propose a toast,” Margaery said, standing to her feet, then. The whole room quieted, at her words, and she pretended that it was because they were respecting her authority as the Regent and not because of who her husband had been.

She glanced over at the Lannisters, all sitting very comfortably at the large table that had been arranged for them, save for Cersei. Lord Kevan was amongst them; Sansa had wanted to remind the court, many of whom seemed content with Lord Kevan as Hand of the King, despite Mace’s interest in the title, who his allegiance truly belonged to.

They were all as pretty as a picture, dressed in Lannister colors, all save for Cersei, who was dressed very much like a Baratheon wife should be. “To my late husband, Joffrey Baratheon. May he rest in peace.”

“To the King!” the room cheered, and Margaery took the smallest of sips from her wine glass before setting it back down. The maesters said that it could be bad for the child, if she drank.

She glanced over at Cersei, and wondered if Cersei had ever drank, while she was pregnant.

And it was only because she was already looking at Cersei that she saw what the other woman was going to do.

She grimaced as it happened, but even then, she knew that she had no other way of stopping what was about to happen.

Cersei poured out her wine onto the table she was sitting at. The whole room turned and stared.

“It’s not like you to waste good wine, goodmother,” Margaery said, around a tight smile.

Cersei pressed her lips together, clearly ready to retort.

She did not get the chance.

The door flew open, then, Megga running into the room with a note in her hand, face somehow ashen and yet sweaty from running. Perhaps she had gotten the note and ran all of the way here, Margaery thought, as her stomach twisted and she wondered what else could possibly go wrong, today.

She was going to find out that quite a bit could.

Megga noticed the many eyes on her, it seemed, only then, taking a moment to gather herself before she came to stand beside Margaery.

“What is it?” Margaery demanded, in a soft whisper, as she gestured for the musicians to start up their music again, the guests easily distracted, with the amount of alcohol they had in the room. “Whatever this is, it better be important.”

All save for Cersei, who had her eyes on Margaery and Megga, now. Who was looking at Megga as if she was surprised to see her alive again.

That made Margaery smirk, despite the look on Megga’s face.

“They say…” Megga pressed her lips together, glancing sideways at Trystane, where he sat in the crowd, his cousin suspiciously absent. 

Margaery supposed that was because she was finalizing the deal to bring Shireen here, though of course, no one had bothered to tell her that before Lady Nym had gone, no doubt believing that it wasn’t something she needed to concern herself with, in her current state. 

“What?” Margaery demanded, not even caring, in this moment, that Cersei was sitting so closely beside her and that she could not afford to look weak in front of the other woman.

Whatever this was, Megga looked more frightened than Margaery had ever seen her, and if Cersei was here, standing beside her, then it couldn't be because of something that Cersei herself had done.

She had to believe that Cersei was not that far gone, at the very least.

Megga grimaced, seeming to realize that Margaery was not about to run out of the feast and let the whole of King’s Landing know something was wrong, before she next spoke.

“They say that Myrcella Baratheon is the trueborn heir to the throne, as the next in line to her brother, and they have named her Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. They ask King’s Landing, and ever other kingdom in Westeros, to bend the knee or die.”

Beside her, Cersei froze.

“What?” she hissed out, voice shrill, and the music suddenly stopped, the musicians looking suddenly uncertain.

Megga looked shamefaced.

Margaery just stared at her, lips parted, unable to help the shock that flitted across her features, because...Because no, this couldn’t be happening.

The Martells were their allies. Arianne was their ally, and that was not just Margaery’s naivety. Arianne had made it very clear to her that what she wanted out of this alliance was Cersei, and they hadn’t gotten her yet, by the gods.

And then she had gone and...done this.

Margaery squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a headache coming on.

No, no this had to be some sort of mistake, some trick. Arianne would not do this to her. Arianne could not do this to her, yet.

“Where did you get this information?” Margaery hissed out, because she was still holding onto the hope that perhaps this was some sort of mistake, that Megga had gotten her information wrong.

Because Arianne...Arianne would not have done this, not yet. Not when she had deposed her own father for her chance at revenge on the Lannisters, and they were barely affected, even in Joffrey’s death.

Unless...Margaery closed her eyes.

Unless Arianne herself had also been deposed, even if there was no one else in Dorne whom she could think of besides...Gerold Dayne.

Her eyes flew open again, staring at Megga intently as Megga handed over the incriminating note in her hands, as Margaery’s gaze swept over it.

It was signed by Gerold Dayne. Hand of the Queen.

Margaery swore loudly, and slammed it down on the table, barely noticed as Cersei picked it up with shaking fingers.

Fuck.

The door burst open a second time then, before Margaery even had the time to process this duplicity, as Cersei screamed for the guards, Tyrell guards, to arrest Trystane and this Dornish emissary, though she did not have the right to do so, and Margaery could only tiredly wave a hand for them to do as Cersei said, for once in agreement with the other woman.

Gods, her head was pounding.

A guard rushed into the room, red faced and sweating, wild eyed, and Margaery wanted to scream at him to get out, that she didn’t have the capability of dealing with something else, now.

Something worse, by the looks of it.

But that was not what she said, as her gaze sought out her grandmother’s in the crowd, for reassurance, and she couldn’t find it.

“Gods, what is it now?” Margaery demanded, turning to sneer at the messenger, and the man flinched a little, under that gaze.

The guard took a moment to catch his breath, and Margaery dimly realized that Cersei was still screaming, and gods...this, this feast was supposed to showcase their strength, tonight. 

It was proving to do just the opposite, and if Cersei wasn’t as suddenly distraught as Margaery now felt, Margaery would have been more concerned about that.

But at the moment, all she could do was stare at the guard in trepidation as he announced his news.

And, in that moment, she forgot all about the Martells’ duplicity.

“I…Aegon Targaryen has taken Storm’s End, Your Grace.”

Margaery blinked at him.

“Come again?” she asked, feeling as if the air had just been knocked out of her. As if, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

Aegon Targaryen had taken Storm’s End.

Aegon Targaryen.

Fucking hells, she had not even known this boy was a threat, whoever he was. She had known about the Dragon Queen, had heard rumors that there was a Dragon boy in the East, as well, but...fuck.

How could they possibly not know, if he had gotten all of the way to Storm’s End?

But even as the messenger repeated the words, Margaery could hardly bring herself to understand them.

Aegon Targaryen had taken Storm’s End.

Aegon Targaryen...Targaryen, another one, a threat Margaery had not even known was one at all...had taken...Storm’s End.

“How the fuck did we not know about this? How did we not know that Aegon Targaryen was even in Westeros?” Margaery demanded, and she didn’t care that she hardly sounded like a lady, in this moment, and that there were so many lords watching her.

Aegon Targaryen had taken Storm’s End, and the Dornish had just crowned Myrcella the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Cersei was sitting beside her, drinking out of the same pitcher as Margaery.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Her lords gave her no answers.

Margaery swore again, and downed the rest of her glass of wine.

It was only because she was panicking, her eyes flitting through the room, looking for answers, that she noticed Sansa, sitting near the back beside Trystane, looking rather green as she stumbled to her feet.

Margaery blinked at her, not quite comprehending as Sansa reached up to grasp at her throat, stumbling away from her table, inciting several worried looks as she caused the table to skid away from her and fell to the floor.

Margaery felt as if the air had been knocked out of her a second time. She forced herself to suck in a breath, and then another, as she watched Sansa struggle to do that very thing, as she heard someone whisper, “Poison.”

No.

No, this couldn’t be happening.

Not now, not after everything they had already suffered. Not after the fights they had been having. This couldn’t be happening.

No.

“Sansa,” Margaery breathed, the air rushing out of her in a quiet whoosh. Then, because this couldn’t be happening, dear gods, not after everything, “Sansa!”

It came out in a scream that had the whole room spinning to her, and then towards Sansa Stark, where she stood near the back of it, her body writhing in the air as she lost her footing and plummeted down to the ground with a loud smack.

Several other screams joined Margaery’s, but she didn’t hear any of them, didn’t hear anything but the wind rushing in her ears as she jumped to her feet and made to run to the other girl, this girl whom she had been pushing away ever since It had happened, when she should have been-

“What are you doing?” She hissed at Garlan, glancing down at where he sat beside her, holding her arm in an iron grip.

“Your Grace,” he said, tightly, “Something is wrong. We need to get you out of here. Need to make sure that you and the child are secure.”

“No,” Margaery said, shaking her head, feeling as if her legs would not be supporting her at all if Garlan were not there, holding her up. “No, I won’t leave her. I won’t-”

“Margaery.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then fought against him, wanting to run to her, wanting to make sure that she was all right. Dear gods, she couldn’t even remember the last thing she had said to Sansa that had been kind, and now here she was, choking up blood on the floor in front of Margaery, and Garlan was holding her back.

And then his eyes flitted to Cersei, where she stood beside Margaery, and Margaery understood.

She had displayed enough weakness, tonight, much as it killed her not to run to Sansa. Cersei already suspected that there was something between them; Margaery could not give her proof of that, even as she choked on her own spit and found it suddenly difficult to breathe, as Garlan yanked her away, towards the door, and she heard screams going up amongst their guests.

For a moment, Margaery wanted to scream at him to let her go anyway, that it didn't matter, because dear gods, Sansa could be dying and she was running away, and she didn't quite care, in that instance, what Cersei thought of her weakness.  


As she was being dragged away, her eyes met Cersei’s.

And the other woman didn’t smirk, as Margaery almost expected her to, because she had just received the knowledge that there was another contender for the throne, and that her own daughter had been crowned, she supposed, by someone who was now both of their enemies.

But Margaery thought that she would have.

Thought she understood exactly who had poisoned - poisoned - Sansa, just by that look in Cersei’s eyes, bewildered, as if she wasn’t sure whether she ought to be pleased about what had just happened or as horrified and clammy as Margaery herself felt.

Margaery bit back a scream as the door slammed behind her and her guards.


	24. Dorne

_ “I don’t like this plan,” Obara said, where she sat at the table with Arianne and Tyene, after Myrcella had left them. _

_ They had just told Myrcella the news about her brother, and Arianne supposed that the girl would need some time to herself, even if she felt no real grief, for the little monster’s death. _

_ Arianne could still see her, off in the distance, walking away, and wondered if the girl was smiling at the news she had just received.  _

_ Arianne lifted her iced tea to her lips, took a careful sip before setting the cup back down. “You don’t have to like it, Obara, you just have to do as you’re told.” _

_ “She’s right,” Tyene said, at Arianne’s other side. “Half of Dorne already thinks of us as nothing but traitors, having tried to crown Myrcella once before. Our own sister thought we were nothing but traitors, locking us up in that damned tower. And now, we’ll just be doing it again.” _

_ “You won’t be doing it again,” Arianne stated, archly. “My husband will be doing it again. When the dust settles, you’ll be seen as the heroes who brought him down from the inside. Who restored Dorne to its rightful place.” _

_ The sisters exchanged glances; Arianne knew, without either of them really having to inform her at all, that they thought there were far too many risks to this plan. _

_ But her brother had yet to show up with his army of mercenaries, and Arianne was starting to worry that he never would, that she would not have a foot to stand on, now that she had taken her father’s throne and promised the whole of Dorne a war that was not swift in coming. _

_ This was her contingency plan, the one that had started forming in her mind when she was a little girl of four and ten, and had walked into her father’s study to find a letter laying out for her brother, promising him her throne, her inheritance as his eldest child. _

_ A contingency plan that had fully formed the moment Myrcella Baratheon had stepped off the docks in Sunspear. _

_ “Myrcella loathes you, now,” Tyene said, into the silence. “I’m sorry, but she does. She’s all but admitted it to me, multiple times, though she tries to pretend otherwise. I think that girl would happily see you suffer for Trystane.” _

_ Arianne grimaced; she knew that. Had known that ever since Myrcella had returned to Dorne, to the knowledge that Arianne had brought her here to use her as a pawn, and not to reunite her with the family Myrcella had thought she had gained, here. _

_ But that worked to Arianne’s purposes, too; after all, none of this would work if Arianne was not kept entirely in the dark, and Myrcella would not come to her at all about it, when the Sand Snakes and Gerold first approached her, if she loathed Arianne. _

_ Just another way that her own brother had become useful to her, even if Quentyn had turned out to not be. _

_ Arianne hummed. “One day,” she said, softly, “She will understand. Will understand that I did all of this for her.” _

_ That wasn’t true, of course; Arianne had done much of this for herself, for Dorne to survive in an age where sitting back and doing nothing was only crushing the spirit of her people, without her father ever realizing it. _

_ But she hoped that one day, Myrcella would eventually understand why she had done what she did. _

_ “You really think this is worth it?” Obara asked, carefully. “With Trystane stuck in King’s Landing?” _

_ “That’s why I can’t be seen to be involved,” Arianne said, through gritted teeth. “Margaery Tyrell may have hated her husband enough to cause all of this, but she has a soft heart, where it counts. I saw that, in the Water Gardens. She won’t harm him so long as she thinks I wasn’t involved in this.” _

_ Tyene hummed. “Still,” she said, coldly, and Arianne knew that they both blamed her, for leaving Trystane in King’s Landing while she had gone to such effort to bring Myrcella back here. “It’s quite a risk, that you’re taking. Who’s to say Margaery Tyrell, or her wicked grandmother, will ever believe that you had no part in this scheme?” _

_ And she knew that they were right, in a way. Leaving Trystane in King’s Landing, surrounded by Tyrells who were allies now but who could so easily become enemies had been a risk. _

_ But, for all of her father’s claims that she never thought with her head, Arianne had been playing the long game, when she left him there. _

_ Margaery had agreed to let her take back Myrcella, but she was not a fool. She knew that their alliance was tenuous at best, that the moment either one of them found a better option, the alliance would be off. _

_ And if Arianne had taken back her brother, Margaery would have no reason at all to trust her.  _

_ Besides, considering the particular game that Arianne was playing, Trystane might be better off in King’s Landing. There, at the very least, he was a hostage, useful against Arianne, rather than a threat to her husband, and a dead man. _

_ He was, after all, an heir to the throne of Dorne. A legitimate heir, where her husband was not. _

_ Take care of your brother, her mother had made her promise, before she had left them all for good. _

_ And Arianne wasn’t sure if she was obeying her mother now, with her actions, but she was doing her damned best, she thought. _

_ And of course there was the risk that neither Margaery nor her grandmother would believe that Arianne was faultless in all of this, that they would blame her just as much for getting her kingdom into this mess that her husband was determined to lead them into as if she had done it herself, and Trystane would pay the price for it. _

_ But Arianne knew Gerold, knew him well. They had been lovers since long before they should have been, children then.  _

_ He was a stubborn man, and fueled by the sort of fury that only grew until nothing was standing in the way of what he wanted. _

_ Margaery Tyrell was fueled by a fury born out of pain; it was not the same thing, not to Arianne’s mind, and therefore, she was a little safer. _

_ “Can you do this?” Arianne asked Obara, calmly. _

_ The other girl pressed her lips together, nodded. “I don’t like it,” she admitted, because it wasn’t as if Tyene was keeping down how she really felt; she’d been wearing a perpetual grimace since Arianne had suggested this plan.  “But I can do it.” _

_ Arianne hummed, taking another sip of her tea. “Then do it,” she gritted out, knowing just where to strike, “And when the dust settles, we’ll have made Oberyn proud.” _

* * *

“This was a fucking great idea, Tyrion,” Bronn muttered sarcastically, as Tyrion slammed into the wall of the cell beside him, shoved inside by the Dornish guards who had brought them directly to the palace’s dungeons the moment Tyrion mentioned his name. The cell door slammed loudly behind him. “Really. Fucking stupendous.”

Tyrion grunted, not wanting to admit that he’d had better ones. Bronn couldn’t see him at the moment, the wall of a cell separating them, and Tyrion felt absurdly grateful for that.

Because Bronn was right, and he didn’t much like the idea of having to face the other man, after that.

“I mean, honestly,” Bronn went on, at Tyrion’s silence, “What better way to announce your intentions to defect to the Martells and your niece, then to walk up the front gates of the people who hate your family?”

Tyrion grimaced. “Yes, I got that,” he said, and Bronn fell silent for only a moment before his tirade started up again.

“You know, in Lys, I was under the impression that you were doing this because you wanted to find something to live for, after Shae,” Bronn said, and Tyrion flinched a little, where Bronn still couldn’t see it.

“Now, I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t drag me all the way to this dust bowl because these were the first people you thought of who might try to kill you,” Bronn continued, mercilessly, and Tyrion squeezed his eyes shut.

Squeezed them shut as he thought of Shae, as she stood before Arya Stark and tried to tell the girl that she and Sansa were close, that if she did this, she would just be hurting Sansa.

And then Arya Stark had turned her knife on him.

“In which case,” Bronn went on, not quite sounding as calm as his words seemed to imply, “I’m a little offended that you dragged me along.”

“They’re not going to leave us down here,” Tyrion said, tiredly. “They’ll want to know why I’m here, why I would risk coming here.”

Bronn hummed. “Will they, though? My impression of the Martells, from the last time I was here, was that, besides Doran, they’re all rather content to see every Lannister into the grave as soon as possible. You should have seen Jaime, trying to play nice with them.” He snorted, at some memory neither of them seemed interested in sharing.

They didn’t though, Tyrion thought. For some reason, they had latched onto Myrcella, like she was different from any other Lannister they’d met, like they…

Cared about her.

They had kidnapped her from a family that she must have told them she loathed, and she had seemed, despite her anger with Tyrion for sending her to them in the first place, like she had been better, with the Martells.

Happier, away from Joffrey and his poison.

And he doubted that the Martells, who had made no secret of their (rightful) antagonism towards the Lannisters, would have been able to pretend that they liked Myrcella for so long.

They were not known for their patience, after all.

Gods, he wished suddenly that he’d stayed in Lys with his wine and the whores there. At least they had known how to deal with him.

“They’ll want to know why I’m here,” Tyrion continued, and wondered if he was trying to convince himself, as well. “At the very least, they’ll want to know about Joffrey.”

He had been counting on that, when he turned himself in at the palace. Had hoped that it would at least admit him to a quick audience with the Princess, but it seemed that the Martells were rather busy with something.

The streets had been filled with commoners, crowding about the palace, held back only by the guards, all of them trying to figure out what was going on, when he and Bronn had arrived.

The flags of House Martell had been raised, the trumpets sounded, and Tyrion…Tyrion knew that something big must be happening, for there to be so many guards about, but of course they’d gotten no answers before they were dragged down here and thrown in the first empty cells their guards could find.

Tyrion had demanded to speak with the Princess, around that time, but the guards had merely laughed and walked off, the door slamming behind them.

And he was beginning to worry, though he didn’t dare to share those worries with Bronn, who had enough to worry about, just now, that the other man was right. That they wouldn’t care why he had killed Joffrey, supposedly, when he was just another Lannister, despite their affinity for his niece.

And then, just as Tyrion had thought he might explode on Bronn, who was already muttering about how if he’d known that Tyrion had a death wish, he would have stayed behind in Lys and found some woman to marry, the door to the dungeons opened, and a young woman clad rather scantily in the colors of House Martell walked through the door.

She was not Arianne, Tyrion knew that instantly. For one thing, she was too young, too slight, from the rumors he had heard about Arianne Martell’s beauty, and without the presence that a lady of noble breeding usually had, but the look that she cast over Bronn and Tyrion was calculating, dangerous, all the same.

“Well, well,” Bronn drawled, “I didn’t realize that the Dornish were so kind as to provide their prisoners with entertainment.”

Tyrion rolled his eyes. “She’s the Prince’s niece, idiot,” he muttered, and Bronn felt silent. Tyrion got the distinct impression that he was suddenly worried.

He wondered why Bronn hadn’t met Tyene, the last time he’d been in Dorne, with Jaime, considering he seemed to know so much more about this place. Tyrion rolled his eyes.

Then again, Jaime had told him that Bronn had spent the majority of his time in these very same dungeons.

Tyene, where she stood in front of both of their cells, smirked. “You ought to work on what you decide to do with that tongue, when you’re at someone else’s mercy,” she said, and Tyrion could hear Bronn sputtering, but Tyene seemed to have lost all interest in him as she turned to Tyrion, then.

“Tyrion Lannister,” she said, stepping close enough that if he got up, he might have been able to touch her, through the bars. “My lady wants to know what you’re doing here.”

Tyrion pursed his lips. “Your lady…Princess Arianne,” he said, but Tyene only quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting. “I’m here to see to my niece, as I explained to the guards when they took us.”

Tyene snorted. “You could have just sent a letter,” she pointed out. “Might have been less trouble for a man on the run.”

He hummed. “I wanted to make sure that she ever got it,” he said, through gritted teeth.

Tyene cocked her head at him. “Was that an accusation?” She asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve been far from Westeros, in recent months. I wasn’t sure that a letter would ever find its way here.”

Tyene’s lips quirked, as if she were amused despite herself. And then, her gaze hardened. “Because you killed the King,” she said, calmly, calculating.

Her eyes searched his, waiting for some admission of guilt, he supposed.

Or for something else, he realized, blinking in surprise at the intensity in her eyes, as she watched him. More than just calculating, he saw now. There was something else there, something that she was hiding; she looked afraid, at the sight of him here, and Tyrion couldn’t imagine why, not when he was a lone Lannister in a sea of snakes.

Tyrion lifted his chin. “Apparently,” he said, and after a moment, Tyene’s lips twisted into something like a smile.

“What makes you think Myrcella wants to see you?” She asked, cocking her head at him and all but sneering. “For all you’ve known, all of this time, we kidnapped her, and you didn’t seem to give a damn about that when she disappeared. No one in King’s Landing did.”

Tyrion flinched. “I…hoped that she would be safe, here,” he said. “She seemed to enjoy her time here, from what I could tell.”

For a moment, Tyene actually looked…saddened, by his words. She licked her lips. “A caged bird has no choice but to love the hand that feeds it,” she said, softly. 

Tyrion’s brows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to ask, but he didn’t get the chance, because Tyene was talking again.

“For all we know, you’ve orchestrated this whole thing, being framed for a murder, coming here, to get your niece back in some Lannister scheme. Your brother did something equally as stupid, not so long ago. You’ll find that Dorne is not so willing to give her up, this time.”

She said it with an edge in her voice, and Tyrion suddenly had no doubt that the other girl would gladly fight for myrcella, if it came down to it.

Good, he thought. He had come here out of guilt, but he was glad that there were at least some in Dorne who cared about his niece, truly, the way that she seemed to care about them.

Tyrion flinched. “I’m here now,” he said, softly. “Her brother is dead. I thought it might be good for her to see a familiar face.”

Tyene hummed. “Did you?” She said. “Funny, that you should only come to think that after you supposedly killed said brother.”

Tyrion reached up, rubbing at his temples. “I didn’t do that,” he said, tiredly, and heard Bronn hiss in a breath, on the other side of that wall. “She knows that I wouldn’t do that.”

Tyene studied him for several long moments, and then swallowed hard, seeming to accept his words. 

“Pity,” she said, finally, sighing. “I was just beginning to think we might eventually become friends.”

In the cell beside his, Bronn guffawed. 

Tyrion sighed, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “When might I see her?” he asked, because he was getting tired of this conversation, and he had a feeling that there was little more that he could learn from it.

“When my lady decides that you can see her,” Tyene snapped at him, all fury once more.

Tyrion raised his hands, in an attempt to placate her. “I just think that she’ll want to see me, if she knows that I’m here,” he said, and Tyene rolled her eyes. “Or, if your lady doesn’t approve of that, I’d be happy to speak to her, instead. Anything rather than sitting in this cell 

Tyene leaned forward, hissing out nastily, “Oh, do you disapprove of your lodgings, Dwarf? Perhaps I could arrange for ones that are more suitable. We don’t have anything like the Black Cells here in Sunspear, but I’m sure that we could arrange to have you sent back to King’s Landing, if you would prefer. I know my dear father spent some time in the Black Cells during his time there, and he was at least as guilty as you of the same accusation. And I’m sure they’d be glad to see you again.”

Tyrion closed his eyes. “My lady…”

“I’m not a lady,” Tyene told him, coolly.

Bronn whistled, lowly.

Tyrion opened his eyes again. “Does Princess Arianne know that I’m even here? I can help you. I may be a Lannister, but I…”

Tyene straightened, then. “As I said, my lady will see you when she wishes,” she told him, primly, and walked towards the doors of the cells.

“Wait,” Tyrion called after her, desperately. She paused, but didn’t turn around. “I know about Aegon Targaryen and the Golden Company. If you’re planning to-”

She hesitated only a moment longer, before slamming the door behind her.

* * *

“What the fuck do you mean, Quentyn doesn’t even have an army?” Gerold demanded, rounding on her after slamming his hand down hard on the wooden table they were using for strategizing sessions, these days.

Well, Obara was using them to strategize. Gerold seemed content to fuck them up as much as possible, as he seemed to do often, these days.

Tyene reached up, rubbing at her temples as she felt something like a headache coming on.

Obara lifted her chin. “What the Imp said is the truth,” she said. “We’ve had some ravens confirm it. Quentyn is dead; the Dragon Queen sicced her dragons on him, and they burned him alive and ate him.”

She said it will all of the inflection of someone who had never cared about Quentyn in his life, Tyene thought, with a shiver.

Quentyn had been their cousin, and now she spoke of his death as if it didn’t concern her at all. Tyene remembered the first time he had danced with her, how he had spun her around in circles over and over again, long after Ellaria tried to tell her to go to bed…

She had cried, when Arianne told them that Quentyn was dead.

Obara hadn’t.

Gerold swore, under his breath, and then stabbed a finger back in the direction of the Great Hall. “And what the fuck am I supposed to tell our sworn shields now?” he demanded. “My wife usurped her father on the promise that she would lead Dorne into a war, and I took power from her because she was taking too long about it. And now, it seems, we don’t even have a war to fight. Fuck!”

More pieces scattered over the board.

For once, Tyene didn’t feel annoyed with him for the sudden burst of emotion, her own mind echoing the sentiment.

They had fucked themselves. They’d been fucking idiots, and now, they were facing the possibility of a defensive war on all sides, or clinging to power through placating all of their neighbors at once, and that wasn’t the glory they were supposed to be bringing Dorne.

“We do,” Obara said, and the room fell silent, Tyene sucking in a breath as she turned to face the other girl.

“No,” she breathed, but Gerold was already leaning forward eagerly, desperately, Tyene fancied, because it was not as if he had another choice.

He needed a war, if he was cling on to his fragile excuse for taking power; they all did.

But the one that she knew Obara was about to suggest…

“Aegon Targaryen is crossing the Narrow Sea as we speak, for all we know, he’s already here and we just haven’t heard anything yet,” Obara said. “The Dwarf confirmed that, too. They say that the Dragon Queen refused a marriage proposal from him, just as she did with Quentyn, though of course she was crueler with our cousin. No doubt because she thought herself better than him.”

Silence.

“You want to marry Myrcella to Aegon,” Tyene said, skeptically. “That’ll never work.”

Obara shrugged. “And why not?” she asked.

Tyene stared at her incredulously. “He’ll never agree to that. Her father was the Usurper who killed his on the battlefield! Half of Westeros can’t even decide if she’s a bastard or not, and in case you’ve forgotten, she’s pregnant with our cousin’s child!”

Gerold took a deep breath. “We’ve already announced that we plan to crown Myrcella on the day of King Joffrey’s funeral,” he said, harshly. “If we back out now, we’ll lose the support of the nobles for good. She’s right.”

Tyene rounded on him. “Arianne made a pact with the Tyrell Regent. A pact in good faith, that she didn’t intend to break until it would be advantageous to us. Who’s to say that Aegon Targaryen is even going to make it across the narrow Sea? Or that he has the army to defeat the Tyrells and the Lannisters? You know they’re the same. They’ll decide to put aside their grievances, strong as they are, just long enough to oust someone trying to steal what they believe to be theirs, and you know it. And we’ll be left with nothing, all over again.”

“Didn’t your Dwarf just say it?” Obara countered, raising an eyebrow. “That Aegon Targaryen was coming, with the Golden Company we thought that Quentyn was bringing here? And what the fuck did you think was going to happen when the rest of Westeros learned that we had crowned Myrcella, against the will of the Lannisters and the Tyrells? We might as well find an ally where we can.”

Tyene fell silent, then.

Gerold licked his lips. “We could have a septon annul the marriage, easily,” he said. “When the child is born, send it to the South to be raised by some lord who will never know its name. Offer her to Aegon as a wife, and if he doesn’t want a Lannister for a wife, it will be simply enough to be rid of her and call that a gift, as well.”

Tyene stared between the two of them in horror. “No,” she repeated, but she already felt like her words were falling on deaf ears, at this point.

Neither of them would meet her eyes.

“No,” Tyene repeated. “We’re not here to kill a little girl. That wasn’t the agreement. We’re supposed to be crowning her.”

They exchanged glances.

“This isn’t just about one girl,” Obara reminded her, the words almost gentle, and somehow, that made them worse. “We owe it to Dorne to-”

“Isn’t that what Father used to say?” Tyene interrupted her, not wanting to hear this. “That the Lannisters did whatever they wished, that the Tyrells clamored for power where they could find it, but we didn’t hurt little girls in Dorne?”

Obara swallowed. “And now our father lays buried beside the tomb that we’ve allotted to Elia Martell, because there was not enough of her to make the journey back to Dorne,” she said, scathingly, and Tyene flinched. “What did their kindness bring us?”

Gerold glanced between the two of them, considering. “I don’t understand,” he said, finally. “Myrcella is a Lannister. I thought it was understood that crowning her was a way to go to war with House Lannister-”

Tyene cleared her throat. “I thought it was understood that we would try to win that war, that she would live through it because she was our claim to the Iron Throne.”

Gerold snorted. “You didn’t tell me your sister was so damn naive, Obara.”

Obara glanced between the two of them as if she couldn’t decide who she was more annoyed with, at the moment. “I’ll talk to her,” she said. “You talk to the other lords. I know you don’t do subtle, but try to figure out if this is something that they woudl agree to.”

Gerold gave her an annoyed look. “Any other orders, my lady?’ he asked her.

Obara just pointed towards the door.

Tyene watched him go with a sinking feeling in her chest, watched the door slam behind him in his annoyance. 

“Please tell me that this plan didn’t come from Arianne,” Tyene said, into the silence that followed his departure.

Obara shrugged a thin shoulder. “I’m just the messenger,’ she said, in a thin voice, adn Tyene stared at her.

“Don’t give me that shit,” she said. “I know you. I know that you itch for war as much as Gerold does, that you know how important it is to our people in a way that perhaps even Arianne doesn’t understand. Tell me this plan came from her.”

Obara lifted her eyes to meet Tyene’s. “Do you remember when we plotted to crown Myrcella with Arianne, the first time?”

Tyene rolled her eyes. “Of course I do-”

“And Nym figured out what it was we were planning and went to Doran about it, because she thought that what we were doing was treason, and that our uncle needed to know about it?”

Tyene shook her head. “Of course I remember. What does that have to do with-”

“Arianne knew she was going to do that,” Obara interrupted her, coolly. “She knew that she was going to overhear us that night, intentionally planned things so that the girl Nym was with would forget to arrive, and-”

“You’re delusional,” Tyene accused, taking a step back from her. “That makes no sense. Why would she want…”

She trailed off then, actually thinking about the words.

Obara nodded. “Because she knew that Doran would have us locked away in the tower, would look like a cruel guardian for locking away two daughters who had just lost their beloved father and were justifiably angry over it. Because she knew that she could use that against him. Margaery Tyrell dropping on her doorstep was just a way to speed along that process. If she hadn’t come along, chances are we would have been there some time. But we weren’t, because Arianne managed to use that, too.”

Tyene blinked at her. “If you think that’s true, then why the fuck are you still listening to her?” she demanded.

Obara shook her head. “Because it didn’t make sense to us, in the beginning,” she said. “It didn’t make sense for Lady Nym to overhear us saying that and for Arianne to let her go to Doran about it. But it happened, because it’s what Arianne wanted. What I’m saying is, this is her plan, and I for one trust her a hell of a lot more than I ever did Doran, or anyone else who thinks they can rule Dorne.”

Tyene shook her head, taking another step back from her. “You’re talking about killing a little girl that we’ve helped raise, that we’ve watched grow up these past years, if the plan doesn’t go as conveniently as we want,” she said. “A girl that our cousin loves, dearly.”

Obara shrugged. “And that would be sad,” she agreed. “But Dorne must always come first, Tyene. Doran didn’t put Dorne first for so long, and look where it left us.”

Tyene blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You know, after Myrcella got back from King’s Landing, she asked me if I thought that Arianne ever really loved her,” she said, and Obara flinched, just a little. “I told her that I thought Arianne loved people in the only way she knew how. But she doesn’t, does she? She doesn’t give a fuck about that girl, not really. Not beyond what she can do for us.”

Obara looked away.

“You’re talking about murdering her. How can you want to do that?” Tyene asked, from where she stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest.

Obara lifted her chin. “I didn’t see you complaining about it much the first time that Arianne suggested Myrcella’s coronation and we discussed what might happen if we failed, which would have been the time.”

Tyene gritted her teeth. “I didn’t think it was a good idea, then,” she snapped. “But convincing Arianne not to do something is like trying to reason with the sea.”

Obara hummed. “Then you don’t object.”

Tyene rolled her eyes, moving forward. “Obara,’ she said, and her voice was quiet, and the same as it had once sounded when they were very young and didn’t know what to make of each other, “Arianne maneuvred herself into a prison cell. Quentyn is dead, and we’re about to crown Myrcella when two Targaryens are making plans to travel across the Narrow Sea and lay claim to the Iron Throne themselves.” She took a deep breath. “Just tell me you believe in what she’s doing, and I won’t object. But…”

Obara met her eyes. “As I recall, you were the one who came to us with the news that the Imp knew about Aegon Targaryen, Sister,” she said, softly.

Tyene swallowed. “Because I was afraid that he would say something in front of Gerold and the Princess, and then we’d all be fucked for keeping it from him in the first place. Gerold is a hothead; the last thing we need now is for him to think that he can no longer trust us, and they say that the Imp is a master manipulator. But if I had any idea that you and Arianne were thinking about...about teaming up with Aegon Targaryen and kiling a girl we all care about, if needs be...I would have fucking kept my mouth shut and let you all deal with the shitshow yourselves.”

Obara was already shaking her head before Tyene had even finished. “Doran wanted to marry Arianne to Aegon, you know,” she said, and Tyene just blinked at her. “He told her he’d been planning it ever since he heard about the boy’s existence. This...surely you realize this is a better solution. It might just keep Myrcella alive.”

“And if it doesn’t, you’ll have no qualms about finishing her off,” Tyene muttered. “You and Arianne. And Gerold.”

Obara’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare act like you’re an innocent in all of this, Tyene,” she said, coolly. “You knew from the moment we first began plotting to crown her that this might end in her death. Amd crowning her now, when Aegon is coming and we haven’t reached out to him? That will just spur her death along all the more.”

Tyene shook her head. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. “Maybe I did think that was a possibility. But I thought that we’d try a bit harder than just...oh, handing her over to be slaughtered, if things didn’t go exactly the way that we wanted.”

Obara stared at her for a moment longer, and then snorted in disgust. “You’re forgetting something, Tyene,” she pointed out. “You’re the daughter of a Martell, not a Lannister.”

Then she turned and stormed out of the room, while Tyene raised a hand to her throat and struggled past the sudden urge to cry.

It wasn’t because Obara was right, she told herself. She was just...overly emotional, because of what had happened to Quentyn.

* * *

Myrcella took a deep breath, staring at herself in the mirror and barely recognizing the young woman staring back at her.

She told herself it was because she looked very much like a queen now, dressed in such fine robes and preparing for her real coronation, and not because of anything else. Not because she looked in the mirror and saw her pregnant belly and thought she looked far more like her own mother than the last time that she had seen Trystane.

She thought of the poison she kept in her bodice these days, and wondered if her mother had ever thought about slipping something as deadly in her husband’s drink, every night that he did something that worried her, or if that had only come later, when she had known the truth was about to out itself and she had no other option than to stop it.

She took a deep breath, and told herself that she was not her mother.

She was doing this for Trystane. The poison was just to protect herself, if Gerold Dayne, a man whom half of Dorne knew to be rather...impetuous, tried anything that might get her killed.

She wasn’t going to have to use it. Tyene would make sure of that, she told herself.

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Myrcella asked Tyene, over her shoulder, as the girl helped her prepare her gown for the ceremony.

Dear gods, she wished that Trystane were here, that she could ask that question of him, rather than of Tyene. Trystane, whom she knew would have given her an honest answer, for all that Tyene cared about her.

Tyene wanted this as badly as Gerold Dayne did, but Trystane loved her unconditionally.

And Myrcella wanted to believe that she was doing the right thing, the only thing that she could do to survive this situation, but a part of her wondered if she wasn’t lying to herself as much as Arianne had been, when she had decided that taking over her father’s throne was for the best.

But Trystane wasn’t here, and Gerold Dayne, for all that he seemed to want Myrcella’s advancement, was a cold, cruel man, capable of locking up his own wife because she didn’t agree with him, and no one had even given a damn, when he did it.

And Myrcella had her child to think about.

Even if a part of her wondered if this wasn’t just putting her baby in more danger, being placed on a pedestal as a target for half of the Seven Kingdoms, dragging Dorne into a war that they wanted but she wasn’t certain she did.

She just wanted to be left alone by her mother. Just wanted to get Trystane back, to have her family back again.

And this was beginning to look like the only way to achieve any of that.

Tyene reached out, smoothing down Myrcella’s shoulders. “You are the rightful heir to the Iron Throne,” Tyene reminded her, lips warm against Myrcella’s ear. “Margaery Tyrell all but admitted to Arianne that any child she had would not be your brother’s, and either way, the child isn’t even born yet. Your brother is younger than you, and has only your...mother to guide him. You know you’re doing the right thing, Myrcella; why are you doubting yourself now?”

Myrcella swallowed hard, meeting her gaze in the mirror. She sounded...different, Myrcella decided, though seh wasn’t certain why. Perhaps she too was nerovus about what this would lead to.

Myrcella certainly was.

She knew Arianne well enough now, she thought, to understand her motivations, but it was Gerold who worried her. Gerold, who had locked Arianne away in order to take her throne, who had then decided that they would crown Myrcella on the very day of her brother’s funeral as a final ‘fuck you,’ to the Tyrells and Lannisters both, before they declared war in her name.

And he had promised that she would get Trystane back, out of all of this, that she would finally be safe, here in Dorne, as a queen, but still, Myrcella worried. 

This was not how things were supposed to go.

But, she told herself, Tyene was right. She was the rightful heir to the throne. She certainly deserved it more than an unborn child who had never known Joffrey’s wrath, thank the gods. And this way, she could get Trystane back without ever having to worry about him finding a knife in his back from the Tyrells or her mother.

Besides, she thought, swallowing hard, Tyene woudlnt’ lead her wrong. She wasn’t like Arianne, or Gerold. When she talked, Myrcella truly believed she cared about her.

She had been the one to start teaching her about those poisons, after all, knowing that she would likely steal one.

And it would certainly feel nice, to be the one in power, for a change.

Myrcella didn’t think she’d ever felt like she had power. Once she was queen, no matter what Gerold wanted, he wouldn’t be able to do it without at least a little bit of her permission.

“And...Trystane,” Myrcella said, carefully, because it didn’t matter how many times Tyene and Obara tried to convince her that he would be safe, she never could quite believe it, “You do not think that the Tyrells...that there will be some sort of backlash for this?”

She did not know everything, of course, about the plans that Arianne had made with Margaery Tyrell, didn’t think that even the Sand Snakes knew that. She only knew that by crowning her, they were going very much against them. 

And Myrcella had only agreed to all of this because of what Obara and Tyene offered her, what Arianne could not; that she would rule the Seven Kingdoms with Trystane by her side, free never to answer to her mother again, free to forget that her sorry excuse for a brother had ever once come between them.

Tyene and Obara seemed certain that they could do it, with Gerold Dayne’s help, for he was a great lord in Dorne and could deliver on his promises, with ten thousand strong behind him. Myrcella could see her husband again, when the Tyrells insisted on keeping him with them, despite Arianne having asked once for his return.

And Myrcella would do just about anything, at the moment, to be reunited with her husband. She had returned to this place in the first place, alongside Tyene, because she had thought that Trystane would be awaiting her when she arrived.

And he wasn’t.

Myrcella had been horrified, at the realization that not only was her husband still stuck in King’s Landing, a prisoner of her brother who now knew that Myrcella had betrayed their family, but that the Martells seemed to have little interest in getting him out. Arianne, indeed, seemed to believe him safe there, up until the moment her fool of a husband had challenged her brother to single combat and nearly died for it, himself.

Lady Nym, they said, had not been so fortunate. Oh, she was still alive, but Myrcella had heard often enough the horrible things that had been done to Elia Martell, in death at the hands of the Mountain, since arriving in Dorne.

And Arianne, for all her pretty promises of being better than her father at exacting revenge, had done nothing since taking the throne.

It had been easy for Obara and Tyene to convince Myrcella of the merits of finding another way, especially when they had always sought to be her friends and Arianne, since Myrcella’s return here, had only ever grated on her nerves, a constant reminder of the open space in Myrcella’s psyche that her mother had once occupied.

Able to manipulate Myrcella, to control her, in ways that no one else could, and after the fiasco Myrcella had faced in King’s Landing, she was tired of mothers.

She just wanted to see her husband again, to be with him again and know that no one else in either of their families could hurt him, because she was the Queen and she would protect him.

But that couldn’t happen if Trystane was dead before he ever reached Dorne, of course.

Tyene’s jaw clenched. She looked annoyed that Myrcella kept repeating the question. Arianne would never have let her annoyance show on her face; she would have realized that Myrcella would doubt her, for it.

“They know how valuable of a hostage your husband is, Myrcella,” Tyene said, gently, putting her hands on Myrcella’s shoulder and squeezing them gently. “They are not your brother, now. And they will not harm him if they want to see peace with Dorne again. More likely than not, Margaery Tyrell will give birth to a girl, and then all of this worrying would have been for nothing.”

Myrcella’s brows furrowed. She knew that the Tyrells were at least more level headed than her brother, but she had been in King’s Landing, after all, when they had declared war on House Lannister and declared her brother a bastard, all because they had not gotten what they wanted, now that Margaery was presumed dead.

Margaery was alive again, and claiming the throne for a child who had not even left her womb, yet.

Myrcella knew that Tyene, that Obara and Gerold Dayne, they were all right about this. Margaery Tyrell had no way of knowing what the gender of her child would be, much less if it would even survive to birthing.

Myrcella, therefore, was very much the rightful heir to the throne, even if there were some who did not want her to take it because they feared that she would not be so easily manipulated as Tommen, or a babe.

Myrcella didn’t want to see either of them hurt, of course, even if the child was her beast of a brother’s son. But she knew that should Tommen ascend the throne in the Westerlands, Cersei would be the one ruling, through him, and the thought of their mother manipulating Tommen the way she had Joffrey, all of those years, turning him into the monster that Joffrey had become simply by virtue of Cersei refusing to tell him ‘no,’ sickened Myrcella.

She would not lose her brother or her husband, this way.

And after all, why should she not reach for the throne, after everything that she had suffered at the hands of one who sat upon it?

She licked her lips. “Do you think…do you think that I’ll be able to get him back, now that I’m to be Queen?” She asked, quietly.

Tyene paused in her adjusting of Myrcella’s gown, glanced at the servants all around them, and then said, carefully, “The Tyrells will never accept you as Queen, Myrcella, even if that child in Margaery Tyrell’s womb is a girl.”

Myrcella’s face fell. Then why the fuck was she even…

“But Dorne will fight for you,” Tyene continued, reaching up to press a gentle hand to Myrcella’s cheek. “They will fight for you, and for your prince.” She glanced down at Myrcella’s stomach. “Both of them. We’re not all like Doran, like Arianne. In Dorne, family means something. I have every confidence that this is a fight we can win. We’ll get Trystane back, I promise you that.”

Yes, Gerold had promised her that, as well, but Myrcella had believed Tyene’s earlier words far more than she believed these ones.

Myrcella swallowed hard, her heart hammering in her throat, now.

She knew that it would be difficult, that there would be many who wouldn’t accept her as their queen, once she took the throne that had once been her brother’s. That it might even lead to a war, the way that they were saying her mother was about to go to war against the Tyrells.

But she had to believe that it would be worth it. That she would no longer feel like a used pawn of Arianne and the rest of her family, when she finally got what was owed to her, after suffering for so long at the hands of her brother.

Her brother had done horrible things to her for so long, and it felt only right that she should take this from him, in his death.

She’d earned it, after all. 

And Arianne seemed to have no interest in getting Trystane back for her. The way things had been doing, she had seemed content to leave him with the Tyrells indefinitely, to sit back and be their ally for some reason that Myrcella couldn’t understand, when the Tyrells had proven themselves to be a fickle bunch, over and over.

This way, at the very least, there was a chance. A chance that she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life a prisoner of the Tyrells or of the Lannisters, a chance that she could get the happy ending that she deserved, after everything that her brother, and then the rest of her family, had put her through.

Margaery’s child had not even been brought into this world yet, Obara had explained to her, which meant that it couldn’t be an heir, not really. And by Dornish law, she was the older sibling even if she was a girl.

Besides, a part of Myrcella ached at the thought of her mother using Tommen as a pawn, making him a king when her younger brother didn’t have the temperament for it, Myrcella knew. When he would have been content living out the rest of his days as a prince, with his cats and with a family who loved him.

He’d had that, in Jaime, and Myrcella wished he could have that in her, but she’d been selfish, had wanted more than that.

This way, at the very least, she could spare him the Iron Throne, the throne that his brother had loved so much, but which Tommen never would.

But she had no delusions about why she was really doing this.

The Tyrells had her husband. Cersei had her brother.

She knew that there would be a war over this, had known it when Obara and Gerold first approached her about it. There would be a war, because her mother would never accept this, not now that she had crowned Myrcella’s brother.

And neither would the Tyrells.

She had to get Trystane back. She was doing this to get him back, to carve out a world for herself where she no longer felt so terrified of everything around her.

And if Gerold Dayne and the Sand Snakes didn’t want him back, for whatever absurd reason, then she was just going to have to find her own way to do it.

She was, after all, going to be the Queen.

And she would not accept Gerold Dayne’s regency for the rest of her days. Nor, even, for the rest of Trystane’s.

A knock on the door caused Myrcella to jump, and Tyene frowned as one of the servants went to answer.

Outside was Ser Gerold, standing there in all of his battle regalia, and he smiled at her, for the first time that she could remember him doing so.

She knew that he didn’t like her. He, like much of Dorne, saw her as nothing more than a Lannister.

But he also saw that she had her uses, he knew, one of them being that he would not have to pretend to be carrying out Arianne’s will forever, if he was regent to a far more powerful title.

“Are you ready?” Gerold asked.

Myrcella narrowed her eyes at him. She knew that he, far more than Tyene or Obara, who truly cared for her, saw her as nothing but a little girl, an easily manipulated thing that would bring him fame and fortune, as well as this war that he clamored for. He thought that he could be the true power behind the throne, as the Hand of the Queen.

Myrcella would disabuse him of that notion, in time, but for now, she knew it was useful. After all, Arianne would never have crowned her this impulsively.

She nodded, sending the man an eager, bright smile, and he clapped her on the shoulder, grinning. “That’s my girl,” he said, far too familiar, and she wanted to shrug off his touch, but Myrcella allowed it, for now.

She had learned much about adapting to her surroundings in recent months, about keeping her mouth shut until the proper time to strike, when she had been far too quick to speak her mind, in the past, and damn the consequences.

She supposed that, in a way, that had been her brother’s parting lesson to her.

And while she had certainly never felt safe around her brother, she was very aware, lately, that she was no more safe around these Martells.

“Almost done,” Tyene said, pricking her with a pin, and Myrcella jumped, sending the other woman a glare. “There.”

She leaned back then, staring at Myrcella appreciatively. “You look like a Queen,” she said, and Gerold moved forward, grabbing Myrcella by the arm.

“She’d better damn look like a queen,” he muttered, harshly, and Myrcella flinched at the rough treatment to her arm.

Tyene pressed her lips together, but didn’t comment.

And then Myrcella was being all but dragged out of the dressing room, and down the hall. She yanked her arm out of Gerold’s grip then, shooting him a glare. 

“How would it look if you were dragging me the whole way?” She hissed at him, the guards around them listening but silent, and by the look in Gerold’s eyes, she knew that she would pay for that eventually, but Myrcella could not bring herself to care.

She entered the throne room with her head held high.

The throne that had been created for her, in secret so that Arianne would not find it, was beautiful, Myrcella thought, as she walked across the throne room to sit on it.

Made of some strange mixture of spun glass so delicate it looked like it might break at any moment, and wood that had been purposely shaped to look like the horns of a stag, with little blossoms along the top ridges. 

It had been moved to the center of the room, the throne of the Prince of Dorne sitting beside it, looking dwarfed in comparison.

The crown, she had seen before, though she licked her lips at the sight of it now, sitting in the hands of a septon. She knew that technically, she was meant to be crowned by the High Septon in King’s Landing, but given that what they were doing was technically treason, Myrcella supposed that she could make do.

Her crown was made to look like the horns of a stag, as well, though it was made of gold and with a golden lion roaring on the centerpiece. 

It suited her, she thought. No longer delicate, the way that she had once been, but blunt and fierce, as she wanted to become.

She stepped forward, knelt down in front of the throne, for all that pregnant belly moaned at the movement.

The septon stepped forward then, placed the crown gently on her forehead.

Myrcella stepped up to the throne, and turned around, sitting gingerly down in it, the crown atop her head feeling strange.

“All hail Myrcella Baratheon, First of Her Name, Rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, of the Andals and the First Men…”

Myrcella closed her eyes, and breathed in something that felt very much like vindication, for all of the years she had spent being pushed aside by her mother, abused by her brother.

Queen Myrcella Baratheon.

It had a nice ring to it, she thought, smiling.

And Prince Consort Trystane? That had an even better one.

* * *

“My lady has decided that she wishes to see you, now,” Tyene said, as she stepped into the prison surrounded by Martell guards.

Tyrion grunted; he had no idea how long they had been down here, but his lips were chapped and his limbs ached. 

“Does she now?” Bronn muttered, sounding as annoyed as Tyrion felt.

He knew that they had good reason for their suspicions, was not surprised by their treatment since their arrival here, but he still found it annoying.

He did not know if the Martells feared more that he had actually killed Joffrey and had come here to do the same to Myrcella, or if they feared that he might have some influence over the girl, as a Lannister.

He might have told them that they needn’t have bothered. He had come here to redeem himself in Myrcella’s eyes, in Jaime’s, after what he had been accused of.

And even if he hadn’t killed Joffrey, Myrcella had more than enough reason to hate him. She blamed him for her being sent into a nest of snakes in the first place.

No doubt the moment Arianne asked her what to do with him, she’d gladly see him punished for his slights against her, even if she didn’t give a fuck about Joffrey.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the wall as the Martell guards moved forward.

“I don’t suppose we’ll be on the block when this happens?” Bronn quipped, but Tyene merely ignored him, coming to Tyrion’s cell, first, and opening the door. She let him out, and then hesitated outside of Bronn’s door.

Tyrion wondered if Arianne hadn’t mentioned him, and she was trying to decide what to do with him, now.

Bronn lifted his chin. “You’re not taking him without me,” he said, and Tyene blinked at him for a moment, before shrugging and gesturing for the guards to let him out of his cell, as well.

Tyrion stood to his feet, stretching his legs and finding that it didn’t help the painful pins and needles sensation running up and down his body, a sensation that was familiar from the last time he’d spent a good while inside a cell.

Gods, he was getting tired of being arrested on the whims of a woman.

He shook his head, following Tyene and her guards out of the room while Bronn muttered something about finally getting to see some fucking sunlight, and Tyrion almost couldn't blame him for the sentiment, even as he tried to wrap his mind around what he might be able to say to someone as clearly hostile as Arianne that would convince her to see his side of things, to use him as a tool rather than an enemy.

And clearly, at the moment, she saw him as an enemy, if the way that she'd kept the two of them locked up here for so long was any indication. 

Gods, this had been a fucking stupid plan, from beginning to end. Seeing Bronn again had clearly surprised him so much through his feverish alcoholic gaze that he had realized he needed to do something to help his family, to help Myrcella, who in all of this was an innocent when there were so many who were not, but he had been stupid to think that he could just walk into Dorne, a place openly hostile to the Lannisters, and convince them to take him seriously.

He was almost surprised they had not yet taken his head.

And he was almost surprised at that thought, for that was a part of the reason, he could admit, in the safety of his own mind, that he had suggested coming here of all places in the first place.

Perhaps he could help Myrcella, but if he couldn't, at least he could find a quick death, where Shae's disapproving gaze didn't follow him every time he walked into a whorehouse in Lys.

Now, though, he felt guilty about dragging Bronn into all of this, even if Bronn had been the one to drag him back here in the first place.

He made a face as they made their way out of the dungeons, down corridors full of people who turned and stared at the chained dwarf and the chained sellsword, no doubt wondering what the fuck they were still doing alive, Tyrion thought idly.

He ignored them all, staring straight ahead, knowing that not one of them would prove to be a friend to him. Yet.

Perhaps one day, if he managed to survive the next few hours, Tyrion thought, they could be useful.

For now, though, he ignored them.

Ignored them all of the way into the throne room, past the dozens of stone faced guards and shocked looking nobles standing within this throne room, and he wondered at that, for he would have thought that the Martells would be all too gleeful to announce, at least to their own people if not to the world, that they had managed to capture the world's most hated Lannister.

But then again, they had said nothing when they had captured Margaery Tyrell. Perhaps this was simply more of the same.

He walked past them all, dragged along by the chain that Tyene Sand was holding, wondering if perhaps she would lead him like a horse all of the way to his death as they came to a sudden stop before the throne.

Tyrion kept his eyes on the floor, because that was preferable to the stares all around him, more likely to make eye contact with him if he did lift his head, now. He could hear their murmuring, and just now, that was bad enough.

Tyene, with a sort of savage pleasure, he couldn't help but think, slammed Tyrion to his knees, and he grunted out in pain, glancing over nervously at Bronn, as the man fell to his knees with considerably more force beside him. He looked just as nervous as Tyrion suddenly felt, but he wasn't looking at Tyrion.

He was staring up at the throne that this little slip of Martell girl had managed to steal from her own father, in the way that Tyrion had not even managed to take Casterly Rock from his in death.

And he wasn’t quite certain why he felt nervous; when Bronn had told him that he was returning to Westeros and Tyrion was damn well coming with him, Tyrion had resigned himself to whatever fates the gods decided to send him.

But now, on his knees before the impetuous Princess of Dorne, he found himself wondering if perhaps he wanted to live a little more than he’d thought.

After all, he’d let Bronn and Brienne kidnap him, hadn’t he?

"Our prisoners, Your Grace," a voice said, and Tyrion flinched at that appellation addressed towards Arianne Martell, wondered if perhaps Margaery Tyrell had conveniently forgot to reveal even more than she had, that they had lost Dorne some time ago.

That didn't seem like the sort of thing she might do. He thought she would far rather rule over the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, if she thought she could get her hands on them, after all. 

Tyrion struggled to feet again, at that thought, because he was not going to find himself on his knees, begging before the Princess of Dorne for his very life. 

And then he looked up, and found himself meeting the eyes of someone who was most definitely not Arianne Martell.

He froze, legs wobbling slightly as the full weight of what he was seeing set in. Beside him, he heard Bronn swear savagely, finally seeming to come to his senses, though he had clearly known longer than Tyrion, in the last few seconds.

The guards around them shifted, clearly ready for a fight, if necessary.

“You should bend the knee before your Queen,” another one of Oberyn Martell’s daughters gritted out then, and Tyrion closed his eyes.

Fuck.

“I wasn’t aware that Princess Arianne had…” Tyrion gritted out, and then wondered what the point of that would even be.

After all, he didn’t even see her here, whereas here Myrcella was, sitting on a throne made of spun glass and a stag's head, a potent enough image, before him, looking just as lost as he suddenly felt. 

She looked beautiful. She looked more like Cersei than Tyrion had ever known her to.

When she was a child, he had always thought she looked so much like Jaime he didn't understand how half of the Seven Kingdoms didn't see it as proof of who her father was.

She was wearing a crown of gold, more beautiful than Joffrey's had ever been.

She almost looked like she belonged on the throne, and that thought made Tyrion's heart hammer painfully in his chest. He wanted to yell at her, then, no matter how many people stood in front of them watching, wanted to grab her up in his arms and run away, if only they weren't chained, because she looked almost like she belonged on that throne, but not quite.

And he knew what would happen next, because of that one word. Almost.

“Myrcella,” he breathed, and was promptly threatened with the blunt edge of a spear for his trouble.

“Wait,” Myrcella said, and gods, what was happening? What the fuck were they doing, here?

He looked up at her, wide eyed.

She looked entirely too comfortable, on a throne, he thought. It was not the Iron Throne, but what the fuck did that matter, to the people of Dorne, who had never bent the knee to the Iron Throne in the first place?

“Uncle,” Myrcella breathed, looking as shocked to see him as he felt to see her.

* * *

Playing cyvasse against herself was entirely unsatisfying, Arianne realized, as she fiddled with the piece in her hand, determining her next move.

It didn’t matter what move she made, after all, when she was playing herself. She would lose, one way or another.

She sighed, slamming the piece down onto the board and reaching up to rub at her temples as she leaned back in the sole chair in her lonely cell. 

It was difficult to concentrate on anything, even the game in front of her, her soul source of entertainment besides plotting her revenge, over and over in a dozen different scenarios, and sometimes she found herself wondering if this was what her father felt like, trapped in his chair, suffering gout, and wondering when he might get revenge for those he had lost, when all she could think about was…

Quentyn.

Her brother was dead, killed in Mereen after he had gone to meet this dragon that her father seemed to have staked their entire family's futures on. Killed running off to do their father’s bidding, as he’d always done, the perfect son, no matter what it was that their father demanded of him. 

She sucked in a harsh breath, grimacing.

When she had set out to do all of this, Arianne hadn’t known what it would cost her. Originally, she had only intended to crown Myrcella, had hoped that once she had, her father would finally look at her, the daughter who had always been there, like he did Quentyn. Would finally see her as worthy of his secrets, would finally see her as worthy of his throne.

And now, Quentyn was gone. Quentyn was dead, and he hadn’t been her favorite brother, but she had loved him, in her own, slightly jealous way.

And she had never even gotten the chance to reconcile with him, after she had genuinely believed that he was trying to steal her throne. She had known him, near the end, as trying to steal that throne from her, when he had never been trying to do that.

He’d been trying to make her a queen, and he didn’t know her well enough, just as their father didn’t, to know that was something that Arianne could never want.

Even if she wasn’t entirely certain what it was that she did want, these days.

And now...dear gods, how things had changed, and yet so many of them hadn’t.

Quentyn was dead, Trystane was a captive in King’s Landing, and Arianne...

“Tyrion Lannister has met the Queen. At her coronation, no less. I dare say it was a bit dramatic,” Obara said, as she walked into the cell that Arianne had been placed into, several days after spending her time in a cell with Ellaria and realizing she would go mad, trying to convince the other woman that she was also a prisoner.

That every time Ellaria spoke, her teeth didn’t grit together and she didn’t want to hit the other woman.

The door shut behind her; the mute guards did not react at all, though surely they must have been suspicious about all of this. But they knew their place; knew who their Princess was.

Arianne took a careful breath, and then another.

“And did he believe it?” Arianne asked simply, glancing up from the game of cyvasse she had been playing against herself.

If he hadn’t, then all of this...the manipulations of the people she cared about, because she had cared about Gerold, once, the secret plots, her own arrest, dear gods, even the days she had spent in silent agony, in the knowledge that her brother was dead and that she, like her own mother, was unable to mourn him with anyone else, would have been for nothing.

She gritted her teeth.

She had been playing this game with one hand tied behind her back, thanks to her father, and because of that, not only was Quentyn dead, but she’d royally fucked up her own father’s plans in the fear that he was acting against her.

And because she had no interest in being queen, she supposed that she might as well set to work adding her newfound knowledge to her own plans, adjusting them accordingly.

If only she knew how.

But what she did know was that if Tyrion Lannister, a man somewhat renowned for his wit, even guessed at the truth about what was going on here, they would be more than fucked.

She supposed she finally understood, now that she, too, was forced to spend her days in here, what her father found so engrossing about playing a game against oneself. How she had to look at every advantage, every turn, had to sacrifice one thing for the good of another.

She sniffed, forcing those thoughts back into the void where they belonged.

She had been moved from the cell she had been sharing with Ellaria after the first few days of being there, after she had gotten what she wanted from the other woman.

Her cell now was at the top of the tower, far finer than the one that she had shared with Ellaria, and more spacious, as well. She had servants attending to her every need, because after all, it was meant to look like she had a choice in being here.

If anyone caught on to the conditions of her cell being less than ideal, they would realize what her husband had really done.

Obara grunted. “Of course he did,” she said. “All but had a laugh at our expense, when he realized that we were serious about crowning her, but the Imp seems a little unhinged, these days. Still, the Lannisters have always looked down on us; why should they be any different now?”

Arianne hummed. “You’re sure?” She said, turning and raising an eyebrow at Obara. “They say this Imp is very smart, very good at hiding his thoughts.”

And dear gods, she didn’t have the time to deal with another Lannister right now, but she supposed this was a good test of whether or not anything they were doing at the moment mattered.

And gods knew that her cousins were not...great at understanding the hidden depths of others.

Obara lifted her chin. “He believed it,” she repeated. “Though it’s probably for the best that Myrcella believes it so well.”

Arianne nodded absently, turning back to her game. “Yes, she is a stubborn little thing, but she’s not the greatest actor.”

She’d been able to tell that in recent months, trying to read the young girl as she switched from one personality to the next, trying to keep Arianne on her toes, just trying to survive.

Arianne hoped that now she had a crown upon her head, the girl would learn fast.

They didn’t have time for anything else, after all.

“Just as long as the Tyrells believe it,” Obara said, because in the end, Arianne knew that she was right.

Tyrion Lannister coming here and swearing allegiance to his niece when his sister was championing her brother, after supposedly killing his own nephew was fascinating, but in the end, it was not important.

If he did turn out to be some sort of spy, some sort of traitor, they could easily do away with him, in a kingdom surrounded by those who hated the Lannisters and would not blink twice at his removal.

But the important thing was that the Tyrells believed the pageantry, in an event that had once been meant to be slightly more genuine.

“When I was in that cell with Ellaria, I learned something…disturbing,” Arianne said, quietly.

Obara raised an eyebrow. “More disturbing than the fact that we’re going to war at a time when we should be hanging back?” She asked.

Arianne gave her an annoyed look. She knew that Obara was against this, now that she knew the full truth, as Arianne did, even more than she had been when Arianne had first suggested it. But she damn well wasn’t going to give up now.

Her father’s idiotic plan to crown her queen also relied on the same dragons who had screwed over her aunt, and while she understood that it was only smart to not totally alienate new enemies, Arianne had no intention of playing nice with them, either.

Still, Obara did deserve to know.

It was secrets that had destroyed her father’s chances at revenge, after all. Arianne was not going to let them destroy hers, as well. 

Arianne grimaced. “Ellaria was the one who sent the assassin after Willas Tyrell. She was all but gleeful, to tell me about it.”

Obara’s brows furrowed, her mouth opening and closing. She swore softly, under her breath, about summing up Arianne’s own feelings on the matter.

“But…the Lannisters did that,” she said finally, slowly.

Arianne grunted. “Apparently not,” she said. “Though I’m sure that Cersei Lannister was happy enough for it to happen. No doubt, she thinks her son was responsible, and she ought to have some happy thoughts about him, even in his death.”

Obara snorted, and then reached up, rubbing at her face. “Do you think our offer will actually tempt Aegon?”

“It changes nothing,” Arianne said, softly, because it truly didn’t. “Save that we have confirmation now that the alliance with the Tyrells would never have worked out. Which we already knew the moment the Imp confirmed what my father said, that Aegon is coming.”

She had to admit, knowing that, after everything, was a bit of a relief. She had done the right thing, with the information she’d had, even if it hadn’t been whole. 

She moved the elephant on her board.

She had known all along, of course, that they wouldn’t be able to keep their word to the Tyrells. That either they moved first, or the Tyrells would eventually betray them, because Margaery Tyrell was willing to kill her now husband, and maybe even as she had made the deal, she had thought that peace was attainable, but it certainly wasn’t, now.

The moment she learned, as she eventually would, that Willas Tyrell had been killed by an agent of Ellaria’s, their deal would be off.

Arianne intended to be the one to profit from breaking off that deal first, though, even if a part of her felt guilty for betraying Margaery, felt guilty for knowing what had really happened to Margaery Tyrell’s brother.

But now…what mattered was that Margaery Tyrell had her brother, at the moment. That she, too, had lost a brother, and it all had to be worth something, all had to mean something, these years that she had been kept out of the loop about things which very much concerned her, things which could have turned the tide of this war long ago.

She was going to make sure that it meant something.

“Gerold was always going to want to crown Myrcella,” Arianne went on, into the silence, “And we were always going to be sucked into a war. That is the one thing that my father doesn’t understand. For all his plots, his machinations, the people of Dorne don’t have his patience. They have fire in their blood, and the longer he stood by and did nothing, the more that fire festered.” She looked off, at the window to her cell. “This was always going to happen.”

Behind her, she heard Obara grunt. “The people may have wanted this war, but they’re not happy about Gerold being the one to lead it. You were the one who promised that you would lead the charge. They followed their Princess.”

Arianne hummed; she didn’t think the people of Dorne had liked her much more than they had cared for her father, after all, but she supposed she could understand their apprehension, at suddenly being handed over to Gerold Dayne.

“He is my husband,” she said. “They know that he speaks for me in all things.”

“He doesn’t seem to know that,” Obara pointed out, and Arianne smiled a bit, despite herself.

It was true; the plan had required keeping her husband in dark about his own role in it, because Arianne doubted he would like how that role ended, and so he hadn’t known that every step he’d taken had been a manipulation carefully plotted out by her and Obara, all this time.

Everything from the disgust he felt towards his new wife’s cowardice, to the actions he took to gain her throne.

It helped that he was so damned easily predictable, that Arianne had known him so long that she knew every damn thing about him.

She was going to enjoy finally putting him back in his place.

“The people think that he might have killed you, rather than locking you away because of some sickness, because of the danger. And they think you a coward, for not coming out, if you aren’t dead.”

Arianne snorted. “They think a great deal,” she said.

Obara shrugged a thin shoulder. “I told you, I never liked this plan, Arianne. Far too much subterfuge, and I’ve never been good at that.”

Arianne didn’t much care; at this point, she was running on fumes, was doing her best to hold things together, and Obara knew that.

It had been a solid plan, in the beginning. A damn good one, if Arianne did say so herself.

But back then, she’d had no idea that Aegon Targaryen was crossing the Narrow Sea. Had no idea that her brother was dead. Had no idea that her father intended to marry her off to Aegon like some broodmare.

It changed things, knowing that.

“If I was seen to be leading this charge,” Arianne said, calmly, “The Tyrells would have killed Trystane in retaliation, or at the very least, tried to use him against me. Gerold has no reason to care what happens to Trystane, and as long as I am not dead and not seen to be in charge, the Tyrells have a reason to keep him alive.”

She had thought that over a thousand times, how to keep Trystane safe after her father had sent him off to be a hostage in the first place, when she had been planning this betrayal all along. He was already in a great deal of danger there in the first place, and if she got her brother killed, she would never forgive herself.

Especially now, Arianne thought, swallowing hard as she thought of what her mother had told her, that thing at the back of her mind that she had been trying valiantly not to think about, ever since she had been dumped into this cell.

Quentyn was dead. She had lost one brother, and she damn well did not intend to lose another, not to her ambitions, like her father had lost both Quentyn...and herself.

She grimaced, shutting her eyes tightly as she acknowledged that not so very long ago, she had not been so concerned about her only remaining brother’s survival. She had been convinced that Lady Nym, for all her faults, would keep him safe.

Now, though, she could not afford to take that risk. This had been the only way to go through with a plan that she was no longer certain was a good one.

“You know, you can be a cold bitch, sometimes,” Obara said, into the silence that followed.

Arianne snorted. “Says the woman who vowed to kill her own sister, after her betrayal,” she said.

“Trystane never betrayed you,” Obara pointed out. “He’s practically a child.”

She was angry, Arianne realized suddenly. She supposed Obara had reason for that.

“But he’s not a child,” she countered. “He’s the husband of the new Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and if he were here, he would be a direct threat to Gerold. You and I both know that Gerold has less patience than the Tyrells; if he thought Trystane would try to take the regency away from him, he’d have my brother killed just as likely as the Tyrells might have done.”

Obara swallowed, not bothering to refute the claim. She knew it to be true as much as Arianne did.

Gerold Dayne was a force to be reckoned with, even if he was rather thick. They could not underestimate him, as Arianne had once underestimated her father.

“You know, there’s still time,” Obara said, her words slow, measured. Arianne suspected that she’d been talking with Tyene. “We could try to call of this off.”

Arianne laughed bitterly. “Then the people of Dorne really wouldn’t care if my husband did away with me. To offer them hope, something that even my own father didn’t do, and then take it away? They’d hate me as much as they hate the Lannisters. You know this is what we have to do.”

Obara swallowed; she knew that, of course.

“No,” Arianne continued, “We’ll just have to figure out a way around all of these dragons, one that doesn’t involve me marrying one.”

Obara snorted. “You think the Dragon Queen would be interested?”

Arianne shrugged, thinking painfully of the words that her mother had whispered in her ear, shortly before her husband had her arrested.

No, she doubted very much that the dragon queen would be interested in any sort of agreement that Arianne tried to make with her, especially with the callous way that she had reacted to Quentyn’s death.

All of their hopes were now pinned on a young man that Doran had promised her hand in marriage to, a man that Arianne very much did not intend to marry.

After all, if she did, all of the plans she had made thus far, all of the sacrifices, would have been for nothing.

Quentyn’s death would have been for nothing, the danger she had placed Trystane in would have been for nothing. Locking up her own father would have been for nothing.

She would go back to being her father’s pawn, Myrcella would likely lose her head, and Dorne would be once again under the thrall of the Iron Throne.

Arianne intended to avoid all of those things, if she could manage it.

Obara let out a sigh. “Tyene accused us of being heartless for even considering this,” she said, and Arianne moved back to the cyvasse board, moving a piece against herself.

The elephant, again.

She licked her lips, thought of the look in her father’s eyes, as he promised fire and blood and vengeance. Thought of look on her mother’s face, as she begged her not to tell her father about Quentyn’s death.

Quentyn, who had died because he had dared want for more than he could have.

She shook her head. “You know I would not consider it unless I thought that Dorne had no other choice,” she reminded Obara. “I love that girl.”

If she said it enough times, she thought she might begin to believe it, as well. 


	25. Storm's End

Aegon Targaryen stood in the halls that had once belonged to the Usurper King, lips pressed together in a thin line as he watched the servants tear down the flags that had been hung, flags of the Tyrells’ green and yellow roses, and breathed in the smell of salt water.

Storm’s End was a beauty of a castle. If it had not been protected by what amounted to a skeleton army, he thought, it would have been nearly impossible to take. It was a fortress, and a perfect place for Aegon to begin his campaign, in Westeros.

He watched as his men moved around him, either going to explore the rest of the castle or going to secure the prisoners that they had taken, now that the fighting was over, feeling an odd sense of pride for their bravery during the battle, before his eyes sought out the chair belonging to the Lord of Storm’s End, a fixture in the Great Hall of the castle.

A chair which now belonged to him, by rights.

He wondered if he would feel comfortable, sitting on it. It certainly looked more comfortable than the Iron Throne, but he still felt strange, having finally set foot on the shores of Westeros.

Even the air seemed to smell different here, cooler than he was used to but saltier, as well. 

He wondered how long it would take him to feel like he truly belonged here.

Beside him, Jon reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder, and Aegon started a little, from the contact, not having noticed Jon sneak up on him. 

“How does it feel, Your Grace?” He asked, quietly. “To have won your first kingdom with only a minimal spilling of blood?”

Aegon forced himself to smile, as he turned to face Jon.

It felt good, he admitted, in the privacy of his own mind. Even better than he had been expecting it to feel.

He had realized, during the fighting over Griffin’s Roost, that the queasiness he felt before a battle, before the idea of one, was a foolish sensation, as he had begun the fighting.

He wanted to be known as a merciful king, but there was something about joining a fight, once he faced the actual action of it, which made the queasiness in his stomach recede, made him think of nothing but the fight before him, and finishing it quickly. 

Jon, who knew exactly what he was thinking, it seemed, by pointing that out, and a little relief spread through Aegon as he reminded himself that he had done this in the most merciful way that he could, with the least amount of blood spilled.

Jon’s ancestral home of Griffin’s Roost had fallen easily, as well, for which Aegon was also grateful, and after that, they had marched on Storm’s End at Jon’s suggestion, the men still high on the victory.

He had wanted Aegon to stay at Griffin’s Roost, where he would be safe, but Aegon had insisted on leading the charge so that he would not lose the respect of his men, even with the queasy feeling in his stomach that had accompanied the attack on Griffin’s Roost, at the thought of fighting against those who just believed that they were defending their home.

He had officially named Jon as Hand of the King, at his ancestral home, before they had left, and as once again the Lord of Griffin’s Roost, had seen the tears in Jon’s eyes at the knowledge that after all of these years, he was finally home again.

But he was right. As with the rest of the greatest keeps of the Stormlands, Storm’s End had fallen easily; the few remaining soldiers there belonging to Stannis Baratheon were discouraged by the rumors that Stannis had died somewhere North of the Wall, for all anyone knew, and were nothing more than captives of the Tyrells, who had taken the place some time ago for themselves, rather than for Joffrey, as Aegon had heard it told.

They had declared it for Joffrey once Margaery Tyrell had returned from the dead and to her husband’s side, and now, it still belonged to them.

But the Tyrell forces, the few of them that remained there after so many had been recalled to King’s Landing to protect the new Regent there, had been no match for the Golden Company.

They had surrendered by the end of the third night, and Aegon had felt relief, a part of him hoping, even as he knew it was unrealistic, that the rest of the war would go this easily.

They had even allowed those who had surrendered, or, as much of them as they could, to live, some to write letters back to the Tyrells to tell them of the defeat, and the rest to be imprisoned beneath the castle, as Aegon decided what to do with them.

The Golden Company had made it clear they thought the men ought to be killed, but Jon had advised caution, and Aegon thought it wasn’t right to kill men outside of the heat of battle, not after they had surrendered.

Instead, he wanted to give them the chance to bend the knee.

Jon had seemed…somewhat skeptical that the men eventually would bend the knee, but Aegon had faith that he would be able to show them a better way, than did all of the lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms, now.

Would be able to show them the kind of king that he wished to be.

“How long do you think it will be,” Aegon asked quietly, as they walked out of the Great Hall and into a narrow corridor, not entirely certain where they were going, “before the rest of the Seven Kingdoms learns that we’ve taken the Stormlands?”

Jon pressed his lips together. “Not long, Your Grace,” he said, and Aegon shifted a little, not liking the way the title fit on Jon’s lips so easily. “King’s Landing will be the first and most immediate threat; they are closest, and have much to lose, by this.”

Aegon grimaced. That was something he had hoped to avoid, if only Stannis had remained in Westeros where he would be available to fight, though he had a feeling that Jon would never have let him go up against Stannis first, and alone.

He did not much like the thought of taking the Stormlands only to turn and steal King’s Landing away from a pregnant woman and an unborn child. 

With the Stormlands, it had been easier. Griffin’s Roost was Jon’s home, a place that was only being returned to its rightful heir, and the rest of the Stormlands…well, Jon had forced the Golden Company to swear that there would be no raping, something that Aegon too had insisted on.

He was not that sort of king, and he would not lead that sort of army. The women of the castles they had come upon had been placed under house arrest, but had not been treated unduly. Aegon had insisted, before he left those places in the hands of his men, that the women be treated as they were accustomed to, only not allowed to leave or send letters out of their keeps.

But this…attacking Margaery Tyrell in her Keep, as one of his greatest threats…

Something about it felt…dirty.

They walked down another corridor, and then came to a stop before a rather opulent room.

Jon stopped, hand still on Aegon’s shoulder, and gestured for him to go inside.

Aegon sucked in a breath, at the sight of it.

“These will be your chambers for as long as Storm’s End is where we direct the war from, Your Grace,” Jon informed him, as Aegon glanced around. “Fit for a king.”

Aegon licked his lips.

Certainly a step up in the world, he thought, almost idly, before turning to face Jon.

He didn’t ask if these rooms had once belonged to Robert Baratheon, if Stannis had used them. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know the answer. 

“I want to be a good king,” he told Jon. “Do you think…I don’t want to cause unnecessary hurt to these usurpers.” Especially when they were only scared mothers, from what he understood. “I want to give them the chance to bend the knee, if they’ll take it.”

Jon grimaced. Aegon knew that he didn’t approve, that he was furious that so many Houses had so easily turned against Aegon’s father, but he was afraid he was going to have to insist, if Jon did argue with him.

Jon may be his Hand, but Aegon did not want to be a conqueror, like his namesake.

He wanted to be the sort of king that the people didn’t loathe enough to forget about, the moment the next claimant came along.

“As of right now, we’ve been assured, King’s Landing is rather distracted,” Jon admitted, and Aegon’s head lifted. “With the funeral of the late false King, Joffrey. Cersei Lannister was even invited to attend the funeral, from what I understand.”

Aegon gulped. He didn’t like the thought of attacking a pregnant woman and a grieving mother, but even he had to admit that the fact that both of his opponents in this war were in the same place was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

He had a feeling that the Golden Company would not forgive him if he did so, either.

That was a surprise, though, that Cersei had been invited to King’s Landing, given what he knew of the animosity between the Queen Mother and Margaery Tyrell.

“And when they’re no longer distracted?” Aegon asked, impatiently, not wanting to hear the other man tell him that.

Jon sighed. “Then…if Your Grace commands it, we will give them the chance to bend the knee. But in the mean time, I think it would be prudent to stage an attack, while we’re ahead, on some of the Crownlands. Or to deal with Dorne.”

Aegon’s brows furrowed. The last he’d heard, Dorne hadn’t had to be something they needed to ‘deal with’ the way Jon had said it needling him.

No one had ever taken Dorne, he remembered reading. When it had finally been absorbed into the Seven Kingdoms, it was only because Dorne had wanted it that way.

He didn’t want to fight his mother’s homeland, either.

“And what of Dorne?” He asked. “Have we gotten a response from them?”

Jon grimaced. “Not…as such, from Prince Doran, Your Grace,” he warned, “but there is something that you should know.”

Aegon eyed him; he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever the other man had to say, much to his annoyance.

He had thought, as Jon had once assured him, that Dorne would be one of the easier kingdoms to bring to bear. They were his mother’s family, and he didn’t like the thought of being at odds with them.

Jon let out a sigh.

“There has been a…shift in power in Dorne, of late, and Myrcella Baratheon was just crowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms by Ser Gerold Dayne and Oberyn Martell’s bastard daughters.”

Aegon sucked in a breath. “Myrcella Baratheon?” He repeated.

That…made little sense to him. He had heard of the shift in power, of course, had heard that Prince Doran’s faction had started to abandon him in favor of his daughter, who called for peace with the Tyrells and war with the Lannisters, but this…this was something completely foreign.

Besides all of that, her brother still lived, and was the rightful king before her, according to Westerosi law, even if Dornish law was somewhat different. She had no real right to the throne.

Clearly, she was just a pawn in the hands of these new overlords of Dorne, and the thought made him angry in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

And it meant that the War of the Five Kings, as they had begun to call it in Essos, was beginning again.

He didn’t like the thought.

Jon nodded. “She was crowned in the night, while we were taking the Stormlands, Your Grace,” he informed Aegon. “The Dornish are calling for a war, to support her claim.”

Aegon reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose.

That was…not good. They had counted on the people of Dorne supporting Aegon’s claim, not Myrcella’s.

“So…there are three Lannister children vying for the throne, right now,” Aegon said. He paused; one of them unborn. “Do you think that there is a way to…upset this new balance in Dorne, and bring my mother’s brother back to power?”

Jon shook his head, and Aegon’s brows furrowed, wondering if he had forgotten some other bastard out there.

“No, Your Grace,” he said. “Tommen Baratheon was just taken from the Rock, no doubt by the Tyrells. If he does reach King’s Landing alive, Cersei won’t have a King to champion. As for Doran…perhaps.”

Aegon’s eyes narrowed, his gut twisting at what Jon had just insinuated. 

“You think the Tyrells would kill the boy?” He asked, something about the idea unsettling him after he had just come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to kill their pregnant regent or her child, once it was born.

Surely, there was some other way, to avoid so many innocent deaths.

Surely a mother wouldn’t kill a boy as young Tommen.

Jon’s jaw twitched. “I think that it is…a possibility we cannot ignore, Your Grace,” he reminded Tommen. “Which is why we need to act decisively, now.”

Aegon closed his eyes. He had known this advice was coming, of course, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “You think we should attack King’s Landing.”

Jon eyed him. “There is…something else which we need to do, first, Your Grace.”

* * *

The feast that the Golden Company had insisted upon, when they successfully took Storm’s End, lasted nearly half of the first night of their arrival there. It was rowdy; they were a group of mercenaries, and Aegon had expected nothing less, despite the discipline they displayed while fighting.

But Jon had insisted that rewarding the men, even if they were not doing so with money quite yet, was important. That they needed to keep up morale, and when half of the Golden Company had been slightly skeptical about leaving their post in Myr to raise arms for a boy no one had ever heard of, Aegon supposed he could understand why doing so was important.

Still, he loathed these sorts of things.

He would be much more comfortable exploring the many halls of Storm’s End, understanding this place which had served as home to his enemies, once.

He wondered if Stannis Baratheon, North of the Wall as they now knew he was, had heard yet that a Targaryen had stolen his ancestral home from him. He wondered what these old halls had to say about one of their previous inhabitants.

Aegon sighed, reaching down to take another sip of the wine in front of him as he watched one of the men challenge the other to a mock fight, watched the men start to cheer as if they were not yet tired of war. 

The fight for Storm’s End, as Jon had said, had been mostly bloodless, and he knew these men had been hired for such a purpose, that sooner or later, they were going to tire of sitting around or taking castles so easily. That they were already hungering to take King’s Landing, while he dreaded it.

But he could not quite understand their constant interest in fighting.

By his side, his closest friend amongst these men, Rolly, leaned close to him. “Something the matter?” he asked, leaving off the title Jon was insisting they all call him by now, though in technicality Aegon did not quite have a crown, yet.

Aegon forced a smile as he took a sip of his wine, so that Rolly could not see the whole of his face. “I’m fine,” he assured his friend, because it was not as if he could have such a conversation here. 

Rolly stared at him for a moment, and then clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you’re eager to finish this war,” he said, and Aegon raised an eyebrow in surprise; he hadn’t realized he was being so obvious. “But have faith, Your Grace. In the mean time, you have the right to enjoy yourself a little bit, you realize.”

He snorted, and Aegon glanced up, with half a feeling that Rolly was talking about something specifically. When he did, he noticed the serving girl staring at him, in the corner of the room, while she refilled the wine glasses of the men at the table she was closest to.

They were all staring at her; she wasn’t the prettiest thing that Aegon had ever seen, somewhat mousy and rather short, but there was something about that intense look in her eyes, as they met his...

The girl noticed Aegon’s stare, and lifted her eyes, meeting his eyes for a single moment before she winked at him and turned away, pouring another knight’s glass of wine.

Aegon swallowed, startled when he knew he shouldn’t be by the girl’s obvious flirtation.

“She’s beautiful,” Rolly said, by his side, and Aegon resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He had almost forgotten that the other boy was there, under that girl’s dark gaze, and he reached out with a shaky hand to take a sip of his wine.

Rolly chuckled at his expense, and stabbed the meat on his fork a little harder.

She was beautiful, Aegon could admit, in the privacy of his own mind. Beautiful, and unattainable, because he was a king and she was a Tyrell servant. Because the Tyrells had claimed this place after Stannis Baratheon had left, just as they had tried to claim Dragonstone. 

If he was going to marry a woman, it was going to be either his aunt, once he had convinced her that he was a worthy contender for the Iron Throne and that their combined strength was better than the two of them fighting apart, or Arianne Martell, as his mother’s brother wanted.

But if Dorne was truly lost to them…

He shuddered a little, at the thought. He didn’t want Dorne to be lost to them, even if he secretly thought it would be a better idea to wed his aunt than his cousin, with her army of Dothraki and three dragons. 

He shook his head, forcing such thoughts from his mind with another glass of wine.

Tonight was meant to be a night of celebration, after all not of plots, and he intended to make the most of it.

After all, who knew where the coming days would lead them?

Suddenly, the fighting on the floor came to an end, and Aegon blinked in surprise, glancing over at Jon, who was dinging his spoon against his glass in order to get the attention of the men.

The room was totally quiet, then.

Aegon found himself almost jealous of the way that Jon could gain the attention of all of these men so easily, when Aegon always felt strangely inadequate, around all of them, rightful heir to the throne or no. Like he was a boy playing at a silly game, rather than a prince asking them to help him take back his birthright.

“Today was a victory for House Targaryen!” He announced, and the men were hesitant for a moment, before they began cheering for the words.

Aegon knew that they had a rather complicated history with House Targaryen, after all, but he was glad that they were able to put that aside, for this. For justice.

“But more than that,” Jon continued, and Aegon wished he had the man’s confidence, to speak before all of these men, to rally them with more than just the promise of money, “This was a victory for all of us, today. A step closer to taking back the Seven Kingdoms from the despair that they’ve fallen into.”

The cheer, this time, was a little louder.

Aegon noticed that Lord Harry did not cheer while the others did, despite being the one who had ultimately agreed to come with them, on this journey. He tried not to let it bother him, though.

“We do not have a High Septon on hand, because we have yet to take King’s Landing and because there are…doubts, about the one they’ve appointed there,” Jon said, and there were chuckles throughout the crowd, accompanying a joke Aegon didn’t really understand, because the last High Septon he remembered reading about from their spies had been that fanatical one who was dead, now, “But we would not be able to do this properly without a septon, and there is one on hand, for us.”

He gestured, and the man stepped forward, a little shakily. Aegon wondered what he thought they were going to do to him, anyway.

They needed him alive, even if his loyalty was to House Tyrell, to make this legitimate, and he doubted that a septon would be foolish enough to refuse to do as they were asking.

Besides, Aegon did not like the thought of killing septons.

Jon spread his arms wide. “This will be done again, with rather more pomp and ceremony, I assume, once we take King’s Landing, but for now, I give you: King Aegon!”

And despite what Aegon thought they all thought of him personally, the men cheered again, at that, raising their wine glasses and their mead to cheer a boy who had not yet become King.

And Jon pulled him to his feet, led him to the front of the Great Hall, where Stannis Baratheon had once sat to preside over his people, and he could feel the mousy eyes of the servant girl searing into his back along with all of the rest.

The septon that they had found was dragged forward, despite the man’s stuttering protests that he did not have the right to do what they required of him.

“Nonsense,” Jon said. “We require only the blessing of the Faith.”

The Faith, Aegon thought, still feeling a little blindsided as he stood before this large chair. He knew that gaining their support was important; not a year ago, the King had nearly lost his throne, as well as his queen’s head, because of the Faith.

They needed the Faith to give their approval of his kingship, or they would never be able to successfully hold King’s Landing, Jon had told him, even as he told him that the Faith was something to be used, and not to be followed.

The septon sighed, looking like a rather put upon grandfather, in this moment, and Aegon almost would have laughed at that image in his head if his palms weren’t suddenly sweating.

This was not how he had thought he was going to be named King, but he supposed it made sense. He needed to be a King before he took King’s Landing, or Margaery Tyrell and her goodmother would never take his claim seriously. They didn’t care, he knew, whether he was a Targaryen or not; their claims to the throne themselves were by the right of conquest, were by feudal law, that his grandfather and his father had failed them as rulers, and so they had taken the throne to protect the Realm.

He would just have to prove himself to them. And if he could do it without shedding their blood, the way his grandfather had shed the blood of so many...all the better.

As he sank down into this chair, though, that felt suddenly like very difficult work.

“King Aegon of House Targaryen, Sixth of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and of the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Long live the King!” The septon’s voice grew louder as he continued, until he managed to shout out the last bit, but no one seemed to notice his earlier hesitancy.

Jon handed him something, something that made Aegon tense when he saw it, realizing what it was. He wondered, for a moment, first where Jon had gotten it, since coming up here, and then where he had gotten it, before that.

For all that it was beautiful and golden, it looked old, even from here. He handed it to the septon, who blinked at it for a moment before sighing tiredly.

Aegon’s lips quirked in amusement; no one else had seen it, but Jon was giving the man a rather fierce glare.

“Long live the King!” The crowd cheered.

Aegon lifted his head, the crown feeling rather strange and heavy atop it, and waited for their cries to fall silent before he spoke.

“You have all served me well, in getting me this far,” he told the men, a little startled by the way that his voice boomed out through the Great Hall.

He supposed he understood the septon’s earlier nervousness, now.

“I swear to you that when I take my throne in King’s Landing, I shall repay you all for that,” he said, and this time, when the men cheered, he thought that they meant it, that it was not just politeness and drunkenness.

And that...felt better than he had expected it to.

King. And more than that, a king to whom men listened.

Jon, where he stood at Aegon’s right hand, gave him a quiet smile and a nod. He may be Aegon’s Hand, but he believed in him, Aegon knew, and that felt good, too.

Lord Harry, Lord Commander of the Golden Company, came forward, dipping into a bow before him. 

He knew that Harry had never been very fond of him; that he doubted whether or not Aegon was the true son of his father, that he was weary of the fight, that he hadn't liked leaving his contract in Myr, though the rest of his men had been happy to promise their allegiance to Aegon in return for taking Westeros for him, and getting much out of it themselves. 

But the man had fought admirably, these past few weeks, in the taking of most of the Crownlands, and Aegon thought that he deserved to be recognized, for that. 

They had lost many good men to storms, on the passage over to Westeros, much to Aegon’s chagrin, and nearly half of their forces had been lost on the way over here, but it had still been enough to overtake the Tyrells at Storm’s End.

It still felt strange, to see men bow to him and call him “king.”

“For your great services to the Crown,” Aegon informed him, voice booming loudly out through the hall in a way that made him shift nervously in the makeshift throne, “I name you Lord of War to the King.”

He knew that he could not name him Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, partially because he was uncertain if the other man would accept the title and partially because Jon had told him not to name anyone else to the Kingsguard.

He had not approved of Aegon naming his friend, “Duck,” to the Kingsguard, he said, because he wanted those positions left open for the sons of high lords of Westeros, which would bind them better to Aegon’s side.

And Aegon supposed that he understood the wisdom in that, but he did not regret naming Rolly. The other boy was his closest friend, or what amounted to one, and had been the one to help teach him to fight, as they prepared for this war. 

Rolly, where he was still seated at the feasting tables, was grinning up at him.

And, standing beside him, refilling the glass that Aegon had left behind there, was the serving girl who had caught his eye earlier.

They made eye contact for a moment, and then she winked at him. Aegon could feel himself flushing, hoping that no one else would notice.

He told himself that it could just as easily be written off as nervousness, after what had just happened.

After he had just been crowned. King of the Seven Kingdoms.

He wondered, sometimes, if the gods allowed the dead to look down on the world they had left behind.

He wondered, if his mother was watching him, if she was proud of him.

“Tomorrow,” Jon said then, interrupting him, “We march on Dragonstone,” he announced, and the men cheered. “And after that,” a pause, and even Aegon found himself catching his breath then, because he knew what was coming, knew, and still loathed it, all the same. “King’s Landing!”

The men cheered again.

Aegon closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath.

“Long live the King!” Jon shouted, and the men took up the chant, until Aegon almost forgot what Jon had announced, almost forgot what their plan was.

Almost forgot how many people might end up suffering, because of it.

* * *

“Rolly,” Aegon announced loudly as his friend all but dragged him down the hall, towards the chambers that had once belonged to both Robert and then Stannis Baratheon, swaying dangerously, “You’re my closest friend.”

Rolly let out a laugh. “You can’t hold your liquor, Your Grace,” he said, and Aegon swatted this off the way that one might swat a fly.

Jon had said the same thing when he had dismissed Aegon to go to bed like a much younger child, not half an hour earlier. He hadn’t looked quite as amused as Rolly was now, though. 

“You have to tell me,” Aegon said, giggling slightly at the reminder himself, “Did I look ridiculous up there, with that crown on my head?”

Rolly snorted; for all that he was half carrying Aegon, Aegon was not entirely sure that he was any more sober than he himself was, for all his self-righteousness and amusement at Aegon’s expense.

“Very, Your Grace,” he said, putting a rather large emphasis on the title. “Like a pompous prick, I have to say. You know, they say the Governor in Braavos looks like that, every time he goes out in public.”

Aegon rolled his eyes. “Isn’t he dead, now? I thought they replaced him with someone a little more...humble.”

Rolly shrugged. “Not really my area,” they came to a sudden stop in front of the rooms that had been allotted for Aegon. “This, though?” he smirked. “You’re welcome.”

Aegon’s brows knit in confusion. “Huh?”

Rolly rolled his eyes. “Well, why don’t you go in and find out?” he asked.

Aegon swallowed hard, staring at the shut door. “There’s something about it,” he admitted. “Sleeping in the chambers of the men who owned this place before I took it. It feels…”

Wrong, he wanted to say, but the word caught in his throat.

Rolly snorted again. “Better get used to that, Your Grace. You know how many kings have died after sleeping in the nicest chambers in King’s Landing?” Aegon made a face. “Besides,” Rolly went on, giving him a little push past the guards and into the room itself, “I got you a little present that might help you forget that.”

Aegon glanced back sharply at him as the door opened, and then, as it did, abruptly had his question answered.

The mousy haired serving girl who had met his eyes in the throne room was standing in the middle of his chambers now, not wearing a stitch of clothing on her. She smirked, when Aegon’s eyes trailed her form, his mouth parting slightly.

The guards, behind him, made a sharp noise before being shut off with a glare from Rolly, who stepped up behind Aegon and rested his hands on Aegon’s shoulders.

“I saw the way you were looking at her, earlier,” Rolly whispered, in his ear. Then, “Don’t worry; she said she was...very willing, when I asked.”

Aegon swallowed thickly. 

Rolly clapped him on the shoulder, again, letting go of him then, and Aegon stumbled forward a little bit before righting himself, not wanting to look like a complete fool in front of this girl, and in front of Rolly. Still, Rolly snorted at his expense.

And then, Rolly was gone, the door slamming shut behind him. Aegon jumped a little, at the noise, and saw the way the serving girl’s lips curled into a smirk.

“Your Grace,” the mousy serving girl said, dipping into a bow before him.

He squinted at her. 

“Something wrong, Your Grace?” she asked, all but batting her eyelashes at her, and Aegon shook his head, slowly.

“Only that I’m surprised you would call me that, considering what House your loyalty belongs to,” he pointed out, and the girl blinked at him a moment longer, before humming.

She shook her head. “Once, House Tyrell pledged their loyalty to House Targaryen and fought against the Baratheons in the Rebellion,” she said, shrugging. “So I see nothing wrong with...continuing that loyalty.”

Yes, that was troubling, Aegon thought, his brows furrowing.

He wanted to find a way to end all of this without excessive bloodshed, and yet, he knew that it would be difficult to trust House Tyrell at all, even if they did come to some sort of fragile peace. They gave their word so easily, and so easily did they turn around and give it to someone else, when it suited them.

They had pledged to House Targaryen, and had sat outside this very castle for all of those long months of the Rebellion, not wanting to side with the rebels themselves but not willing to shed real blood in case House Targaryen lost the war.

Besides, it had been easier for Mace Tyrell, more profitable, to sit outside of Storm’s End and try to starve out children than to fight against Robert Baratheon and his hordes, as Jon had explained to him.

It was almost fitting, then, that this was where Aegon had been crowned. He wondered if that was why Jon had insisted on it tonight.

But still, if he could find a way to trust their word, Aegon thought, he would very much like to. 

He cocked his head at the mousy young woman before him. The more he looked at her, the more beautiful she became, he admitted.

“In fact,” she said, moving closer to him, “I can’t help but think that I ought to be the one to...prove that loyalty, just now.” She reached out, running a hand down his arm.

Aegon went still, at the touch.

She blinked up at him, seductively. “Have you ever been with a woman?” she asked, quietly.

He blinked at her, unwilling to tell her that he had never even kissed a woman.

But she just smiled, reaching up for the buttons of his dress shirt in silence.

“I can offer you nothing,” he told her, as his hands swept down her shoulders, unbidden, while she pulled his shirt open.

She laughed, a beautiful sound, like tinkling glass, and surged forward, kissing him.

It was the first time that Aegon had ever felt a woman’s kiss. She was soft, and warm, and he leaned into it desperately.

“I know,” she said, pulling back and giving him a beatific smile. Then, she pushed him back gently against the wall. “I am a mere servant, you a…” her hands swept down his chest, down towards his trousers, “Great king. And I have…always wanted to know what one tastes like.”

He stared at her.

And then, slowly, he smiled.

He wasn’t betrothed to anyone yet, after all.

And besides, he’d heard that his aunt had been with many women. He might as well get some practice in.

* * *

He dreamt of his mother, that night.

He couldn’t remember what she looked like, had only vague afterimages of warmth and kindness, knew from Jon that she had been very beautiful, even if that beauty had failed to keep his father enticed.

But, for all that Jon had said that with a certain sadness in his voice, as if he thought that if only Aegon’s lovely mother had managed to do so, some things might have been avoided, Aegon did not blame his mother for that.

Whatever wife he ended up with, he intended to treat her with enough respect to avoid beginning a war, as his father had done.

In his dream, she was screaming.

He'd had this dream before; multiple times, in fact, and somehow, while he slept, he knew it was just another dream, and yet still, he felt that cold feeling sweeping over him, as his mother screamed.

He awoke in a cold sweat, heard one of the guards coming in, asking him if everything was all right, if he was being attacked, but Aegon waved the other man off, reaching up to mop at his face.

He didn't understand what the dream meant, didn't know if it was just his nightmares reasserting themselves, the nightmares he'd had shortly after Jon had told him what really happened to his parents, why his mother had never been there for him, in his childhood, and that she hadn't just died in childbirth, as he'd always been told before that. No, instead she'd died in one of the worst ways imaginable...

He wondered if history was doomed to repeat itself.

Aegon sighed, sitting up in the bed and reaching for his trousers, where they had ended up discarded on the floor, earlier. It felt so foolish, just now, to have wasted time with such frivolities when he had all but forgotten what he was really doing here, what all of this was about.

He didn't want to shed blood, didn't want history to repeat itself, but wasn't he doing all of this for a good reason? To prevent such things from happening again? He should not have lost sight of that, even for a moment. Jon's admonition about drinking, earlier, made a sick sort of sense, now that he felt far too sober.

His mother had been screaming, in his dreams, because he had yet to fulfill his promise to her, the one he had made to the stars the same night that Jon had finally told him who he really was. His promise to avenge her.

For a moment, he found himself wondering where the serving girl - Aenea, she had said her name was - had gone, before he remembered that they had never quite made it to the bed. That she had insisted it would not be proper for a serving girl to share the bed of a king, and then had all but begged him to take her against the wall outside of his chambers.

He hadn’t been quite brave enough for that, but she had been happy enough with the wall inside his bedchambers, all the same.

He wondered if that was something...normal, for a servant, or if this was because she was a Tyrell. He knew very little about their people, but their Queen had already had two husbands, was angling for a third, apparently.

Perhaps, like in Essos and the other Free Cities, such things did not concern them as much as they did other lords and ladies in Westeros.

He smiled slightly, at the memory, even if he still felt vaguely guilty for losing sight of his purpose here for even that small amount of time, before shaking his head towards the guard asking after him.

“Actually,” he called to the servant, “I need you to find me a quill and some parchment.”

He would not become like his father, or Robert Baratheon, or any of these other men who had thought that they could stand by and let women be butchered for the throne.

After all, he was taking the throne to put an end to all of the fighting, not to cause more suffering.

He licked his lips. “And I need a messenger awoken, to take a message for me.”

The guard blinked at him. “To where, Your Grace?”

He swallowed, knowing that if he told the man, it would make its way back to Jon, who would try to stop him from doing this, he knew. But...he had to try. “To King’s Landing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter today, but let me know what you think!


	26. King's Landing

The look on Margaery Tyrell’s face, when she saw her lover writhing on the ground in front of so many people…oh, it had been almost worth every humiliation that Cersei had suffered since arriving in King’s Landing, perhaps even since she had been sent away from it in the first place.

Margaery Tyrell had ensured that Cersei would not be able to be with her son, in his death, and so, Cersei had taken away the woman she loved from her, if Sansa’s words were to be believed, and Cersei had never more wanted to believe them than she did now, after seeing the way Margaery had looked.

After hearing her shocked scream.

It almost made up for the other disturbing news that had reached them at the feast.

Almost.

Cersei reached a hand up and rubbed it over her mouth, pacing aimlessly through the chambers she had been given since she had gotten here, chambers that very clearly told her the Tyrells thought little enough of her.

Gods.

Myrcella.

Myrcella had been...Those fucking Dornish had not only stolen her away from her family, twice now, but had now turned her against them. Were using her like their little pawn, to take what belonged to her brother.

To Cersei.

That Myrcella’s captors had seen fit to crown her on the very night that the Seven Kingdoms were meant to be mourning her brother, officially. It was disgusting, and it almost made Cersei loathe them more for it than she did the Tyrells, at the moment.

They had crowned her, when they had no right to do so, possessing not a single honest septon amongst them, nor a reason for Myrcella to be crowned, when her brother Tommen was still alive and well.

And they had seen fit to send the news to King’s Landing on the very same day that her brother had finally been laid to rest, a calculated move if Cersei had ever seen one.

They hadn’t even had the decency to send it to her, either. Had sent it to the Highgarden Whore, as if there was any reason for them to…

Cersei went still, suddenly.

The Martells had seen fit to send that message to Margaery on the day of her husband’s funeral, had done it on purpose so that Margaery would get it at that time.

And the Dornish ships in the harbor were gone. Had disappeared almost at the same moment Margaery had agreed to arrest the emissary from Dorne and Prince Trystane, though Cersei was not convinced she had really understood what she was doing at the time.

She had been...almost understandably upset, at the time, after all.

The door opened behind her, and Cersei half turned, though she knew who it was going to be even before she saw his face. For a moment, she had almost been frightened that the little bitch was going to send guards to arrest her, that she knew what Cersei had done and exactly why she had done it, and this was the end.

Except...even then, it would not be the end.

She had enough soldiers who had followed her to King’s Landing, who even now were waiting outside the city, that this would not be the end.

She turned, and found herself facing Qyburn. He was staring at her in something like uncertainty; she knew that her plan didn’t make much sense to a learned man like him, but he was loyal to the end, a dog feeding out of her hand because she allowed him a few rats to play with.

“You did well, Qyburn,” Cersei admitted despite her foul mood, praised him. She knew that he wanted to hear it, after all, and just now, there was nothing that she could do for Myrcella, much as she wanted to storm Dorne even now.

Dorne had never been invaded, she told herself. Just because it had never been done didn’t mean that it was impossible, but it might be when she was trying

“Whatever did you give the little chit?”

The way that Sansa had been convulsing on the ground, choking on her vomit near the end...The Tyrell guards had all but dragged Margaery out of the room so that she didn't have to see that unpleasantness, but it had taken several moments for the maesters to get Sansa situated on a gurney and carry her away.

Cersei had enjoyed the sight, while she waited, while half the court waited, watching the Lady Sansa suffer with the sort of morbid curiosity with which they did everything.

And Cersei had enjoyed it, much as she would not admit that aloud. Had enjoyed watching the little bird who had learned far too much in her time at the capital suffer for marrying the man who had orchestrated her son’s death, for sleeping with Margaery Tyrell and having the gall to brag about it to Cersei’s face, as if she had any right to do so, whether Joffrey had ordered it or not. The girl who had, somehow, taken far too much control of her situation since the last time that Cersei had been in King’s Landing.

And, she was a Stark. She had deserved to suffer for all of those things, after Cersei had once pitied her.

Qyburn gave her an almost idle smile. “Something that will ensue the little bird suffers, Your Grace, as you demanded.”

Cersei forced a smile. “Good.”

In truth, it didn’t matter what it was he had given her. The little bitch was not intended to die; Cersei was not so great a fool that she didn’t understand the girl’s use, but the poison had been useful, after all.

It had shown Margaery Tyrell’s weakness.

She remembered that dinner, when she had sat with Sansa while Margaery was imprisoned in the Sept and the girl had lied to her face with the same ease with which Margaery had lied to the High Sparrow, about their relationship.

Had claimed that the two of them felt nothing for each other beyond what Joffrey wanted them to feel, that he was implicit in his own betrayal.

Cersei had not wanted to believe at the time, but she had.

But the two of them had made a fatal mistake, since then. Joffrey was dead, and Sansa Stark was still here.

If the girl had half a spine, which she was beginning to show she clearly did, and didn’t care for the Highgarden Whore as much as she claimed, she would be halfway back to Winterfell by now.

And she was still here.

And the moment Cersei arrived, she had intended to know exactly where the two whores stood with each other.

She had found that out easily enough, as well; Margaery Tyrell had screamed as she watched Sansa die, with far more emotion than Cersei imagined she had displayed when her own husband had died. Had fought against her brother's arms, as he tried to pull her away from further danger, had looked at Sansa Stark with such longing and fear in her eyes, that all of Cersei’s questions had been answered.

She had always known that Margaery Tyrell didn’t care a whit about her son, but to see that she had fallen into the arms of a woman instead…

Well, it was the same reaction Cersei might have had, if she had seen Jaime dying before her, and she knew, now.

It was not the sort of confirmation that she relished, but they would both pay for their transgressions, Cersei would see to that, at least.

“I’m going to want something done about that bitch in Dorne, Arianne, too,” Cersei informed the former maester. “She thinks that she can just steal my daughter’s allegiance from me, and then, as if that weren’t enough, endanger her life by crowning her queen. As if her brother isn’t the one meant for the role, little though he seems to want it, and she to stand by his side, supporting him.”

Myrcella would like that, Cersei thought. Once they were all back together again, she would be good for Tommen. Better than Janei had been of late, because the girl didn’t seem to understand her new place in the world, without her mother there to hold her hand.

And Myrcella had always loved Tommen, unlike her older brother.

And then she could be back home again, the four of them a family.

Cersei, her children, and Jaime, once she forgave him and accepted him back into the fold. Once he had returned from his foolish quest.

She just had to figure out how she was going to get her daughter back, and make the Dornish pay for what they had done, by taking her in the first place.

Gods, she felt something like panic welling up within her. There were far too many variables, lately, and now this Targaryen Pretender had landed in Storm’s End, and she was going to have to figure out what to do with him, as well.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Qyburn told her. “I have been experimenting with poisons delivered via a cut into the skin, which then burn the victim from the inside out, for many days. I understand that recently, Arianne Martell is not the most popular amongst her people. Is that something you would be interested in?”

Cersei raised a hand. She didn’t much care, to be honest, how the Martell bitch died, just that she regretted ever thinking she could steal Cersei’s own daughter from her before she did so.

“Just see it done,” she said, icily. “I want the Seven Kingdoms to know what it means to try to use my children against me.”

Margaery had done that, had manipulated Joffrey into doing her every bidding while Cersei could do nothing, and she still hadn’t paid for it, but she would.

And so would Sansa.

And so would Arianne Martell.

Qyburn dipped into a bow. “And…” he said, slowly. “The girl?”

For a moment, Cersei thought that they were still talking about Sansa. And then she remembered that Rosamund Tyrell was still serving as Sansa’s lady’s maid, still sending her messages, though she had not sent one since Cersei’s arrival here.

Perhaps Cersei needed to do something to rectify that.

Of course, as Sansa’s lady’s maid, Rosamund had just found a good portion of her day suddenly freed up. Cersei intended to make use of it.

She hummed. “Find her,” she said. “Remind her who she belongs to, and ask her if there’s anything she would like to tell me.”

It would be too dangerous for Cersei to approach the girl herself; after all, Sansa already suspected them of working together, and while she was currently out of the picture, Cersei had no doubt she had confided such things in Margaery, as well.

Margaery, who had displayed so much emotion as she saw what Cersei had done to Sansa, more emotion than Cersei had once thought her capable of.

She must truly care for the little chit.

Cersei almost wished she could kill Sansa, in that case.

She reached up, brushing the hair out of her eyes, about to give Qyburn another set of orders, when she found herself suddenly distracted by the door opening once more, this time a guest she was not expecting stepping through.

“We need to speak,” Kevan said, bursting into her chambers then, and Cersei reflected that he had been a far more mild mannered man when he was still following her bother around like he thought that the sun shone out of Tywin Lannister’s arse.

Everyone had always thought that, and yet, her father had still died stinking of shit and whatever the poison used against him had been.

She closed her eyes; she’d forgotten about that. That there had been more than one poison, and suddenly, as she stood in King’s Landing ruminating about how she had just tried to poison Tyrion Lannister’s wife, that perhaps she hadn’t been wrong, originally, in assuming that Tyrion had something to do with their father’s death.

He was clearly capable of killing a member of his own family by proxy, after all.

Cersei drew in a short breath, and then another, telling herself that it didn't matter. That she didn't know how she felt about Kevan or about Tyrion, any longer, not after what they said Tyrion had done to her brother.

Right now, even with much of her army parked outside of King’s Landing, Cersei needed all of the allies she could find.

“What is it, Uncle?” she asked, and for a moment, she had a spike of fear that some other unforeseen circumstance had happened, that something had happened in the Westerlands...

“I’m afraid that I have…bad news, Cersei,” Kevan said, and Cersei rounded on him.

“I haven’t forgotten, just because of the excitement at the feast,” she snapped.

Dear gods, she hoped Sansa Stark choked on her own bile. And then that this new contender, this Targaryen pretender, waded in the blood of her enemies, took out the Tyrells before she ever had to lift a finger. “Myrcella has been crowned by those…those idiots in Dorne. You are supposed to be Hand of the King, though I do not know how you could abandon your own family to serve these...upstarts. What are you going to do about it?”

But Kevan’s face was drawn, his eyes filled with a brief that she didn’t think was because of Myrcella’s unlawful coronation. He, like every other Lannister in their family, didn’t care about the girls of the family.

Only about himself, about furthering the Lannister legacy. No doubt, he found this preferable, to know that the Dornish might want to wage a way on behalf of a Lannister.

Cersei’s lips pressed together. As if.

Something Oberyn Martell had told her, ages ago, before he’d found his death for trying to help her stupid imp of a brother’s wife, came to mind, then.

We don’t hurt little girls, in Dorne, he’d told her.

Cersei wanted to laugh. She couldn’t think of anything that had hurt little girls more than being the pawns of warmongers.

They would pay for stealing her daughter away from her, for using her like this, against her own brother, and only after Cersei had crowned him.

Kevan’s face was still drawn, as if he didn’t want to say what he was about to next, and something about the look on his face had her stomach twisting in dread.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

Something new then, she surmised, horror filling her, as she wondered what horrible revenge Margaery Tyrell had already cooked up against her, for stealing her lover from this world.

“What is it?” She whispered.

Kevan looked away; she realized then, as he faced half away from her, that he’d been crying, and perhaps for some time, before he had come to see her.

He’d been fine, at the feast. More than fine, in fact; he’d seemed strangely happy, and for the first time since Cersei’s arrival in King’s Landing.

Something was wrong.

She remembered the thought she’d had not a few moments ago, the thought that there was no reason to crown Myrcella when her brother was alive and well, despite the strange traditions of the Dornish people.

We don’t hurt little girls, in Dorne.

The rest of the Seven Kingdoms would never stand for it, after all.

Cersei’s heart thudded in her ears.

“Cersei…” Kevan gave her another look, his eyes bloodshot, and Cersei knew.

She didn’t know how she knew, from that look alone, but she did.

“What is it.” She snapped out, even though a part of her already knew, and Kevan closed his eyes.

“It’s Tommen, Cersei. He’s…” Kevan hesitated again, giving her a long, concerned look. Then, “He’s gone.”

* * *

“How is she?” Margaery demanded of the maester, leaning in close over the bed as the maesters did their work. They had warned her that her presence there was something of a distraction, and that they did not know whether whatever afflicted Sansa was contagious, but Margaery refused to leave.

She had been doing that far too often, lately.

She was never going to let Sansa out of her sight, again.

Sansa, laying on her bed in the Maidenvault, because it had been a more confined area that they could take her to, with three maesters leaning over her, trying to figure out what was wrong with her.

It had been hours, since she had first fallen ill. Since the maesters had determined that it was poison, of some sort, though they did not know what it was, and the guards had decided that, so long as she was with Garlan and four other guards at all times, the Regent was not in danger, as well.

The maesters had insisted on looking over her with far more care than they had given Sansa so far, and Margaery hated them for it, even as she understood. She was carrying the future King; they had wanted to make sure that her wine had not also been poisoned.

And for several moments, Margaery had thought perhaps it had. Perhaps that was why she now found it so hard to breathe, why her heart was hammering so in her chest.

But she knew why that was happening; it was because Sansa looked so pale and warm, on the bed, sweating through her sheets but as pale as cut marble.

She looked like a dead woman, from this angle, with Margaery leaning over her, and she had not awoken since collapsing.

Behind her, Margaery could hear Garlan sigh; it was the third time Margaery had asked the question, and she knew that perhaps she was getting annoying, but it wasn’t as if she could just sit back and do nothing.

If she was to sit in her rooms and wait for the maesters to bring her news that Sansa was getting worse, or that, gods above, she was dead…

Margaery would never forgive herself.

She had to be here. She just had to.

The Grandmaester, useless man, grimaced. “There has been no change, Your Grace, since we managed to stop her from sicking up on herself again,” he informed her, and Margaery wanted to spit at him that she had eyes.

“I want you to do whatever is necessary to heal her, do you understand?” Margaery demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, her swollen breasts aching. “Whatever it necessary.”

The maester swallowed. “As you wish, Your Grace,” he said, dipping his head to her. “Though...I should warn you. I have never seen this particular poison, and am not well versed in how to…”

Margaery gritted her teeth together. “Then find someone who is. You have been an incredible disappointment to me, as a Grandmaester. I’m sure I can find someone who can do the job better.”

The man gulped. “My apologies, Your Grace. We will figure this out.”

She harrumphed, moving away from him to lean against the far wall and watch while the maesters performed their tests, all of the while trying to keep Sansa from growing any worse.

Gods, this was her fault.

She should have...she should have made sure Sansa knew, before she collapsed from some unknown poison, that they were together in this, despite the way they’d been fighting. Should have had her sit closer, because whoever this person was, they had clearly targeted Sansa, and perhaps they wouldn’t have, had she been sitting beside Margaery.

And instead, Margaery had been sitting beside Cersei.

Cersei, who had been genuinely mourning her son all day, and whom Margaery had almost pitied, as they stood in the Sept, having his funeral. Had almost pitied, because she was perhaps the only person here who truly felt sad that Joffrey was dead, and because she was sitting beside the person who had killed him.

And then Sansa had collapsed, and she had seen the look in Cersei’s eyes as her brother and her Kingsguard dragged her away.

She was almost completely certain that she knew who had poisoned Sansa, and all the pity she had been feeling for Cersei throughout the day had melted away. All she could think about was Sansa, and how their last conversation had been a dressing down from Olenna.

And now she was here, pestering the maesters because she couldn’t stand the thought of remaining in her chambers and ringing her hands together, and Cersei was out there, wreaking whatever havoc she willed, just now.

As if summoned by the mere thought of her, Margaery heard the sound of Cersei’s shrill voice outside of Sansa’s chambers, yelling at the guards there. Margaery reached up, pressing her fingers to her temples and ignoring the concerned look that Garlan sent her, where he stood beside her.

The maesters were suddenly ruffled by the sound, but Margaery snapped at them, “You keep working, no matter what. Heal her, or I’ll have your heads. Yes?”

They swallowed hard, nodding, as one, just as the door to Sansa’s bedchambers flew open, and Cersei emerged, running forward like a vengeful god. For a moment, Margaery wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly pulled out a knife and lunged at Margaery.

For a moment, she adjusted to the room, saw Sansa laying on the bed without a single emotion on her face, and then her eyes flitted to Margaery, and darkened considerably. The rage returned.

“You!” Cersei screamed as she stalked closer, and Margaery felt something like a spike of fear, at the sight, even with all of her guards surrounding her. “You did this!”

She lunged.

Garlan and two other guards proved just able to hold her back from going for Margaery’s throat, and Margaery grimaced as she backed up from the other woman, hating how vulnerable she felt when her back hit the far wall.

“What is going on?” she demanded.

Cersei let out another furious scream, trying to fight off her guards’ hold on her and finding that she couldn’t, that they were too strong for her.

The maesters crowding around Sansa looked suddenly nervous, but they didn’t stop working, fearing for their heads rather too much, Margaery supposed.

Garlan stepped between Margaery and Cersei. “Get her out of here,” he told the guards, who tried to do just that, but Cersei fought them, face puce.

“You stole him,” Cersei hissed out. “You took him. Where is he?”

Margaery shook her head, glancing in confusion at Garlan, who looked suddenly...terribly guilty.

“I need you to leave,” one of the maesters said, then. “All of you. Your Grace...s, We cannot work without…”

“You shut up, you fat fuck,” Cersei snapped at him, pointing towards the bed. “I don’t care if the little bitch chokes on her own vomit because I was here to distract you,” she said, and Margaery felt a shiver run up her spine as Cersei’s fiery gaze turned to her. “Where is my son? What did you do with him, you slut?”

Margaery flinched back from her. “Did what?” she demanded, and Cersei stared into her eyes for a moment before she started to almost deflate, taking one step back from Margaery, and then another.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”

“Cersei, what…” Margaery cut herself off, recognizing the look in Garlan’s eyes.

When they were children, Margaery remembered him accidentally harming one of the horses. He hadn’t been a good rider at the time. Had run the horse almost into the ground, and then had lied about to their parents when Mace and Alerie asked who had hurt the horse by overexerting it.

He’d lied, and said it was Loras.

Loras had spent the next several weeks mucking out the stables, unable to prove that it wasn’t him because he’d bee fucking one of the stable boys that day and didn’t want to admit to it.

Garlan had the same look in his eyes as he had that day.

He had always been such a terrible liar.

And, despite herself, despite the fact that Sansa lay on the bed not too far away and Margaery wasn’t certain if she would ever wake up, Margaery felt something like relief flowing through her.

Because Garlan and Sansa had been working together of late, though they tried to pretend that they weren’t when Margaery was around. And neither one of them would allow harm to befall Tommen.

If they had him, it meant that he was safe, and away from Cersei’s control, which was what they all wanted at the moment.

“Tommen,” Cersei breathed, and there was a wetness in her eyes that both of them refused to acknowledge. “Someone came and stole him, in the dead of night, the animals. He was taken away from the Rock for his own safety, and then someone else took him.”

Her voice broke on the final words, and Margaery might have felt pity for the other woman, if she wasn’t almost completely certain that she was the reason Sansa was lying in this bed.

“Cersei, I…”

“Someone stole him,” Cersei repeated. “My child, my youngest son. He’s gone, and I can’t see how the Martells or this Targaryen pretender might have had anything to do with it.” She struggled against her guards again. “Where is he? You tell me where he is, my boy…”

“I didn’t touch your son, Cersei,” Margaery told her, and hoped that the genuine surprise she felt, even as she remembered what Sansa had told her, that now they had Shireen and Tommen, flitted through her mind, was enough to convince the other woman.

It was easier if she didn’t look at Garlan’s guilty face while she said it.

Cersei stared at her for a moment longer, gaze searching, and Margaery forced herself to remain still, calm. Whatever she saw, Cersei eventually deflated against the guards holding her, looking exhausted, now.

Margaery rather sympathized with the feeling.

“Then where is he?” Cersei whispered, voice hoarse.

Margaery shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps you should have kept a better eye on him, after putting him in such danger in the first place by crowning him King.”

She couldn’t help the nastiness with which she said the words, not when they were standing over Sansa’s unconscious body.

Cersei stared at her. Then, she tried to lunge again, the guards, who had almost begun to think she was no longer a threat, forced to grab at her again.

“Why you fucking…”

“Get out of these rooms,” Margaery hissed at her. “I don’t want you in here.”

Cersei swallowed hard, and then lifted her chin. “If I find out that you had anything to do with this, anything at all…”

“Get out,” Margaery repeated, words like flint.

Cersei stared at her for a moment longer, and then turned and walked out of the rooms. The door slammed loudly behind her.

The guards and the maesters still looked nervous.

Margaery hated that they feared Cersei more than they did her.

“That boy better be the picture of health, wherever the fuck he is,” Margaery whispered to Garlan, as the door shut behind Cersei, and the maesters glanced over at her in concern before refocusing their attention on Sansa. “Or I swear by the gods, Cersei will see us all dead for it.”

“He’s fine,” Garlan assured her, though he didn’t look as sure as he sounded. “Lady Nym was the one to go and collect him. She won’t let harm befall him so long as she knows he has use.”

Margaery snorted, thinking of her letter from the Martells. Lady Nym had bent the knee to her, but she had believed Arianne, as well.

“For all our sakes,” she whispered, “I hope you’re right.” Then, she turned back to the maesters. “If she isn’t better by the end of the week, you’re all losing your heads.”

She knew she should have felt guilt, saying a thing like that to maesters who were already clearly trying their best, who had actually helped her when she had been ill, in the past.

But if she died...

If Sansa died...

Margaery sucked in a deep breath, and then another. 

And with that, she turned and stalked out of the room, Garlan and her guards following behind her.

She almost made it back to her chambers before she collapsed in Garlan’s arms, sobbing.

Let Cersei’s spies see, Margaery thought. She had a feeling the other woman was rather distracted at the moment, anyway.

* * *

‘We need to talk,” Olenna said, standing outside her bedchambers, leaning heavily on her cane.

Margaery wiped at her eyes and glanced up sharply at her grandmother, rather annoyed that the guards had let her into the room, despite who she was, when Margaery had demanded to be left alone.

Left alone because if she had to face anyone else, crying over Sansa, they would all know exactly what the other girl meant to her, she was certain.

“I don’t have the time…” she started to say, but Olenna cut her off.

"How is Sansa? Still no better, I imagine?"

Margaery glared at her. "I can't..."

“Kevan Lannister and I have agreed that it is time to sit down and discuss our terms with Cersei,” Olenna interrupted her, the words blindsiding Margaery, even though she knew that was part of the reason that they had ever invited Cersei to the capital in the first place.

Margaery balked.

No, no she was not going to agree to that.

She knew, of course, that was the reason Cersei had been invited here.

But she had also seen the look in Cersei’s eyes when Sansa had collapsed, seen the fury in them later when she had thought that Margaery had kidnapped Tommen. When she found out the truth, that it really had been them, she was never going to agree to any terms they did come up with.

And, at the moment, volatile as Margaery felt, she wasn’t certain that there was any gold in the world that Cersei might be able to offer her to convince her to come to truce, no matter how many enemies they had.

These enemies were unknowns, for the most part. Whatever was happening with Arianne...that was an unknown, as well.

Cersei was a known enemy; Margaery knew her too well, knew exactly what she was capable of, the moment she took any advantage offered her.

Margaery was not about to give her that chance.

She shook her head, wordless. Then, “No,” she said. “For all we know, for all I know, she poisoned Sansa. I’m not sitting down to discuss anything with her except what day of the week she wants to go to war.”

Olenna let out a long sigh, looking annoyed with Margaery’s shortsightedness, but that only made Margaery feel more stubborn about her position. Olenna might be able to forget what Sansa was to her, and perhaps Margaery had forgotten that for a time, as well, but Margaery wasn’t about to forget it now, just because Cersei had such a large army.

Olenna gave her a long look, and then sighed again. “And when Aegon Targaryen, or this boy claiming to be him, decides that the two of you fighting one another is the perfect time to attack us? What will you do then?”

Margaery flinched. “And when we team up with Cersei to take down this new imposter, and she turns around and stabs us in the back because we’ve given her the opportunity to do so?” she questioned. “What then?”

“We need her,” Olenna said. “Don’t tell me that you’re too obstinate to see that, especially now. We have enemies to the East and enemies to the South. There’s no way…”

“We don’t know that they’re enemies,” Margaery said, slowly. “I don’t know what it is that they’re doing, but I don’t think that Arianne has turned against us. I think that she’s been…” she looked at Olenna. “At any rate, I trust her far more than I trust Cersei Lannister.”

Olenna gave her a look that was annoyingly pitying. “The Martells have been playing you, my dear, and you were a fool not to guess that from the start.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “I don’t think that just because-”

“Give them up,” Olenna said. “I don’t know all of the specifics of what you and Arianne Martell spoke about, but you clearly can’t trust her.”

“And I can trust Cersei Lannister?” Margaery demanded, laughing incredulously as she leaned back on her bed. “Of the two of them, Arianne has only tried to kill me once. Cersei will keep trying until she gets it done.”

“And when the Martells attack King’s Landing to put Myrcella on the throne?” Olenna asked, raising a brow. “Do you think they won’t try to kill you, then?”

Margaery shook her head. “It won’t come to that. They’re impatient but I can…”

“So is Cersei,” Olenna pointed out, “And while we have other problems at the moment, Cersei has an army sitting outside of King’s Landing.”

Margaery stared at her, mouth opening and closing for several moments. Then, she shook her head.

“No, I’m not going to reconsider negotiating with that bitch! She may as well have killed Sansa!” Margaery cried, reaching up with one hand to cover her mouth. “The maesters say...They say she might not even wake, and if she doesn’t…”

She didn’t dare voice those words aloud, not to her grandmother, who had once held so much of her trust, who had once known her every thought.

If Sansa didn’t wake, all of this would have been for nothing. Everything the two of them had suffered to get to this point, where the world wasn’t supposed to be able to hurt them anymore as long as they could stop hurting each other...all of it.

Margaery may as well walk out into the harbor and drown herself. It would be an easier fate than living a life without Sansa in it, and that terrified her, how easily the thought came.

“No. I’m not going to listen to shit that woman has to say,” Margaery said, instead, because that, her grandmother had to understand.

“You will listen,” Olenna said. “And you’ll listen well, if you don't want to find yourself fighting a war on three fronts, rather than two.”

Margaery spun to her then. “Three?”

Olenna let out a long sigh.

“Something you should know about your friends? The Martells have known that Aegon Targaryen was going to land in Westeros for months, my dear,” Olenna interrupted her, and Margaery found herself stunned into silence. “They knew that he was Elia Martell’s daughter, and they were always planning to bend the knee for him, and marry Arianne Martell to him.”

Margaery ground her teeth together.

Because the thing was...the thing was, she wanted to believe that Olenna was wrong, that Arianne wouldn’t do that to her, because she had seen the look on Arianne’s face when she had offered this plan in the first place.

But.

For all that she and Arianne had worked so hard together to achieve the revenge that they wanted, that was the only thing binding them together, and Margaery knew damn well that the Martells, that Arianne herself, could be impatient.

That if she thought she could find a better offer, she would take it.

But...her grandmother had said months. Months, and that meant that Arianne had known about Aegon even when she had proposed this plan in the first place.

Gods, no doubt she’d only made the offer of an alliance in the first place in the hopes that Margaery could take out the Lannisters for her, and she could take up the pieces.

Of course, it didn't help that a part of Margaery had very much considered doing the same damn thing.

But this…

“Ellaria Sand killed your brother, Margaery,” Olenna said, and Margaery blinked at her, felt as the breath had been knocked out of her at the words.

“W-what?”

Olenna sighed, looking ashamed at the way she had brought it up, which she damn well should, Margaery thought.

“Willas’ murderer. It wasn’t Cersei. It was Ellaria Sand. A way of getting us and the Lannisters at each other’s throats, so that when you arrived in Dorne, you would be more likely to agree to their plans, Margaery. This was all planned out by them from the beginning.”

Margaery swallowed hard, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No, that doesn’t...That doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t…”

Ellaria Sand had been locked away in the tower with Doran Martell when Arianne had staged her coup. She hadn’t been in on it with them…

“Don’t you see?” Olenna asked her, softly. “Cersei is our best chance at surviving this, now. For better or for worse, we’ve thrown our lot in with House Lannister. Aegon Targaryen won’t care whether you think you have a right to the Iron Throne through your child, won’t care whether that child is legitimate or not.”

Margaery flinched.

“And the Martells?” Olenna continued. “With Myrcella as their new queen, with them making the choice to leave Trystane Martell behind here, they’ve drawn a line in the sand. They won’t be bending the knee to you any time soon, my dear.”

Margaery swallowed hard, standing to her feet as she paced the room, the child in her stomach suddenly throbbing at her belly. She reached a hand out, rubbing it over her stomach and forcing herself to remember to breathe.

Or Arianne hadn’t thought that Margaery would believe she was in on it with them. She would find that suspicious, perhaps.

She…

Dear gods, Margaery had thought that Arianne was something less than subtle, with the way she had approached her, and the way she had that man attack Margaery so that she would agree to go to the Water Gardens so that she would speak with Doran.

But if this was true, then it meant that Arianne had been playing her from the start. That, dear gods, she had understood Margaery from the start far better than Margaery had ever understood her.

That she had truly known exactly what she was doing, while Margaery had not.

Margaery swallowed hard. “How do you know this?” she demanded, spinning back to face her grandmother once again.

Margaery sank to the sofa. “No,” she breathed. “No, I don’t believe you. This can’t…”

Margaery couldn’t be that stupid, that easily led. She couldn’t believe that.

“They did. You can ask your Lord Baelish, if you like,” Olenna said, sounding terribly bitter. “He was all too happy to bring that information to me.”

Baelish. Baelish had known about this, and he had gone to Olenna about it, not even Sansa.

“You can’t trust him,” Margaery said, hollow. Olenna snorted. “How does he even claim to know anything about Dorne, at this point?”

“It seems you have been trusting him since your husband died,” Olenna told her, coldly.

Margaery flinched again. “That’s…”

Different, she wanted to say, but she didn’t believe that it was.

“Besides,” Olenna went on, “I had it...corroborated. It’s the truth.”

She sounded terribly disheartened about it, as if Margaery had known from the beginning that Ellaria Sand had ordered her brother’s death, and still decided to work with the Martells.

Margaery felt a spark of anger run through her at the accusation implicit on the other woman’s face.

“You always do this,” Margaery whispered. “You always come in and manage to convince me that things would be better if a little blood was spilled, that we don’t have to get our hands dirty but we have to do what we can to protect the Family. That that’s all that matters, no matter who we crawl into bed with to get there. Well, I’m the one who pays the price, Grandmother. Or someone else who didn’t deserve to. While you and Cersei Lannister keep plotting your games. Every single time.”

“Yes, and last time you sent me away with that mindset, look what happened,” Olenna said, drolly. “Look how many lives were destroyed, then.”

Margaery flinched.

Olenna reached out then, touching Margaery on the shoulder, and Margaery was hard pressed not to flinch away, this time.

“Is it really such a burden, my dear?” She asked, gently. “Knowing that you have that power in your hands. Having the power of life and death at your fingertips never...scared you before.”

She said it like she couldn’t quite understand why it should scare Margaery now, when it had certainly never scared Olenna, after all.

Margaery swallowed hard. “I knew who I wanted to be as Queen, before,” she whispered. “I knew what I was capable of, what I wanted to turn the Seven Kingdoms into. I knew that I could be good, that I could help the people. I…” she reached up, rubbing her fingertips against her lips. “I don’t…”

She didn’t know who the woman staring back at her in the mirror was, most days.

She didn’t think even Sansa knew, and that scared her perhaps more.

Sansa, who was now laying in a poison induced state, where Margaery did not know if she would ever wake, where the maesters didn’t seem to know that, either.

Another one of those innocents who suffered for their games, and in the privacy of Margaery’s own mind, she could admit that she was just as bad as Olenna and Cersei, with that.

She had been trying to do better, these past few months, and she had only forced Sansa to become what she had been, because of it.

Margaery dragged in a quick breath, and then another.

“He raped me,” she whispered, and she hadn’t even said those words aloud to Sansa; Sansa had merely walked in and seen, and known. It had been easier, with her, because she could tell, and therefore, Margaery hadn’t had to say anything at all.

Her grandmother, for all that she could not be surprised by this new information, sucked in a breath at those words, but said nothing.

“He raped me, that night,” Margaery continued, staring down at the blankets on her bed, on her husband’s bed, in lieu of looking at Olenna. It felt like a dam was bursting in her chest. “And I always knew that would happen, from the moment I realized what sort of man he was, but I stil…”

She reached up, pressing a fist against her mouth.

“I froze. When he did it, I...I froze. I was still surprised that he would do it at all, even though I’d seen all the signs, before that night. He’d been pulling away from me, no matter how hard I...I’d been scared of him, before,” she admitted. “He’d done things that...things that had terrified me. But I tried so hard to make sure that he didn’t do them to me. I...I let other people suffer because I was terrified of what he might do to me, if he realized he could make me suffer, too.”

Her grandmother reached out, touching her arm. Margaery flinched, but her grandmother didn’t pull away.

“I haven’t been a queen in a long time,” she repeated the words she’d said to Sansa, not so long ago, far more cruelly than she had meant. “I was just surviving him, trying to fool myself into thinking that I was controlling him, that I was doing anything different.” She swallowed hard. “But that night, I didn’t have any pretty words I could use to hold him back, I didn’t have someone else I could shift the blame to. There was no one there who could step in and put a leash on him when I couldn’t.”

Olenna’s breathing felt loud in the otherwise silent room. Margaery fancied she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat, as well.

She hadn’t been able to talk about this with any of her ladies, either. She knew that Megga and Elinor knew, that they had either figured it out on their own, or Sansa had told them, but she had never brought it up around them, and they did her the same courtesy.

She knew that Garlan knew there was something wrong with her, but she thought he chalked that up to her killing her own husband.

“And then, after he’d had his way with me and I just wanted to...I just wanted to block it all out and pretend that it hadn’t happened, because after all, he was my hus…” she choked off then, and for a moment, she wasn’t certain if she’d be able to continue. “Then he started talking about Sansa. And I don’t know what it was, what his obsession with her was, but no matter how much I tried to entice him, he never quite forgot about her. I think he thought she was his, in the same way that I was, but...not.” She sniffed. “And I knew if he could do that to me, he’d do it to her.”

Olenna’s hand squeezed her arm.

Margaery jerked her arm out of the other woman’s touch as if it had burned her. Olenna looked more surprised than she had when Margaery had exiled her from King’s Landing.

But she didn’t move away. Perhaps she realized that Margaery just...needed to talk.

Margaery swallowed hard.

“And suddenly, I…” she shook her head. “Suddenly the thought of someone else suffering because of him, because of me, because I failed to keep him from it, when all I’d been doing since I married him was letting someone else suffer his madness, it was too much to bear.” She let out a throaty laugh. “I told Sansa, not too long ago, that I wasn’t sure if I recognized her very much, anymore. That she had killed someone and didn’t feel any sort of guilt over it, but the truth is, I don’t either. I killed him because I knew that if I didn’t, he’d do the same thing to Sansa that he’d do to me. And I didn’t feel anything, when it happened. I just kept going. Just kept bashing his head in with that damned statue, like I didn’t know he was dead from the second hit. I...I lost count of how many times I did it. I didn’t even recognize him, after a while, but I just...kept going.”

She looked up at her grandmother, sitting beside her. “And when Sansa walked in, when Ser Meryn Trant walked in and found me like that, bashing my husband’s brains in, I thought for a moment that she wouldn’t recognize me, either. But she did. She did, and that was more horrifying because ...Because my feet were standing in blood. I could feel it between my toes, and I couldn’t feel anything, at that moment. Just like…”

Just like what had happened at the Sept, she couldn’t say, the words choking off on her tongue.

“I knew, when I married Renly and he declared war on his brother, that people were going to die,” Margaery stammered out. “I knew it, when I married Joffrey. I ordered it, when I was married to him, and watched him order it countless times. But I...I could feel his blood seeping between my toes. I did that for her, too. And I did what I did at the Sept for her, too. And sometimes, the things I’m willing to do for her, they...they scare me.”

It felt good, to finally admit that to someone, because if she admitted it to Sansa, she knew she’d only see the hurt on the other girl’s face, and Margaery had hurt her enough times, lately.

And perhaps her grandmother couldn’t even understand that, because she hadn’t had someone like Sansa in her life, because Margaery knew that she couldn’t understand their relationship, really, but it felt good to finally tell someone she knew she could trust with that information.

Because perhaps Olenna could keep her from doing it, again.

She continued in a whisper, “But I didn’t just do it because I knew he would do the same thing he had done to me, to Sansa. I did it…” she took a shuddering breath, and then another, not sure if she could even admit this thing, “because it felt like justice. I did it because I had suffered as his wife, and because other people had, and I wanted him to pay for that. But I don’t…” she shook her head. “And then Sansa went and did the same thing, to Ser Meryn, to Septa Unella. I thought I was protecting her, when I killed Joffrey, but she’s already survived more than I have. I thought for half of my life that I wanted to be the queen, but making decisions like that...I can’t become that person. I can already see it happening to Sansa, but it doesn’t seem to horrify her as much as it does me, and perhaps that’s because she’s better suited to this than I am. But I don’t want my…” she shook her head, felt tears streaking down her cheeks. “I don’t want my son to become that person, either. It is enough to send someone to madness.”

Olenna let out a long sigh. For several long moments, neither of them spoke, and Margaery wasn’t certain what could be said, after that.

Her grandmother had sacrificed so much, to put Margaery on the throne, or as close to it as she could get, and now...and now, Margaery wasn’t even certain that she wanted it.

Because a part of her still did. A part of her, despite what she had just admitted, enjoyed the power that she could achieve, the amount that she could help people, if she was sitting so close to the throne.

But a part of her felt trapped by it, all the same.

“You know, your grandfather once told me something similar,” Olenna finally said, and Margaery squinted up at her. “That I played games with the lives of innocents, and that it disgusted him.”

Margaery licked her lips. “I...I didn’t know that,” she admitted, not willing to feel something like pity for Olenna, with those words, even if a part of her did. Not willing to show her confusion, either, at the sudden change in the conversation.

Olenna harrumphed. “You don’t know much about your grandfather,” she admitted. “And perhaps that’s my fault. Perhaps its his, for not bothering to raise his son, rather than drinking and feasting through half of his life, the old oaf.”

Margaery squinted at her. Olenna shrugged.

“I was a Redwyne. He was kind, and he cared for me, but I was a Redwyne, not the Targaryen princess he was set to marry, once.” She didn’t look like she particularly minded. “From the moment I joined that family, I knew I would have to claw my way to the top, if I wanted to survive. So I did. And when I finally got there, my husband looked at me and told me that I disgusted him.”

Margaery swallowed, thought of the look in her husband’s eyes just before she had bashed his brains in, as he finally realized who she was.

“You know, Cersei was something of a fool in the way she went about offing her own husband, but at least the way he went out was plausible enough, for him. I think Luthor rode a horse a grand total of four times, in our entire marriage.”

Margaery jerked, where she sat.

Olenna reached out then, touching her fingers to Margaery’s. They felt cold, clammy. “Being a queen is not what forces you to make those decisions that you hate, my dear. We are all forced to make those decisions, from the highest in the land to the lowest. Do you think the peasants get so many choices as we? They say these days in the North that mothers are leaving their children out in the snow to save them from a life of starvation. It is the same choice.”

Margaery shook her head, pressed her lips together. “No,” she whispered. “No, I…”

“You cannot allow one act to define the rest of your life, my dear,” Olenna continued. “Or you’re right; you will fall to madness.”

Margaery was still shaking her head. “No,” she said. “That isn’t the same thing, not at all. It’s…”

“Why do you feel guilty about what happened at the Sept, at the fact that you don’t feel guilty for killing your own husband, when you don’t feel a shred of guilt for sending Oberyn Martell to his death?” Olenna countered, and Margaery felt as if the breath had suddenly been knocked out of her. Olenna harrumphed again. “It is quite the same thing, my dear.”

Margaery felt suddenly very cold.

“I’ll tell you why,” Olenna said. “Because I loved my husband very much, or as much as I could love that old oaf, and I didn’t feel a damned thing when his horse took a tumble off a cliff. It’s not natural for a horse to go so willingly to its death, you understand. They may be foolish creatures, but they don’t just walk off cliffs of their own accord.”

Margaery shook her head. “I can’t…”

Olenna’s hands were squeezing hers, now.

Margaery hadn’t realized that there was something strange in the tale of how Luthor Tyrell had died until this day, she realized, numbly. She had always accepted that story, as everyone else in the Reach had done so. Her grandfather was, after all, something of an oaf. Even her father had always admitted that.

And in his death, Olenna had become the unofficial Head of House Tyrell.

“But...if you say this is just how these things are, if this is a choice that everyone makes, then how does that absolve me? Surely it just means that i’m wicked for not feeling badly about it at all. That we’re all damned.”

She thought of what the septa had told her, that she had been in the wrong for the things she had done, but she could receive penance.

But if there were so many who had done the same, then did that mean anything at all?

And Olenna smiled sadly at her and asked, “What sort of queen do you want to be, Margaery? You don’t have the choice not to be, not when we are this deep in it. But you do have the chance to choose, now. Or, you could continue living in the past and get your head chopped clean off your shoulders in the next few days. Now is the time to decide. Guilt is for the dead.”

Margaery licked her lips, lifted her chin. “I don’t want to be the sort of queen who finds Cersei Lannister more acceptable than some other way. Any...any other way.”

“Can you guarantee that Cersei will never find out how your husband truly died?” Olenna asked her, softly. “That she won’t find out who the father of your child is?”

Margaery flinched, whole body spasming at those words.

“And allying with her will make that better?” Margaery demanded, something like panic welling up within her.

Olenna snorted. “No,” she said. “But it will ensure that we can keep a closer eye on her, without having to worry about her fighting us. For now. And at the moment, she is the only other person willing to champion a Lannister on the throne.”

Margaery crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Yes,” she said, softly. “But the wrong one.”

“Ah, but you said it yourself,” Olenna said. “Tommen is gone. Kidnapped, in the dead of night.”

Margaery scoffed. “By a Martell,” she reminded her.

“I thought you trusted this one.”

“Didn’t you just give me a lesson in why I shouldn’t trust anyone?” Margaery asked, pointedly.

Olenna hummed. “And they have joined hands with Aegon Targaryen,” she said. “Your only other option, here, who I can guarantee will not look kindly on the one person standing between him and the throne.” Her lips quirked. “I highly doubt he’ll want to marry a woman so heavily pregnant with his usurper’s grandchild.”

Margaery closed her eyes.

Her grandmother was right, after all. About this, and perhaps about everything, even if her skewed worldview was almost as terrifying as the lack of guilt that Margaery had felt when she had killed her mad husband.

It didn’t matter anyway, Margaery told herself. She could agree to this, could make her grandmother happy in this moment, and it wouldn't matter.

Cersei would never agree to negotiate with them, not when she thought she had the upper hand, not when she thought they didn’t have Tommen, either.

And thus, Margaery’s conscience was clear.

If her grandmother was to be believed, it might as well be cleared of everything.

“All right,” she whispered. “All right, I’ll agree to talks.”

* * *

“How is she today?” Margaery asked quietly, as she stepped around the Lady Brienne, after a short conversation with the other woman, who seemed genuinely concerned about Sansa as much as she seemed surprised by the number of times that Margaery kept coming here, into Sansa’s chambers to find two maesters and Megga leaning over her, all wearing identical expressions of concern.

Sansa’s labored breathing filled the room; she had been breathing like that for the last day and a half since she had been poisoned, and the maesters didn’t seem to know how to stop that any more than they did how to stop the progress of the poison currently filling her veins.

Gods, Margaery thought, this was all such a fuckup. There had been someone tasting every drink and every morsel of food that had gone before anyone’s plates the other night; the potential for a poisoning was just too high, given how many people of different factions were there.

Margaery had barely been able to eat much herself, out of fear of accidentally poisoning the baby, and instead, Sansa had been the one to pay the price.

Sansa, forced to sit at the back of the room when Margaery would have rather had her at her side...

Megga moved over to her, placing a hand on Margaery’s arm that Margaery had to remind herself not to flinch away from. Megga had surely proven herself enough lately, even if she had fallen into bed with Lady Nym, who had gone off to kidnap a child without Margaery’s knowledge, for all that she had once sworn the knee to her.

Of course, it wasn’t as if Margaery could blame Megga for that.

And she was grateful that Megga spent so much time here with Sansa, caring for her, when Margaery was not able to be. Garlan had already warned her that she was garnering enough suspicion from the people of King’s Landing, and while a part of Margaery wanted to shout at him that she didn’t give two shits what the people thought of her relationship with Sansa, she also knew that wasn’t true.

She needed these people, which meant that, as much as she needed Sansa, too, she had to stay away from the other girl, for their own protection, lest she give away even more than she already had.

“They say there’s no change, Your Grace,” Megga told her, and Margaery let out a small sigh of defeat. “That’s good, though, in a way,” Megga said, as Margaery sent her an incredulous look. “It means that she hasn’t gotten worse. Whatever poison this is, the maesters feel confident that they should be able to identify it, soon.”

And they wouldn't be able to start counteracting it until they had done so, margaery knew. Assuming that Sansa remained in her current, unchanging state, rather than growing progressively worse.

She sucked in a breath, and then another, squeezing Megga’s hand on her arm until the other girl pulled away from her.

“I thought I told you to find out what was wrong with her, or there would be consequences,” Margaery bit out, glaring at each of the maesters in turn. It didn’t escape her notice that the Grandmaester wasn’t even there; she was aware that he was old and needed the rest, but she wasn’t above thinking that he might have somehow conspired with Cersei to poison Sansa.

Though, there was likely someone else in King’s Landing who was a far better candidate for that, the creature that had emerged once Cersei had finally returned…

The maesters exchanged glances, looking nervous and sweaty. As well they should, Margaery thought, darkly. “We are doing everything that we can for her, Your Grace,” they promised again, and Margaery waved them off; she had heard that enough, these days.

Besides, another thought had occurred to her, one that meant she didn’t have to focus on how deathly pale Sansa looked, on the bed, while also looking hot enough to expire then and there.

“Where is the Lady Rosamund?” Margaery asked. “I understand Sansa still keeps her as a lady’s maid. One would think she would be here to help care for her.”

Megga made a face; Margaery knew she disapproved of Sansa keeping the other girl around as much as Margaery herself did, though she was sure that, at this point, Sansa had to have her reasons for it. “I’ve been here most of the day, Your Grace, and I haven’t seen her,” she admitted, and Margaery pulled a face.

“Of course you haven’t seen her,” she muttered, “Ungrateful little chit.”

Not that she could be too cruel about it; after all, she had been avoiding Sansa lately, too.

Had been avoiding her, and now she might never have the chance to have the conversation with Sansa that they dearly needed to have, because she wasn’t even certain that Sansa would wake again…

Margaery turned slightly to face the wall, trying to gather her bearings without being too obvious about it, with the maesters looking on.

She took a deep breath, and forced herself to look forward again, now that she felt once more like she could breathe.

The maesters started to scramble to do their work again, and Margaery bit back a sigh, aware of another reason why she shouldn’t be seeing Sansa so much; she was making the maesters nervous by her very presence here, by the anger they knew was radiating off of her.

But she hated not being able to do anything for her, hated that in all ways, her presence seemed more like a hindrance than a help.

Hated that no matter how Margaery herself felt about it, Sansa was fast asleep, and didn’t care whether she was here or not.

Margaery sighed, turning towards the door, only to feel Megga’s hand on her arm again. She glanced down at it, and then over at Megga, whose eyes were soft.

“She’s strong,” Megga reminded her, gently enough. “And she...she’ll pull through. She’s been through things worse than this.”

Margaery scoffed. “When?” she demanded, but the look Megga gave her made her deflate, all the same, as she glanced over at Sansa’s prone figure on the bed, still as the dead save for the labor of her every breath.

And gods, Margaery didn’t even feel comfortable praying to the gods for her recovery, not after what had happened to Septa Unella. And now, her grandmother wanted her to break bread with Cersei as if nothing was wrong, as if every wrong they had done against each other, including this one, didn’t matter, because they had other enemies, as well, when everything within Margaery rebelled against the idea.

She had been able to protect Sansa most of those other times, as, indeed, Sansa had tried her best to protect Margaery against Cersei, as well. She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless when it came to protecting Sansa, to saving her from her monsters, even if she had started to feel useless, of late, in her own ability to protect herself.

And now...

She walked towards the door, unable to bear the silence in her head that followed watching Sansa and being able to do nothing to stop her pain.

She heard Megga call out after her, but Margaery ignored the other girl, because she felt certain that if she remained here any longer, she was going to scream, and with just her luck when she opened the door again, Cersei would be waiting outside, grinning about the fact that Margaery had finally given away this elaborate game between the three of them, where two of them pretended not to care about each other when they all knew how they really felt. When Cersei would not have poisoned Sansa if she didn’t think Margaery cared for her in the first place…

Margaery took a deep breath, and forced the air out of her lungs slowly.

She was so focused on the panic filling those lungs that she barely noticed Trystane Martell before she almost ran into him.

“Prince Trystane,” Margaery said, genuinely surprised to see him here, of all places. And a part of her was a little annoyed; after what his family had pulled, no doubt he was here to beg for his life, and this wasn’t the time, or the place.

In fact, she was less likely to grant whatever request he had today when he was taking advantage of the time she had set aside to see Sansa, today. Especially since he had seemed to know without being told that of course she would be here.

He shrugged, looking awkward for one of the few times that Margaery had ever seen him so. He had inherited his uncle’s charisma alongside his flare for the dramatic, it seemed.

“I...just wanted to thank you for letting me out of my chambers,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I know the Queen Mother ordered my incarceration, but you were kind enough to disagree with her on that.”

Yes, something which Margaery knew the other woman would try to use against her, assuming they did actually get to the point of negotiations. She would say that Margaery was still siding with the Dornish, and that meant there could be no alliance between them.

Cersei was always rather shortsighted in that regard, only able to see things in black and white, which was rather ironic for a woman who had done the things she had.

Margaery let out a sigh. “Yes, well, I can’t imagine that you are responsible for Lady Sansa’s...current condition,” she said, her voice nearly choking off when she had meant to say ‘poisoning.’ For a moment, he was smiling at her, and she felt suddenly, foolishly annoyed to see him look like that. “After all, you would have the most to lose from it.”

The smile froze on his face.

Margaery lifted her chin, unapologetic. “Is that all?” she asked, moving towards the door, expecting him to move back and out of her way.

“She…” he swallowed, staring down at the young woman on the bed with eyes that were far too soft, for Margaery’s comfort. “She’s been kind to me,” he said, when it was news to Margaery that the two of them even spoke to one another. Then again, she supposed she didn’t know the half of what Sansa was up to, these days, and that was her own fault. “She told me that she would help me get back into contact with Myrcella, after my sister forbade the letters from continuing…”

Margaery interrupted him, then, her brows furrowed at his words, because that...that didn’t sound right, even if the sting of the Dornish betrayal still hadn’t quite wore off. “Your sister forbade them?” she asked, sharply.

He swallowed. “I...Yes. Less than a week ago, the letters stopped coming, and I got an official looking letter from her that said…”

“From your sister?” Margaery repeated, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling something like coldness welling up within her.

Because if Arianne had been the one to send that letter herself, if she had expressly forbade Trystane and Myrcella from writing to one another, when she herself had insisted upon it, as insurance for the both of them that their respective charges were all right...that meant…

“You’re sure?” she demanded, and she was aware that she was intimidating him, with the way that she was looking at him now, with the way that she kept interrupting him, but Margaery couldn’t bring herself to care.

Arianne had been the one to insist on those letters, even when Margaery told her it might tip off Cersei about their working together. That she might find it suspicious that Arianne was even allowing that, when she had barely allowed Myrcella to write her own mother, in the past.

He nodded, looking a little nervous, now. “It had her official seal,” he began, but once more, Margaery cut him off.

“And was it in her hand?” she asked, that panicky, hollow feeling from before returning fullforce, at his nod, as she remembered how the letter crowning Myrcella had not been in Arianne’s hand, not at all, had the scrawling features of a man’s hand.

He looked almost offended. “I know my sister’s hand,” he said, and then, belatedly, “Your Grace.”

Margaery hummed. Because that...it didn’t make sense.

If Arianne had been the one to cut off communication between Trystane and Myrcella, that meant there was something going on in Dorne that she didn’t want him knowing about, because she didn’t want Margaery and whoever else was reading Trystane’s letters to know about it.

Because she was a part of it.

Not unless there was some sort of mistake in communication, going on here. Not unless...Arianne had planned it this way on purpose, had agreed with her husband’s decision to crown Myrcella.

Margaery closed her eyes, and breathed out slowly through her nose.

By the gods, she was tired of being made a fool of by everyone around her. First Cersei, then her grandmother, then this Targaryen who had appeared out of thin air to ruin as much of her life as they could manage, and then Arianne.

Arianne, whom she might not have been foolish enough to see as something of a friend, from the time they had spent together in Dorne, but whom she would have at least thought had the decency to let her know, before she screwed her.

Arianne, who had always made her intentions - to bring down the Lannisters - clear enough. Whom she was supposed to start planning their war against Cersei with, once they thought they had the upper hand, once Cersei had proven that she was, without a shadow of a doubt, a threat to them.

And now, Arianne had been the first to screw her, without even letting her know what she was planning, while even Cersei was at least willing to talk with her, even if only out of sheer desperation.

The bitch might have had the decency to own up to her mistake, though, Margaery thought, annoyance filling her as she stared down at Sansa once more, now no longer as sure as she had been moments ago that Cersei truly was at fault for her current condition.

Margaery sighed, realizing what she was going to have to do about this, to fix this. She bit back a sigh, and went in search of her brother’s chambers. It wasn’t hard; most of the Tyrells lived in the Maidenvault, after all, and so he lived far closer to Sansa than she did, these days, much to her chagrin.

And, for once, he was actually in his chambers.

“I need you to do something for me,” Margaery told him, as she stepped into her brother’s chambers.

She felt guilty even coming to him about this, but Margaery wasn’t sure who else to turn to. Perhaps Randyl Tarly; she’d heard he had managed a particular cruelty to his oldest son years ago, so she knew he likely would have no qualms about this, either, but she had a different fate in mind for him.

So she came to Garlan, one of the few she could still trust, with Sansa locked in a deep sleep from which the maesters said she might never wake.

He glanced up sharply at her, and then held the door open for her to step inside. He was in the middle of getting dressed, she noticed, in his military garb, no doubt to go out and put down another riot in the city.

She swallowed hard; her brother was not a member of her Kingsguard, after all, but he was certainly acting like it, lately. She would have to come up with some way to thank him for all of this eventually, especially when she knew he would much rather be with Leonette and their children.

But instead, he was here, trying to clean up Margaery’s mess.

“How is Sansa?” he asked.

Margaery glanced away, looking around her brother’s chambers. They were not far from Sansa’s, here in the Maidenvault, for which she felt relief, even if she knew that didn’t mean he was constantly guarding Sansa’s chambers, amongst all of his other duties.

She felt badly, living so far away from Sansa, these days. As if a part of her wasn’t quite whole.

But it would certainly look suspicious if she tried to change where she was sleeping, these days, especially after she had seen the look on Cersei’s face when a servant informed her of where Margaery was actually sleeping, now.

“I...Not well,” she whispered hoarsely, and saw the pity flash across Garlan’s face before he pulled her into a soft embrace.

She felt a stab of guilt, for forcing him to comfort her, knowing what she was about to ask of him.

It was strange; as a girl, she had always felt safe, in garlan’s arms, more so than either of her other brothers.

And he was the only one who had survived Cersei, thus far.

And it didn’t sting, to have his arms around her, the way it stung every time anyone had tried to reach for her, since her husband’s death.

Of course, she hadn’t tried to hug anyone, either.

She wondered what that meant.

“The maesters say that she hasn’t declined any further, recently,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely, “but I can’t…”

_I can’t lose her._

She thought her brother understood the words she didn’t say, if the way he gently squeezed her shoulders was any indication.

Garlan swallowed thickly as Margaery pulled back from him.

“That’s not why I’m here, though,” she said, much as it killed her to pretend that everything was fine with Sansa, that she could just move on to the next issue as if every moment, she wasn’t terrified that Sansa was going to die, and she wouldn’t be there with her because it might tip off Cersei Fucking Lannister.

As if she wouldn’t lay down in the sand and let Aegon Targaryen and these Martells at whatever they wanted, if something did happen to Sansa.

As if any of this would be worth it, without Sansa at her side.

She swallowed hard, forcing those thoughts from her mind with difficulty.

“Of course,” Garlan said, because he had always been that way, always so blindly loyal to any of his siblings when he shouldn’t have been. Loras had taken advantage of that often enough, as a child, no matter how much he loved their brother, convincing him it was in his best interest to finish Loras’ work for the maesters, instead.

Margaery shook her head, fondly.

“But first,” Garlan said, and her head jerked up, “Is it true that you’re going to negotiate with Cersei?” he sounded...horrified by the very idea, in the same way that Margaery herself still was, and Margaery bit back a sigh.

“It doesn’t look like we have another choice, now,” she said. “This Targaryen, the Martells...they’ve forced our hands.”

Garlan stared at her. “You hate Cersei,” he said, slowly. “We don’t know anything about this Targaryen.”

Margaery snorted. “We know that he was able to turn the Martells against us,” she muttered darkly, and Garlan blinked at her, shrugging on his vest the rest of the way. Margaery sighed, reaching up to brush at her forehead. “I...That’s why I’m here, actually. I need you to...figure out what this new emissary from Dorne knows about their plot. I don’t care what the charges are, just make them stick.”

She felt a little guilty, even making the request, for

Garlan grimaced. “Torture?” he asked, quietly.

Margaery swallowed hard. “Just...see to it. I need...I need information from him. I need to know how many battles we have to fight, in the coming days. I need to know what’s going on there, and it’s painfully obvious that Trystane Martell knows nothing.”

She didn’t look at her brother while she said it; she knew that he had fought in the battle of Blackwater, knew that he knew what it was to be a soldier even before that, but this was different.

“I...I’m sorry to have to ask this of you,” she went on. “But you’re the only one I…”

This was something that she wasn’t sure she could entrust to anyone else, but something she certainly didn’t feel comfortable entrusting to her brother, either.

He stared at her. “I thought we had torturers in the dungeons, for that,’ he pointed out, but Margaery swallowed hard.

“I...this information is something I don’t want to accidentally get out,” she said, still staring at that point on the wall behind Garlan. “You’re the only one I trust, these days, with something like that.”

Garlan let out a long sigh. “All right,” he said, very quietly, “But I need something, in turn.”

She raised a brow, feeling something like pride that her brother was finally learned the merits of this game, enough that she felt inclined to grant whatever it was.

She would have granted whatever it was, anyway, after asking such a thing of him, though.

“Leonette,” he said. “Grandmother won’t let us write to one another, and I...I need to know how the children are, Margaery. I need...I want you to convince her to either let Leonette write, or to bring Leonette here.”

Margaery licked her lips. She didn’t know if she still had that sort of influence over their grandmother, these days, but this request reminded her starkly of why she needed this emissary interrogated; and made her wonder why, exactly, their grandmother didn’t want Leonette and Garlan writing to one another, after the heart to heart that the two of them had had.

Wondered what her grandmother could still be hiding from them, at this point.

“All right,” she agreed, making up her mind that she would find a way to honor that promise, whatever it took.

Her brother deserved that, after all.

And then Garlan leaned close, and whispered quietly in her ear, “Whatever this new alliance ends up being, make sure Cersei pays for what she did to Sansa.”

And, despite herself, Margaery smiled. “I will,” she whispered back.

Garlan smiled at her, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “You look...different, lately,” he told her, and Margaery forced herself to keep smiling, though she suddenly no longer felt like doing so.

“I...feel different,” she admitted. Then, “Better, I think.

He looked relieved, by those words.

And then, she pulled back from him. “I...Have to find Cersei. This needs to come from me, or she’ll never consider it.” More than that, it needed to look like Margaery was grovelling, and she was already dreading the experience. “I don’t suppose that you know where she would be?”

Garlan grimaced. “Where she usually is this time of day; in the Great Hall, trying to figure out the price of every Reach noble.”

Margaery made a face at that, as well. “Fucking bitch,” she said, and couldn’t help that her voice sounded slightly admiring, all the same.

Garlan smirked. “Perhaps she finally understands their importance,” he said, but Margaery just shrugged, at that, walking out of her brother’s chambers to go and find Cersei.

That, too, was not hard; she stood in the middle of a gaggle of nobles, some that Margaery knew to be less than loyal to House Tyrell, for all that they lived in the Reach, and some that merely looked amused at Cersei’s expense, as she gesticulated wildly in the middle of their group.

Still, Margaery supposed that she did not have much room to judge, given what she was coming here to say, in front of a crowd because she knew that Cersei would appreciate that, as well.

Saying that she was willing to negotiate to Cersei was, of course, a humiliating experience.

“Your Grace,” Margaery said, forcing a smile in Cersei’s direction that neither one of them felt as the other woman finally caught sight of her and abruptly stopped talking. “The Crown is willing to negotiate with the Westerlands, to reach a…mutually beneficial arrangement, in light of the fact that we are all come together to mourn the death of Joffrey Baratheon, who was so dear to us both,” Margaery said.

Cersei’s fingers felt ice cold, in Margaery’s hands. “Oh?”

Margaery swallowed hard. “In order to keep the peace, I wonder if you might speak with my Small Council about a lasting peace,” she said, and hoped the bitch knew how much it rankled her, to say any of these things.

From the small smirk turning the corner of Cersei’s lips, it did.

But then, Cersei did something rather unexpected, for all that Margaery was given to understand that Kevan was going to try and strongarm her into this negotiation for all their sakes, that she understood the perilous state at the Rock, at the moment.

For all that Cersei did not even know where her claim to the throne was, just now.

Cersei laughed in her face. Margaery jerked back from her, dropping her hands as if Cersei had dipped her own hands in poison just to get to Margaery, as well, after trying to take Sansa from her. “When the vultures finally pick through what’s left of you, my dear, I will enjoy watching you fall. No,” she tossed her hair, “I have nothing to say to you.”

* * *

Kevan found her not long after that. She was expecting it; her uncle had made it clear that he was not entirely on her side, these days, remaining as the Hand of the King even after Cersei had crowned Tommen, the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms.

She didn’t understand this pull that men always had towards that whore, but something she had said or done had clearly convinced Kevan Lannister to forget who his true family really was.

She bit back a sigh as he walked into her chambers before the servant, appointed by the Tyrells, no doubt to spy on her while she was here, could even announce him, snapping at her that they needed to talk.

It reminded her of the last time he had done so, and she stiffened slightly, wondering if perhaps this had nothing to do with the negotiations that the Tyrells, exposing their bellies, wanted at all, but something to do with Tommen. She felt a shiver run down her spine as she wondered if they had found him, or, worse, if something had happened to him.

She swallowed hard, turning to face him, and when she did, she read the answer off his face.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” he demanded, shutting the door loudly behind him, not quite slamming it.

There were only a few times in her life that Cersei had ever seen her uncle truly angry. He was not the sort of man to get angry easily; he had always been the one to appease her father’s fury, rather than growing angry himself.

The angriest she had ever seen him after he had accused her of being responsible for Lancel’s death, as if she bore any responsibility for what that fool had done.

But he looked furious, now.

It made the hair on the back of Cersei’s neck stand up.

“I am not going to…negotiate with those people!” Cersei screeched at her uncle. “They are practically salivating over the fucking throne, and we’ve just put my son in the ground beneath it!”

Kevan gave her a harsh look. “You are going to negotiate with them,” he told her, coldly. “And you’re going to find an accord that works for you, and for them, if you want to keep your remaining son alive.”

Cersei gritted her teeth, even as she felt something like fear lance down her spine. So he suspected it, too; that these Tyrells had lied about what they knew of Tommen’s disappearance, that they may well be responsible for it, themselves.

Margaery had sworn differently to her, of course, but the little whore had lied often enough, in the past.

“I won’t,” she hissed. “The Tyrells see him as nothing but a threat, now. They’ll kill him the moment they get their hands on him, just so they can hold onto that fucking throne.”

“And you’re willing to kill him by forcing him to lay claim to it?” Kevan demanded.

Cersei flinched as if she’d been slapped. She opened and closed her mouth, then, “I am the only one trying to protect Tommen, these days, while you sat here in this castle, in my father’s position, and played Hand of the King with our enemies!”

Kevan reached up, pinching at the bridge of his nose. The mannerism reminded her a little of Tyrion, irritating her. He let out a long sigh, stepping away from her for a moment, and then stepping back.

Cersei felt her throat grow dry. “What is it?” she whispered, hoarsely. “Do you...know something, about Tommen?” she went on.

Kevan sighed again, and then reached into the pocket of his trousers, pulling out a letter that he handed over to her. With shaking fingers, Cersei found herself ripping it open, finding the seal already broken but bearing the familiar crest of House Lannister.

She tried not to think too hard about who might have written it before she opened it, though.

She swallowed hard as she read the first words, recognized the familiar scrawl of her aunt Genna, and then she felt her face go white as she realized what the other woman had written to her. She glanced up at Kevan, sharply.

“What does this mean?” she whispered, feeling very suddenly like a small child in far over her head.

Kevan’s face was grim.

The letter slipped through Cersei’s fingers, and he bent down to snatch it up before it could fall to the ground.

“It means that without the Tyrells on our side, House Lannister will soon be a blight on everyone’s memory, rather than one of the strongest Houses in Westeros,” he told her, coldly, and Cersei flinched.

“Now you’re going to go in there,” Kevan jabbed a finger in the direction of what Cersei could only imagine were the Small Council chambers, “And you’re going to listen to what they have to say, and for once in your life, you’re going to be reasonable and realize that you can’t have everything.”

Cersei gritted her teeth.


	27. King's Landing

_“They tell me that you have hardly left my bedside, since I first fell unconscious,” Nym said, as Megga Tyrell entered her bedchambers for the second time that day. The second time since Nym had awoken from her deep, troubled sleep, this time carrying a plate of food, their scent wafting temptingly through the air, and it was only then that Nym realized how long it must have been since she had last eaten._

_She had been there when Nym had first awoken, as well, reaching out to hold her down when Nym jumped up in her bed, heedless of the pain and dizziness rushing through her at the sensation, and Nym had immediately tried to fight her off._

_She had gotten the feeling that Megga had found that amusing, more than anything._

_She certainly hadn’t tried to fight her off, much to Lady Nym’s annoyance. In fact, it was perhaps the only reason that Lady Nym hadn’t tried to hit her unconscious, at that point, and after what she had just been through, a part of her had very much wanted to do just that._

_But she hadn’t, because Megga had told her that she was there on behalf of the Queen._

_Well, except that she hadn’t called her the Queen, at that point. Instead, she’d called her the Queen Regent, and that had been what had gotten Lady Nym’s attention._

_Because there had been others who had come to see her, before that, while Lady Nym had drifted in and out of consciousness and not known what was happening, but none of them had explained to her what had happened. She had a feeling that the maesters had told the servants not to speak to her, not to distress her any more than she had already been, as if she were nothing more than some helpless maiden, and had never been beaten by a man before._

_Well, she supposed, this situation was rather more advanced than her usual fights. The maesters had said she was lucky to be on her feet again. Well, to have the use of them._

_And Megga hadn’t explained anything, either, but that had sure as hells been a rather large hint._

_The Queen Regent._

_So today, when Megga entered her chambers with a tray of food, Lady Nym decided that getting answers from her was a wiser decision than attacking her once more._

_She watched Megga set her food down on the table beside her bed in silence, and then she struck._

_“Where is the Queen?” Nym demanded. “I thought I saw...before I passed out, I mean…”_

_Megga pursed her lips, looking pained. She had not answered that question before, either, had only insisted that the maesters come in and look at Nym before she answered any of her questions, because surely Nym needed to know that she was well, now._

_Nym had barely sat through their ministrations, annoyed that they would tell her nothing, either._

_The servants would only tell her that the Queen was well, that she was...grieving the loss of her beloved husband, who had passed not long after Nym had fought Ser Robert Strong, and could not see to Nym just now, but would come when she had the time. They also told her, at her demand, that Megga Tyrell had been seeing to Nym ever since she had first fallen into the coma, had barely left her bedside, in fact._

_Nym did not like the sound of that. Did not like the sound of a Tyrell spy keeping such a sharp eye on her, and was fully intent on telling the other girl as much, when she saw the pain in megga’s eyes at the question._

_“What is it?” she demanded._

_Megga chewed on her lower lip. “The Queen…” she licked her lips again, and Nym had never known this one to be nervous, before. It was unsettling. “She is unwell, of late, so she can’t come to see you. I am authorized to see to anything that you might need, however, and I…” she eyed Nym for a moment, before glancing over her shoulder._

_Nym felt her stomach drop._

_Megga turned back to her. “I know,” she said, and Nym blinked at her, before feigning ignorance and raising a brow._

_“Know what?” she asked._

_Megga rolled her eyes. “Margaery told me everything,” she whispered. “So...I know about your plans for Dorne, the plans that you made with her, and I know that she sees you as something of a confidante, as well. So I will answer any questions that you have, that do not put her in danger.”_

_Nym shook her head. “No, where is Lady Sansa? How do I know that you are not a mouthpiece for the Queen of Thorns?”_

_Megga’s smile was sad. “The Queen of Thorns has little interest in us girls, these days,” she said, calmly enough. “Not since Margaery banished her from court.”_

_“Not since she did what,” Nym repeated dumbly, more of a statement of shock than a question._

_She knew that Margaery had started to distrust her grandmother, towards the end; the other girl was confiding as much in her, had let Nym know that she worried about her ability to uphold her endof the bargain she had made with Arianne not because of her husband, but because of what her grandmother might do in a bid to hold onto power._

_Nym had been devising a plan to deal with that, but it appeared that Margaery had already done so on her own._

_“And Lady Sansa is...quite caught up, at the moment,” Megga continued, heedless of Nym’s shock. “It is…” another pause, and Nym glanced up at her again. “Perhaps more likely that the Lady Sansa will be the one to visit you later on, and not the Queen.”_

_Nym closed her eyes and counted to three. When she opened them again, she said harshly, “I will not tolerate any sort of spy, whether you are the Queen of Thorns’, or Margaery’s.” A warning._

_Megga smiled at her. “I’ve been watching over you while you slept,” she said, and Nym tried not to feel unsettled by the words. “If I had wanted to hurt you, I could have easily found a way to do so then. But I am loyal to my queen, and as she has tasked me with nothing other than attending to you, I am yours. For the moment.”_

_Her eyes flashed almost...flirtatiously, and Nym resisted the urge to swear under her breath._

_“I see,” she said, instead. Then, “Tell me everything that’s happened since I…”_

_She gestured down to her legs. She would walk again, the maesters had assured of her that. Hells, they had even told her that it was very likely she would be back on her feet and fighting again in little time at all with their remedies and some practice, though they seemed scandalized that she should want to._

_Nym didn’t care. Her plans did not account for her own crippling, and the Mountain would pay for what he had done to her, to her father, now that she had felt a bit of the pain of it herself._

_The only thought that made her feel better, waking into this nightmare where she could hardly feel sensation in her legs and the spots at her vision seemed permanent, Nym thought, was the realization that Joffrey was very much dead._

_“What of the King?” Nym asked. “They said that...that he passed.”_

_Megga pressed her lips together. “As I said, I cannot tell you everything,” she said, and Nym raised a brow, for that hadn’t quite been what she’d said. “But I can tell you that he is dead, and that you might have approved, according to Lady Sansa, of the way that he did it.”_

_And then she told her the rest of it, even if she left out rather important chunks, Nym thought. What made her feel only slightly better was the realization, the longer Megga kept talking, that the other girl didn’t know the answers to those blocks of confusion, either._

_“That’s the second time you’ve said her name,” Lady Nym said, cocking a brow. “Lady Sansa’s, I mean. Know something I don’t?”_

_She asked it because she didn’t like not knowing, didn’t like it at all._

_Megga blinked at her, and, after a moment, dipped her head. “You’ve missed a lot,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll catch up soon. I-”_

_Before she could finish, the door opened, and a guard that Lady Nym instantly recognized as Garlan Tyrell popped his head in. She wondered what he was doing playing guard to a woman who wasn’t even the Queen._

_“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I need to speak to Megga, and...you have a visitor,” he went on, eyes turning to Lady Nym._

_Nym squinted at him. “A visitor?” she echoed._

_Garlan hesitated, and then nodded, taking a step back._

_And that was when she saw him, her cousin Trystane, leaning against the far wall outside of her room. He looked like he’d been waiting for some time, if the way he was running his hand through his hair, as he knew when he was impatient, was any indication._

_Lady Nym took a deep breath. “I...Let him in,” she said, softly, and Garlan sent her a look that was almost relieved, as if he’d been afraid she might turn the boy away._

_She sighed. She was many things, of course, but family meant something to her, even if it meant nothing to some of the members of her family._

_Megga’s look was rather more calculating, as she blinked down at Lady Nym, looking surprised that she had agreed._

_Garlan took Megga’s arm, and led her out into the hall. The door shut quietly behind them, but Lady Nym could hear Garlan murmuring to her cousin, regardless._

_Nym’s mind was still reeling from Megga’s revelations as the door to her chambers flew open, and a fiery young Dornishman rushed inside, moments later._

_Lady Nym took a deep breath. She had been hoping, from the way he’d looked out in the hall, that they could avoid any...hysterics, but it seemed that was just not to be the case._

_Not for her._

_Nothing could ever be easy in their family, after all._

_“Why the seven hells would you do that for me?” Trystane demanded, as he burst into her room, and Nym bit back an ironic smile as she realized that, at least, had not changed since she had awoken from her long sleep._

_She forced a smile, swallowing hard as she turned to her cousin, where he stood panting in the middle of her chambers, surrounded by far too many Flowers. It felt strangely nice, to know that another Sun was near, even if he was looking at her with such fire in his eyes._

_Since she had awoken, she had seen nothing but pity in the eyes of those around her._

_“Trystane,” she said, looking him over, voice only slightly chastising, for she was still trying to catch her breath from sitting upright to see him, and her breaths did not come easy, these days, “it appears that you were not hurt, after I lost that dreadful fight, for which I thank the gods.”_

_Trystane paused then, looking shamefaced as he glanced downward. “I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his chin finally, and his eyes were no longer filled with that flame._

_Nym found herself missing it as quickly as it had gone._

_“I don’t know why you did that for me, I really don’t, but I should never have challenged Joffrey like that,” Trystane said, softly. “I should have known, from how long I’ve been in King’s Landing already, that he would never have agreed to such a thing. He was too much a coward.”_

_“Was,” Nym echoed, numbly, because of course, Megga had explained almost everything - Nym was quite sure that much was being withheld from her - when she had seen to her earlier, but to hear it again…_

_Joffrey was dead._

_Trystane’s face drained of blood. “Oh gods, didn’t they tell you?” he asked, and his face pinched up, the way it had when he was a baby and Tyene used to find it amusing to try and make him eat lemons._

_Nym felt herself smiling unexpectedly at the memory, then she shook her head._

_“Yes, they told me,” she assured him. “I am...finding it rather difficult to believe, though, if I am being honest. He was such a beast; you don’t expect those kinds to die.”_

_Trystane snorted, then, as he took a seat on the edge of her bed, and Nym tried not to flinch away from the unexpected closeness, the way she had flinched away from Megga, earlier._

_Megga had been the one to tell her, in gentle words not long after she first noticed the flinch, that the Mountain...Ser Robert Strong had raped her, where she lay unconscious on the floor of the fighting grounds, though Nym did not have a memory of this._

_She remembered only what had felt like her head splitting open, the way the Mountain had split open her father’s head, and wondering how anyone could have not realized who Ser Robert truly was, before she remembered nothing but pain, coming in and out, for so long after that._

_Megga had said that she slept for nearly a month; the maesters had all but given up hope on her ever waking again, which was why she felt so easily weakened and tired, lately._

_Nym believed it, with the way that she felt, sometimes._

_Trystane shuddered, as he took a seat in the chair that Megga had been occupying, not so very long ago, and sent Nym another guilty smile._

_“I thought I could kill him myself,” he admitted, and Nym bit back a scoff, because she could see how guilty he felt in his eyes. “That if I could just get him alone for a little bit, I could become a Kingslayer, and I wouldn’t even care at that point, because Myrcella would be the rightful Queen, then, and he would be dead. He...he deserved it.”_

_Alongside the guilt in his eyes, Nym could see the pain, the loneliness and the despair that her cousin must have felt during all of his time stuck here amongst Lannisters he had been raised to believe were his worst enemies, trapped in the dungeons at one point simply because Joffrey didn’t like him, and then let out only to lose the wife that had made his entrapment bearable._

_She sighed, because even as he explained his stupidity to her, Nym found that she could not hold it against him, because she understood all too well how he must have felt, to act out like that._

_It had been hotheaded, and stupid, but she understood it._

_Nym knew how much he cared for Myrcella, after all. Had known, when Arianne first suggested it, what losing Myrcella might do to Trystane, if they kept him here._

_Even if it was infuriating to find out that she had been right all along._

_Margaery, in keeping him there, was meant to keep him safe, for the little while that he would be required to remain there, and she couldn’t do that if he was fighting Joffrey’s creature._

_She had vowed it, and Nym had not believed it until she had vowed it again, to her, when Nym had begged her to give Dorne its freedom, under her cousin Trystane, with Nym helping him to rule it._

_Margaery had agreed, then, and only then had Nym believed that she meant Trystane no harm._

_After all, what Arianne seemed to conveniently forget, when she made these plots with Margaery was that, in order to marry Myrcella to Margaery’s son, Trystane would have to no longer be married to him._

_And the people would not accept an aunt wedding her nephew unless the marriage was proved to be a totally legitimate one, not one tainted by an annulment._

_Nym had caught that, and perhaps Arianne had caught it too, but she had said nothing, perhaps because even then she had been making her own plots against Margaery._

_But Nym had taken one look at that fiery Tyrell, as she sat panting in her chambers after Arianne sent someone to try and scare her into going to the Water Gardens, and known that Margaery Tyrell was not some easily manipulated thing._

_She had gone to the Water Gardens because she had wanted to make this deal with Doran all along, and had only turned back to Arianne because she saw no other recourse for all the pain that she had suffered in coming to Dorne in the first place._

_The assassin had been a vessel for Margaery’s arrival there as much as it had been Arianne trying to manipulate her into going there, and Nym had seen all of that in her eyes as Nym stood over her where she lay panting, choked by an assassin but not dead, before her._

_A Flower who actually possessed thorns. Someone Nym could believe when she promised revenge, because it burned just as hot within her._

_But there was only so much that even she could do to further their plans, to save Trystane from Joffrey’s malice._

_So Nym had done what she had to do; had bargained for Trystane’s life, because after all, he was still her cousin, even while getting what she wanted out of all of this, while turning Margaery against Arianne with a few quick words, even if she doubted that Margaery had been poisoned at the time, nor that Joffrey had been._

_It wasn’t like her cousin, after all._

_And this was the result; Trystane would live._

_That was, until the little fool had gone and thrown himself at Joffrey, and Nym had been forced to intervene and nearly lost her ability to use her legs, int he process._

_The maesters told her the scars on her skin would never fade, even if with a little practice she would walk again._

_“I would do it again,” Nym told him, and watched the way that Trystane’s breath caught in his throat, at her words. “So stop apologizing for it, and promise me you’ll keep your mouth shut, next time.”_

_Trystane blinked at her. “W-Why?” he demanded, and he sounded so lost, that a part of Nym’s heart fractured, at the words._

_Why, indeed?_

_His own sister had left him here, to the mercy of the Lannisters. Had said nothing, after the challenge, as that had been one of the first things that Nym had asked Megga about, besides Joffrey’s death._

_His own sister had effectively abandoned him here, far more concerned about his wife, who was a Lannister, so she could understand where the question was coming from._

_Still, it hurt._

_Once upon a time, they had all been a real family. A patchwork family, perhaps, but a family, nonetheless._

_She reached out, taking his hand into her own. “Because you’re my cousin,” she whispered, hoarsely, and tried not to notice the way that Trystane flinched, at her words. She squeezed his hand, gently. “How could I do otherwise, even if you are a fool?”_

_Trystane blinked at her. “Nym…” he began, and then swallowed hard. “I…”_

_But she squeezed his hands a little harder, then. “These people...Trystane, they’re not like us. They’re...they don’t care about things like family, and honor. They’ll do whatever the fuck they think they need to, in order to get what they want.” She swallowed hard. “And right now, it’s good for them, to keep you alive, here. But if you push too hard...If you push too hard, they’re not a merciful people.”_

_Trystane swallowed. “What’s going on?” he asked her. “You...you talk about family, and about honor, but they say that you and Arianne stole the throne from my father, that Obara and Tyene were let out to help Arianne with her coup. That doesn’t sound like honor and family to me.”_

_Nym pressed her lips together. “There’s a lot you won’t understand for some time, about what’s going on,” she said, softly. “Just think of it this way.” She took a careful breath. “When Myrcella first came to Sunspear, do you remember how terrified she was? How she thought she was going to be killed because she was nothing more than a hostage, then?”_

_Trystane licked his lips. “We would never have done that,” he whispered, hoarsely._

_Gods, he was so naive, sometimes, Nym thought._

_“No, we wouldn’t have,” Nym lied. “But they might, here, and I might not always be there to protect you. I’ll try, dear gods, but you have to be more careful.”_

_Trystane swallowed hard._

_Gods, he was so young._

_“I promise,” Trystane said then, startling her, and she glanced over at him. He shrugged. “I promise that next time, i’ll keep my mouth shut.”_

_Nym laughed, despite herself._

_She didn’t believe him._

* * *

 

This was perhaps the most tense Small Council meeting Margaery had ever sat on, and she had sat on quite a few of those.

And quite a few of those had been tense, considering the way that Joffrey had always been during them. Or, she supposed, in general.

Margaery took a deep breath as she sat down at the head of the Small Council table, a move no one had questioned since she had declared herself Regent with the support of the Reach behind her, but a move that everyone was staring at her for now, as it left Cersei nearly stealing the seat from her before she was forced to sit beside her.

Margaery swallowed.

Cersei gritted her teeth, looking very much like she now regretted how close she had come to sitting beside Margaery at all.

The meeting only seemed to go downhill from there, from the moment Kevan Lannister announced that they were willing to bring certain issues to the table, in good faith.

Frankly, Margaery was surprised that he had managed to strong arm Cersei into agreeing even to that; she had agreed to this negotiation herself because she had doubted that he would be able to do so. She also didn’t know if they could believe a word that came out of Cersei’s mouth, in these negotiations, either way.

Olenna, where she sat almost at the other end of the Small Council table from where Cersei and Margaery themselves sat, next to Mace, looking as if she had more of a right to sit at this table than Mace himself did, cleared her throat.

“Well, let’s not waste any time, shall we?” she asked.

Margaery stared at her; she was peeling a nut, right here in the Small Council chambers, one that she unceremoniously pressed between her teeth and cracked, a moment later, looking almost amused.

Well, Margaery supposed, at least someone besides Baelish, where he sat far too close at Margaery’s right hand for her comfort, was amused.

Mace was the one to make the offer, as the technical Lord of House Tyrell, no matter how much power Olenna secretly had behind the scenes. Margaery was not sure where he had been during her husband’s funeral, for she hadn’t seen him at the Keep when she returned, though she supposed it certainly made sense for him not to be there, after the things he had once accused House Lannister of.

Frankly, Margaery was surprised that her grandmother had chosen him to make these offers, even if she knew it was proper. Cersei was unlikely to agree with anything the man who had once accused her of incest might have to offer.

“I understand that there have been....misunderstandings between all of us, since the beginning of our first alliance,” Mace said, and Cersei scoffed. “But House Tyrell hopes that you will see this negotiation as a gesture of...goodwill.”

Cersei rolled her eyes, leaning forward. “I see it as nothing less than fear, after you’ve realized you have other enemies in the Seven Kingdoms,” she hissed out, and Margaery closed her eyes, breathed out slowly through her nose.

Olenna cleared her throat, then, cracking another nut a moment later. “As I said, let’s get on with it,” she muttered, and Kevan looked slightly relieved that she had done so.

“Very well; I will make the offer I think you will be most interested in, first. The Regent is willing to…forgo her own claim to the throne, through the child within her womb, should it be a girl, in honor of your son’s claim to it, and marry her departed husband’s brother, if that is acceptable to the Westerlands,” Mace said.

Cersei looked suddenly green. Kevan’s eyes were unsurprised when she half turned in her chair to face him, and Cersei gritted her teeth in response.

Margaery leaned forward in her chair. “Am I?” she hissed out, and something about that only made Cersei feel nominally better about this.

“The Regent will agree to this,” Olenna repeated, harshly; Margaery lowered her head, gritted her teeth.

They had agreed on all of this beforehand, of course; this was just for show. Had sat down with Baelish and Kevan, and had gone over the things that each was willing to negotiate on, without Cersei there to muddy the waters. All of this, it was just a performance, a way of manipulating Cersei into agreeing, as well.

After all, they couldn’t make this alliance without her, much though Cersei would very much like to.

It had been Baelish’s suggestion that the more Margaery fought certain conditions of such an alliance, the more she made her displeasure clear, the more likely Cersei would be to agree to them. And as much as Margaery hated taking advice from Baelish, she could very well see the logic in such an idea.

Cersei raised an eyebrow. “The Regent was already married to my firstborn son, and, obviously,” she motioned to Margaery’s full stomach, as Margaery flushed, “They consummated said marriage. Why should my remaining son be saddled with his brother’s…widow?”

She said it in a way that clearly implied she would have much rather called Margaery his leftovers, but didn’t.

And Margaery realized that she had a far more stable claim to the throne than she might have had she not had a child, but for a moment, Margaery found herself wondering how these talks would have gone if she had not been pregnant with a child the world thought was Joffrey’s. If she would have claimed to be a maiden, and Cersei would have laughed in her face.

If she would have found herself saddled in a marriage to a literal child, whose greatest pleasure was playing out in the courtyard with his cats, and overeating sweets.

He still would have made a better husband than Joffrey, she supposed.

Margaery shot Cersei an annoyed look, but for nonce, didn’t try to argue the point. It wasn’t as if the other woman was wrong, even if Baelish had found a way around that, as well.

For once, they were in agreement, though perhaps because Cersei thought Margaery would much rather see her son dead than married to her.

Olenna glanced at Lord Kevan. “House Tyrell is willing to…heavily compensate Prince Tommen, for the…loss, with the full permission and blessing of the new High Septon,” she said. “I understand the mines of the Rock have dried up; you can’t afford this war anymore than we would like to waste the lives of our men in one.”

Cersei gritted her teeth, looking furious at the way that Kevan nodded, at those words. “And what of this bastard whom you’ve claimed has a right to the throne while, somehow, my own boy does not?’ she demanded. “Why should we agree to any negotiations made in good faith, as you claim, when you’ve made it clear from the moment I arrived in King’s Landing that you hold no real respect for our House?”

Olenna’s smile was thin. “Your son, as the rightful heir of House Baratheon, would of course stand to inherit Storm’s End first,” she said. “Immediately, in fact, after you have signed these papers.”

She gestured to where the scribe was furiously scribbling away everything they were saying. Margaery watched the man dispassionately, wishing that the maesters working on Sansa would work half as hard as he seemed to be.

“But he would still have a claim,” Cersei gritted out. “That is unacceptable, and offers no reason for me to sign these papers.”

Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. Loudly, but Cersei didn’t seem to care.

“You could just as easily ensure that something...happened to my son, and that this bastard still inherited,” Cersei went on, unrepentant. “I will accept nothing less than for the Crown to admit that they made a mistake, in legitimizing this Gendry Waters, and that my son is the only heir to Storm’s End.”

Margaery lifted a brow; frankly, she was surprised that Cersei was settling for that, at all. She would have thought that Cersei would accept nothing less than the Iron Throne, for her boy.

And it made her wonder how Kevan had gotten her to this table, at all.

She knew that it was dangerous to blindly trust him, as a Lannister these days, even if he did seem to genuinely want peace, even if he didn’t seem to care about the circumstances of Joffrey’s death. She had to keep an eye on him, and the fact that he had so quickly managed to corral Cersei only served to make her more suspicious.

She glanced over at Baelish, who was already trying to meet her eyes, his own dark, unreadable. Margaery swallowed thickly, wishing not for the first time that Sansa was sitting in on this meeting as well; she was far easier to read, after all.

“But if the child is a boy,” Olenna continued, “Obviously, you see how that might cause a problem. Your family already accused of so much…incest, along the line. Imagine if your son was raising his nephew.”

Cersei looked, for a moment, as if she might lunge across the table and attempt to strangle Olenna. Margaery grimaced.

“And I suppose the little Regent has nothing to say for herself?” she finally asked, instead.

Margaery swallowed hard, lifting her chin as the whole of the table turned suddenly to her. “I...am in agreement with everything said thus far,” she said, tightly.

Cersei smirked. “Are you?’ she asked. “I would have thought the woman who spoke to me in Sansa Stark’s chambers had nothing to say to me now.”

Margaery’s jaw ticked, fury roiling through her at the fact that Cersei had just all but admitted to being responsible for Sansa’s state, without words.

Interestingly, so did Baelish’s.

She wondered if the degenerate had a conscience, deep down within, after all.

Then, Margaery pressed her lips together. “As I said,” she said, coldly, “I am in agreement with everything said thus far.”

And it was killing her, the same way that damned poison was killing Sansa.

Cersei stared at her for a moment longer, and then harrumphed.

Silence fell.

“Of course, with this alliance, House Tyrell and House Lannister must agree that any soldiers they may raise must come to the aid of the other, should either be attacked,” Kevan went on, getting in what he wanted out of all of this. “And House Tyrell has already agreed to scour the land until they find Tommen, for us, if our own men do not find him first.”

Which of course they wouldn’t.

And then, Cersei reared her ugly head, as Margaery had been waiting for her to do this entire meeting. She was surprised the other woman had lasted this long.

“The Crown,” Cersei said coldly, and the whole room stiffened, “Is not willing to consider any sort of…treaties that House Tyrell brings to the table so long as they use Shireen Baratheon, beloved cousin of the King, as a hostage against us.”

Olenna Tyrell snorted. “Beloved cousin, eh?” She echoed. “And how beloved would she be if you met her father on the field of battle?”

Cersei sneered at her. “Oh don’t pretend like you have Shireen’s best interest at heart,” she said, warmly. “We all know her father doesn’t have any interest in marrying your whore of a granddaughter.”

The Grandmaester, who should have been attending to Sansa, not here, nebulously in the middle, coughed loudly.

“That’s enough,” Kevan snapped, and Cersei only then subsided; after all, she’d won that little debate.

Margaery felt blood rushing into her mouth, from chewing so hard on the inside of her cheek. “I am not your enemy here,” she pointed out, coldly. “I only ever strove to love and obey your son, as the gods insist we should, monster, though he could be, at times, and everyone at this table knows it. But there is another coming, one who has already proven his ability to steal your son’s rightful inheritance in Storm’s End, and who I doubt will take the time to negotiate with either one of us when he sees us as nothing but usurpers to his birthright.”

“She speaks,” Cersei muttered.

“So if you would stop trying to antagonize me and realize that without me, you’re going to die by fire the same way that the Starks did when they only questioned the Mad King, we might have a prayer of surviving him and actually getting what we want out of all of this,” Margaery said, coldly.

Cersei glared at her. “I hardly see how it benefits me for your son to be on the throne,” she gritted out.

Margaery smiled thinly. “And here I thought you loved yours,” she said, placing a hand on her stomach. “This child in my womb, it is the last thing left of Joffrey, his legacy, the last thing you will ever have that once belonged to him. I would think you would be a bit more willing to see him succeed, especially after you accused me of stealing you away from your final moments with your son.”

Cersei’s mouth opened and closed, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.

No one else at the Small Council table looked like they knew how to react to that, either.

Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. Loudly. “Perhaps if we were to get to the matter at hand…”

“I will accept nothing less than your admission in writing that, should the child in your womb be a girl, Tommen is the rightful heir and House Tyrell will step down and bend the knee,” Cersei interrupted, then. “And will fuck off back to Highgarden where they belong. I do not appreciate your family’s constant waffling on the subject of my children’s legitimacy, when you yourself have so profited from their claims, and do not know how you could expect us to blindly accept your bent knee, should that child not be the boy you wish for.”

“Last I checked, you could not afford this war, Lady Lannister, whether your son is the rightful heir or not,” Margaery said, her smile thin.

After all, nothing less than sheer desperation could have brought her to this table, either.

“And if this Targaryen boy is real?” Cersei asked, cocking her head. “Can you?”

Margaery gritted her teeth. “As I said,” she said, “In order for both of us to get what we want, we’re going to have to put aside our personal grudges against one another.” She paused for a moment, and then smiled. “After we all, we are sisters, are we not?”

This time, when she tried to lunge, Kevan just managed to hold her back.

* * *

It had taken a while to find him. She’d had Qyburn searching for him since the moment they had set foot in King’s Landing, and Cersei would have expected it to be rather easier, considering the monster’s size, and his...disposition.

But find him, eventually, Qyburn had; he had yet to fail her, after all.

Sneaking him into the Keep had been something of a challenge; Cersei was under no illusion that if she tried to leave the Keep, she would be followed, and so it would be easier to do this, instead. Drugging her serving girl with a bit of wine had been the easy part; sneaking the Mountain into an empty room in the serving chambers was slightly more difficult, but Cersei managed that, too.

And then, finally, she stood before the Mountain, Qyburn at her side, the last true man to remain faithful to her, these days, much as that thought stung.

The Mountain looked much the same, from the last time that Cersei had seen him. She understood that he had never been formally dismissed from the Kingsguard, after Margaery had named herself Regent and dismissed all of the members of the Kingsguard whom the Lannisters had appointed; no doubt they were too frightened by what his response might be, but they had made it clear that they weren’t interested in his protection, all the same, apparently.

Qyburn took a step forward. “You remember who we are?” he asked the Mountain, and she wasn’t quite sure how the Mountain indicated his response, but evidently, he had, for Qybun looked satisfied, turning back to Cersei with a nod.

Unsettled, Cersei stepped forward, reminding herself that this was her only option, that Margaery Fucking Tyrell had driven her tot his, that there was nothing else she could do to keep her son safe.

She had agreed to the negotiation, just as Kevan demanded.

It didn’t matter if the Tyrells demanded too much; Cersei would be seen in a good light for even considering those demands.

So it didn’t matter.

And when the Targaryen was dealt with, and she was not stupid enough to think that the Tyrells’ army would not be useful for that, then, she could deal with them before they tried to deal with her.

And Cersei thought she knew just the blow that would bring House Tyrell, finally, to its knees.

“Margaery Tyrell,” she told the Mountain. “This new Regent. She is a threat to me, but one that I cannot deal with directly.”

The Mountain made no sound; at her side, Qyburn motioned for her to continue.

Cersei took a careful breath.

“Right now, she is a necessary evil. But when the time comes, I want you to get her alone,” Cersei told the shadow in the darkness of the corridor. “It won’t be easy, especially now, but the moment you see a chance, you take it. Get her alone, and…”

She took a shuddering breath, and then another, thought about the child in Margaery’s womb.

“When the child is born, get her alone and bash that little whore’s brains in, do you hear me? The same way my son’s were, they say.” She swallowed, the very thought of Joffrey making her feel weak. “Can you do that?”

In the shadows, the Mountain grunted. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. Cersei understood his need for bloodlust well enough; he would do as he was told.

And for now, Cersei would play their games and offer whatever she had to, in order to keep herself and Tommen safe from other enemies, as well.

* * *

 

“I have recreated an alliance with the Queen Regent,” Cersei gritted out, staring down hard at the guard in front of her, the guard blocking the door that could take her to her son, the same damned guard who had refused her access, the last time. “And since we are not enemies, you cannot keep me from that room, surely.”

When she took back all that belonged to her, when Margaery was dead and the Tyrells had no claim to the throne whatsoever after she had taken back her son’s son, she was going to make this guard pay, personally, for refusing her so willingly.

“Your Grace, as I have told you, the Regent has refused to allow anyone to pass. I cannot…” he began, but a voice behind her cut him off, and Cersei could honestly say she had never felt so pleased to hear that particular voice before.

“As personal advisor to Her Grace, I have the authority to tell you to stand down,” Baelish said, as Cersei half turned where she stood in the entrance to the crypts under the Sept. “And I shall intercede personally with Her Grace, busy though she is trying to avoid a war for all of us, if you do not allow us to pass.”

Still, her eyes narrowed; she had never taken Baelish for anything like a guardian angel before, after all, and she knew he must have some agenda for this, even if a part of her was simply grateful that he had enough pity to do so in the first place.

The guard straightened. “Yes, my lord,” he said, and Cersei’s eyes narrowed as she wondered just how much power Baelish had managed to accumulate since his arrival in King’s Landing, and how.

Before she had left, he had been a necessary evil, of course, but this...this was not how she had expected him to rise, after her boy’s death.

Something about it was...strange, especially for a man who had freely admitted to her that he had once been very common, indeed.

But Cersei was hardly about to question that in this moment, not when he finally was able to give her what she wanted.

The guard pushed open the door for them, and Cersei stepped through, remembering to breathe only as Baelish shut the door behind them.

She wanted to snap at him that he wasn’t welcome here, that she was grateful for his intervention but she had the right to be with her son’s body alone, but she had a terrible feeling that if she did, she would figure out what his price was, for helping her, and so Cersei remained silent, walking passed stone coffins and stone statues alike, commemorating Targaryen Kings long past, until finally, she found it.

The statue she had not been able to see at the funeral, because Margaery had refused to unveil it, and Cersei didn’t know if that was because it was not yet done, or for some other reason, but she loathed the girl a little more for it, all the same.

Cersei fell to her knees as she stared up at it, heard Baelish suck in a breath behind her, but she ignored him.

Margaery Tyrell, for all that she had dared to point out during that disastrous Small Council meeting that Cersei’s son had been a monster, had certainly made sure that her son’s death was commemorated, between that extremely long ceremony and this statue.

Cersei stared up at it.

It looked remarkably like her son, she realized, which was something of a relief. She had expected it to look nothing like the boy, after the vitriol with which that little whore had referred to him.

And it would be just like her to do something like that just to get back at Cersei, she supposed.

Instead, she felt like she was staring up at an image of her son, straight out of cut marble, as he had been the very last time Cersei had seen him, though he wasn’t smiling, or screaming.

She swallowed hard, feeling rather ill as her fingers clenched around the base of the statue, as she stared up at it with a longing that made her sick to her stomach and shaky all over.

“I am...truly sorry for your loss, Your Grace,” Baelish, the snake, said, as he slinked forward to stand at her side.

Cersei blinked at him; she wanted to be furious with him, for his betrayal, for the amount of power that he had gained since her gooddaughter had declared herself Regent of a child who didn’t even exist yet, because clearly he wasn’t mourning her son at all.

And yet...he was the first person in King’s Landing who had bothered to say those words to her, much less had helped her get into this room in the first place, and so, Cersei listened to him.

“Thank you,” she breathed. Then, breathless, “Where is his body?”

The rest of the bodies in here, whether they belonged to Targaryens or that lifeless woman, Elia Martell, their remains were buried underneath coffins cut in their image.

The statue of Joffrey was standing upright, and was clearly not a coffin as the others were.

And she...she knew what had been said about her son’s death, that her brother had allowed a bunch of fanatics into the Keep to kill the boy, that the fanatics had been...particularly brutal about it, incensed as they were about the death of their fanatical leader.

But she needed to see his body, as his mother, before she thought she could really even feel anything about his death. There was this pit, in the middle of her stomach, making her ill every time she took a sip of wine, and she had sobbed, the day she had read of his death, but that wasn’t the same.

Even with Robert, she had been there when he died.

She did not know how Joffrey had died, whether he had been brave or terrified, whether he had regretted sending her away, in his final moments, and all of that ate away at her.

She thought that if she saw him, one last time, she might at least be able to lay some of that to rest alongside him, but it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t here, that she had gone to all of this trouble only to not be able to find him.

Baelish grimaced. “Come with me,” he said, and she followed him unthinkingly, as he led her to the back of the room, and kept going, through a small door that he had the keys for looped onto his belt.

She wondered if he had followed her here; she didn’t see him as the sort of man who came to the Sept of his own accord. Wondered yet again what his purpose was, in being kind enough to show this to her.

Gods, she hated having to sit here and second guess this man when all she wanted was to be alone with her son.

But then the door opened, and she stepped through, and sucked in a breath.

“The Regent decreed that King Joffrey’s body, may he rest in peace,” and Baelish said those last words so flippantly that Cersei wanted to hit him, “Should be placed somewhere deep in the Sept, so that his injuries before his death are not what he is remembered by from future generations.”

Cersei flinched.

“Why are you doing this?” Cersei asked, numbly, as she watched him step through the door.

Baelish hesitated, for a moment, and for a moment she thought he might try to shut the door again, before she had the opportunity to see the body.

“Because that is something that I think you have a right to see, even if the Regent does not want you to do so,” Baelish said, quietly, and Cersei blinked at him, swallowing hard.

It seemed that Margaery had not been the only one with this idea; Elia Martell was buried here, her body beneath a coffin made of stone because once upon a time, Ned Stark had insisted that Robert give her a proper burial, even when Robert had laughed and said that they ought to throw the Dragon’s wife out into the sea, her children with her.

Cersei had known she didn’t love her husband, in that moment. She remembered the way he had grumbled, as he acquiesced to Ned Stark’s pleading.

But she wasn’t interested in Elia Martell’s body, wasn’t here to mourn the failed wife of a Targaryen, after all, as she stalked forward to the newest installation here, the stone coffin that had been left behind for her son, hidden away in the darkest part of the Sept.

Slowly, she walked forward to her son’s coffin, lifting the lid with more difficulty than she had thought it would require. Of course, Margaery would place that one last difficulty between Cersei and the ability to see her son, once more.

When she did finally lift it, after Baelish stepped forward to help her, Cersei sucked in a breath.

They had said that her son had been attacked in the dead of night, alongside his wife, by fanatics who loathed him for what had occurred at the Sept. That he had been brutalized, in his death.

She had thought she knew that, before this.

For a moment, she forgot that Baelish even stood beside her, that anyone else even existed at all, save for herself and the corpse laid out before her.

Dear gods.

But now, seeing him like this...Cersei reached up, covering her mouth with her hand.

Nothing had prepared her for this.

Nothing had prepared her for the sight of her dear, sweet, firstborn son, laying on that pyre, body so brutalized that Cersei barely would have recognized him for her own if not for the clothes he wore, Baratheon black and gold with a golden crown that he had worn while he was king, and the small amount of blonde hair that she could see had been washed as best as someone had been able to manage, free of blood.

His body was grotesque, as it had not been in life. Covered in motley bruises that looked black, in death, and gashes that covered his face and head. His head, which was caved in at the crown going back to the base of his neck, as if the fanatics had taken the blunt end of an axe to it multiple times, and Cersei felt tears stinging at her eyes, as she stared down at it.

Her son’s face was unrecognizable. The Silent Sisters had clearly tried the best that they could to restore it, but had not even been able to place stones on his eyes because Cersei could not even make out where they were, herself.

She swallowed hard, reaching out to touch, a finger tracing where she knew the eyes were because she knew her son’s every feature, as the woman who had brought him into this world. Flinched when she felt nothing indicating that there had ever been eyes there, in response.

Closed her own eyes as she felt tears streaming down them.

Her darling boy, reduced to a shell of a human being in death.

She had been wrong; it wasn’t better, finally being able to see him like this. In many ways, it felt infinitely worse, now that she finally knew the full extent of how he had died.

In pain, surrounded by enemies, including his whore of a wife, and without his mother anywhere near him.

Dear gods, if she had only been there, perhaps she could have prevented this. Perhaps she could have…

“I will leave you, now,” Baelish said, and Cersei’s eyes were shining, her throat closing, and she didn’t think that she would have been able to respond to him, even if she had wanted to.

She merely nodded, silent.

Not really listening, Cersei thought she heard the sound of the door shutting behind Baelish, and the moment it did, Cersei dropped to her knees beside her son’s casket, sobbing, the full force of the sobs shaking her entire body until she thought she might make herself ill from it.

She screamed then, the sound ripping out of her the way it had when she had first read the news - read it, as if, as his mother, she did not have the right to hear it in person - at the Rock, the Rock that those damnable mutineers of Stannis’ army had now stolen from her, just as those damnable fanatics had stolen Joffrey from her.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that, on her haunches, screaming out the pain she had not been allowed to feel until this moment, because, by the gods, she had to focus on protecting the two children she had left.

Cersei closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, letting it out slowly, finding that even the simple act of breathing was now difficult for her.

And then she stood again, when she had managed to compose herself well enough to see through her tears.

“My boy,” she whispered, reaching out and touching his cold, stiff hand. Of course; he had been dead for some time, but even knowing that, and knowing how he had been murdered, Cersei had not been prepared to see him like this, no matter how much she had wanted to.

She was glad, suddenly, that she had refused to allow Tommen to come along with her to the funeral, and not just because she had been trying to protect him.

This...seeing what was left of her son, in death, was horrible. She wouldn’t have wanted Tommen to see something like this, wouldn’t want his last memory of his brother to be his bloated, brutalized corpse, changed beyond recognition and by more than just death.

She closed her eyes.

And then, behind her, she heard the sound of a door opening again.

Cursing softly under her breath, not wanting that man to see her like this, Cersei called out, “I’m almost done.”

The voice that answered was not Baelish’s, but was familiar, all the same. “Take your time, Your Grace.”

Cersei stiffened, felt annoyance flooding through her; this boy had no right to interrupt her here, now that she finally had the chance to say her final goodbyes to what remained of her eldest son.

She turned around, wiping at her eyes before she did so and crossing her arms over her chest. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” She demanded. “I know that I had a difficult enough time getting in; I don’t know how he got you in.”

The boy, whose name she didn’t remember for all that she had used him in the past, blinked at her.

“I am Lord Baelish’s personal servant, Your Grace,” he told her, and Cersei rolled her eyes at those words, because it felt wrong to laugh at them when her son’s corpse lay behind her.

Personal servant, indeed.

“And he sent you to summon me?” She asked, yet again remembering why she loathed Baelish so.

But, to her surprise, the boy shook his head.

“I came of my own accord,” he told her.

Cersei glared at him. “Then leave,” she hissed. “Can’t you see I wish to be alone?”

The boy stared at her for a moment, looking terribly hesitant, and then dropped to his knees before her.

Cersei blinked at him in bemusement.

“This is the only place I thought I might speak with you without being overheard, Your Grace,” he said, quietly, and Cersei just stared at him, not wanting to get into any more plots when her son lay dead behind her.

“My name is Olyvar,” the boy said, and his face was ashen. “And I need your protection, Your Grace.”

Cersei squinted at him. “My protection?” she asked him. “Does your master not treat you well enough?” She knew to whom he belonged, after all.

Olyvar grimaced. “He...knows something that I fear will put my life at risk. Your Grace. I fear for myself, under his control. Fear for what he might try to do to me.”

Cersei raised an eyebrow. “And why do you not appeal to the Regent, Margaery?” she asked, for everyone in King’s Landing seemed to have accepted that new status quo, even, rudely, before her.

Olyvar bit the inside of his cheek, glancing over his shoulder as if he thought they were about to be overheard. Then he stood, and took a step closer to her, and Cersei found herself curious, despite herself.

“It is on account of Her Grace that I am in danger,” he whispered, and then, very carefully, “Your Grace. Please. My master he…he knows something that I have done, that Her Grace compelled me to do, and I fear that if she finds out what he knows, she will kill me.”

Cersei raised a brow. “And why should she not?” One dead whore meant nothing to her, after all. “What is that you have done?”

He swallowed hard, and glanced over at the corpse of her son, behind her.

Cersei stiffened.

Olyvar swallowed hard. “I…Her Grace compelled me to bed her, multiple times, near to the end of her…near to the end of King Joffrey’s death. I…She told me that if I did not, she would see me killed for it. I only did it because…”

Cersei reached out, grabbing him by the throat, slamming him down on the coffin covering Elia Martell’s miserable, broken corpse.

The boy choked, staggered, fell to his knees again, and only then did Cersei release him.

He lowered his head. “Please, Your Grace,” he begged of her. “Please, I only did as she commanded me to, as the Queen. I did not know…” he swallowed hard. “I feared for my life, if I did not. I did not care for her, but I did it. Please, I beg of you, don’t let me die for it.”

Cersei closed her eyes, breathed in deeply. Opened them, glowering down at him. “And how long after you fucked my son’s wife did she fall ill with child?” She demanded, fury lancing through her, feeling incredibly hot where she had felt chilly, before.

The boy looked away, looked guilty.

Cersei glanced between the corpse that remained of her son, and this boy in front of her.

“You do...look quite similar,” she allowed, slowly, as she realized exactly why he was telling her this, because accusing her of adultery wasn’t going to help Cersei in her current situation, not when the Tyrells held all of the cards and she held nothing, and Olyvar grimaced.

“I believe that was her intention, Your Grace,” he whispered, hoarsely, and Cersei felt fury lancing through her, at the thought that the bitch had put more than a little thought into this, that it wasn’t some heated passion of the moment, that she had deliberately plotted treason against her husband with this whore.

She let out a scream that tore through her throat with all of the pain and anger she had felt since first being banished by her son, and then learning that she had lost him forever, when before she had held out some small hope that they might be reconciled.

And now, she learned, while she had been mourning her son, Margaery had been fucking Sansa Stark and this whore.

She should have used the poison to kill Sansa, rather than hurting her just to make sure that the things Baelish had once told her about the girl were the truth. That would have taught Margaery a far better lesson, she couldn’t help but think, than the one she had actually used.

“The child,” she breathed. She needed an answer, now that she was finally listening. “When did you say you fucked her, again?”

* * *

“When did we get this?” Margaery demanded, staring down at the letter in her hands. 

The serving girl, perhaps sensing that she was about to be screamed at, swallowed hard, ducking in her shoulders and looking suddenly very small. “Just last night, Your Grace. It was determined by the Lady Sansa, before her...illness, that you should not be disturbed when you were sleeping.”

Of course it was.

And Margaery knew that was because Sansa was concerned about her, because she thought that Margaery couldn’t handle any more stresses to her body at the moment, but all Margaery could think about, in that moment, was how many nights she had lain awake for hours.

Margaery gritted her teeth. “She’s been poisoned, not ill,” she pointed out, coldly.

The serving girl flinched. “Yes, Your Grace,” she agreed, and Margaery bit back a sigh.

“Any other messages that may be important, wake me up for, do you understand?” she demanded. “I don’t care if I haven’t slept in three days.” She waved the letter in front of the girl’s face. “This message in particular was very important.”

The girl grimaced, curtseying. “Yes, Your Grace,” she agreed, and scampered off as quickly as she could manage.

Margaery sighed as she watched her go, certain that at the very least, she would do as she was told, next time.

Then, she glanced back down at the letter the serving girl had brought her, reading it through again, not quite sure whether she should believe it had been brought in the night at all.

The letter, in its contents, was terribly confusing. A part of Margaery thought it might be a trick, designed to lower her guard before this Targaryen pretender attacked them.

Lady Margaery of House Tyrell, the letter began, simply enough, and despite the fact that the title made Margaery grit her teeth, she supposed she could understand why. And then it greeted her, as if they weren’t about to go after each other with more than two armies each, as if they were both nobles who had known each other well for many years.

The thought made her laugh.

Margaery supposed that said something about this boy’s breeding, if nothing else, that he composed the letter so politely, for all that he had to know there was no way for them to be anything less than enemies. They said that the Dragon Queen had spent her formative years as the slave of a bunch of mercenary rapists.

Of course, it said very little that this little Dragon Prince was now also surrounded by an army of mercenaries, even if they had once been Westerosi.

Her eyes scanned the rest of the letter, even as a pit of nervousness formed in her stomach.

There was nothing in the letter to indicate that this boy and his army were planning to sack King’s Landing if she refused, and yet, she found that most suspicious of anything else she read in the letter.

And then it asked her, for the sake of the realm, as if Margaery thought a Targaryen cared about the state of the realm, considering the chaos it was still recovering from, to meet with him, to go over a way that they might “Find a way through this.”

He was all but offering her the chance to bend the knee before his own army of mercenaries sacked King’s Landing, Margaery thought bitterly, which was nice enough of him considering what family her unborn child claimed to be born from, though she did not intend to do it, even as she knew that she couldn’t just ignore a letter like this. That she would be a fool to do so, trap or not.

And she didn’t understand how it could be anything other than that; even if he had lost men coming over the Narrow Sea to Westeros, even if he had lost some of them taking Griffin’s Roost and Storm’s End, Margaery could not imagine that this arrogant prince thought he was in desperate straits, at this point.

No doubt, he felt he had the advantage, and so she could not see a reason for him to want to meet with her at all, save for the chance to a put face to the name of his enemy.

She placed a hand on her stomach. If she went to that meeting, she knew, and it was a trap, there was a chance she would lose both her child and her claim to the throne, however tenuous it was at the moment, in one fell swoop.

She stared down at the letter in her other hand, and realized she had no idea what to do with it. The letter demanded that she respond within the next week, so that he knew whether she was willing to treat with him or not, and so she knew she had a little time, but not much, factoring in how long this letter would take to return to Storm’s End.

And Margaery...didn't know how she should respond.

Gods, she wished Sansa were here, so that the two of them could go over it together.

She’d been ignoring enough of Sansa’s advice in the past few months, she thought she would listen to whatever the other girl had to say now, so long as she just…woke up again.

Margaery swallowed hard, reaching up and covering her hand with her mouth.

She was alone, now, her ladies all banished from her chambers the moment the serving girl had brought her that letter, alone for one of the first times since Sansa had fallen in that room in the first place, but Margaery still felt that she couldn’t afford to let her guard down.

That even here, someone could walk in at any moment, take one good look at her, and realize that she was breaking apart because there was a chance that Sansa Stark might never wake again. That this was their chance to go after the damned throne.

And then, as if on cue, there was a loud knock on the door, and one of the members of the Kingsguard stuck his head in to ask her, “Your Grace?”

Margaery forced herself to wipe at her eyes, lift her head, and nod to the man. “What is it?” She demanded.

He cleared his throat. “Lord Varys, here to see you,” he said, and Margaery bit back a sigh.

The last thing she wanted at the moment was for a man, even a man like Lord Varys, to come into her rooms alone, but she forced herself to smile pleasantly and say, “Of course. Let him in,”

Varys was already moving at that point, of course, stepping into her chambers with a little bow that Baelish no longer bothered with, these days.

Margaery forced herself to pretend, as always, that she didn’t notice the discourtesy from Baelish when she did from Varys, and smiled at him.

“What is it?” She asked, hoping that this wasn’t about his little birds finding the letter in her hands. Hoping that it was about something else, anything else, that Sansa had awoken and…

“Your Grace,” Varys said, carefully, reaching out to shut the door behind himself, and no matter how much Margaery thought she might have begun recovering from what had happened to her in these very chambers, she still flinched when a man shut that door, trapping them in here together. Varys, thankfully, either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “If you don’t mind, there is something that I need to speak with you about.”

Margaery lifted a hand to brush at her hair. “I really don’t have the time…”

“Your Grace,” Varys said, and she turned, and actually looked at him, this time. Looked at him, and saw something serious in his eyes, something that said she was going to want to listen to this.

Fuck.

Because that could only mean that something else had gone disastrously wrong.

“Don’t tell me,” she breathed. “We’ve got yet another claimant to my son’s throne.”

Three were bad enough, just now. Tommen, Myrcella, and now this Aegon fellow, if he was even a real claimant and not some pretender.

Dear gods, who else was there?

Gods, she had a headache, and all she wanted to do was go to Sansa’s bedside and figure out what the fuck was wrong with her, why she wasn’t waking up, why the maesters couldn’t fix her, and instead, she was dealing with all of this shit.

Varys grimaced. “Like I said, you’re going to want to hear this, my lady. Is there...somewhere we can speak in private?”

She sighed. “Come with me,” she said, leading him over to the parlor, where they both sat, across from one another, and Margaery wondered why it felt like she was preparing for a game of cyvasse against this man.

Of course, every time she sat down with him or Baelish, she felt that way, Margaery thought, and tried to banish her sudden nervousness.

“Now,” Margaery said, folding her hands over her heavy belly. She was growing heavier by the day; the maesters said that the child would be here in less than a month, and while that thought terrified and excited her in equal measure, it was becoming more and more exciting to think of this child no longer sitting on her bladder and weighing on her womb. “What is it?”

Varys’ jaw ticked at the motion, as if he disliked being reminded that she was pregnant at all, and she wondered why. “It’s two things actually, Your Grace.”

She raised a brow. “And are you going to get to them?”

She would like to say that being pregnant made her so snappish. The truth was, she needed to talk about this letter from Aegon with her grandmother, or, at the very least, with Garlan before she brought it to anyone else’s attention.

And the mention of Sansa, from that serving girl, had reminded her that it had been less than a day since the last time she had checked on the maesters, on their work. She needed to see her, as well.

“As your Master of Whispers, I thought it important to let you know the letter that my little birds intercepted.” Margaery’s heart skipped a beat, as she found herself wondering whether he already knew about this letter from Aegon. She supposed she wouldn’t put it past him, but she didn’t much trust him with such knowledge. “The other day, before he managed to convince Lady Cersei to treat with your House, Lord Kevan received a letter from his sister, Genna Lannister.”

Margaery cocked her head. “And?”

Varys took a deep breath. “Casterly Rock has been lost, Your Grace. The Lannisters have not seen fit to inform us of this, but they no longer have control of the castle.”

Margaery sucked in a breath. “Lost,” she echoed, slowly, feeling rather dumb that the news surprised her so. “To whom?”

He pressed his hands together. “To the remainder of Stannis’ men who stayed behind at the Rock when he went on his suicidal mission North, Your Grace,” he informed her, and Margaery blinked at him. “They apparently staged something of a coup the moment the Queen Mother left the Westerlands.”

Margaery swallowed hard. She supposed that explained Cersei’s sudden willingness to come to the table, even if it explained little else.

Such as...how the fuck Lady Nym had still managed to disappear Tommen, when Casterly Rock had been under a state of civil war, and he had still vanished from the Lannisters.

Unless…

Her heart skipped a beat.

Unless Lady Nym had never managed to get to Tommen at all, and he had disappeared through...other means.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to take another. Varys, after all, didn’t know or shouldn’t know about Sansa’s plan to steal away Tommen, and it was hardly something she could question him about.

Dear gods, Margaery wasn’t even certain if anyone save for Garlan, Megga and Sansa knew about Lady Nym’s suicidal mission.

Very suicidal, now, if the Rock had been lost to a bunch of Stannis’ deserters.

“If this is truly what convinced Cersei to treat with us, one would think they would have brought it up at our first meeting,” Margaery pointed out. “After all, Kevan was to stringent about our coming to the aid of one another.”

Varys pressed his lips together. “I fear that they are going to force us into an agreement with them, with our thinking they bring more to the table than they do, before they bring it up, Your Grace.”

Margaery feared he might be right. She sighed, reaching up to rub at her temples. “Who else knows?” she asked, quietly.

Varys looked conflicted, for a moment. “I believe only myself and those two, Your Grace, as well as yourself, now. Of course, I have no way of knowing where Lord Baelish gets his information.”

Margaery sighed; neither did she.

She had gone to the brothels several more times, without Olyvar, and found the girls there fairly receptive to both her kindness and her questions about their treatment, but it had not resulted in quite what she had wanted from the experience; namely, a couple of turncoats she might use against Baelish.

And she knew well that he was a terrifying master, but she was beginning to worry that she may need to deal with him by more...direct means, something that she and Sansa had not wanted to do.

But Sansa was laying in bed dying, now, and the only other person who seemed to care, besides Margaery, was Baelish.

And Margaery didn’t much like the idea of mourning Sansa’s death, gods forbid, alongside that man.

“This other issue is...also about Lord Baelish, Your Grace.”

Margaery had almost forgotten that he had mentioned there were two things he wished to speak with her about.

At least he had brought them up by importance, she thought.

“Lord Baelish,” she repeated. Margaery barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew that the two men hated each other, plotting against each other constantly. It was helpful, in some ways; it kept them from plotting against her, for one, even if they still tried. “I’m afraid that I really don’t have time for your petty rivalries just now, Lord Varys, especially with what you’ve just told me. Please. Leave me out of them.” She gestured towards the door.

Varys lifted his chin. “This is not about my own personal feelings towards Lord Baelish, Your Grace. It is about a conspiracy which threatens the very foundation of your son’s kingdoms.”

Margaery blinked at him. “Go on,” she said, slowly.

Varys took a seat in the chair across from her, looking entirely too comfortable for this conversation. Margaery felt a spike of annoyance at the thought, even before he uttered his next, nearly nonsensical, words.

“What do you know about Jon Arryn’s death? Or his late wife’s, for that matter?”

Margaery squinted at him, even as she took the seat across from him. She couldn’t deny that she was intrigued, by whatever he was about to say, even if she didn’t want to be. After all, Jon Arryn had been dead for years, and she knew Varys well enough by now to know that he would not merely bring the man’s name up on a whim. “I know that they occurred some time ago, Lord Varys, and therefore, cannot be related to anything urgent, now.”

Varys met her eyes. “But, Your Grace, they are.”

Margaery fell silent, considering him. Then, “Do you have proof of this?” she asked him, slowly, because she had a sudden, terrible feeling that she knew where this was going.

Dear gods, if he was about to accuse Baelish of being involved, somehow, in their deaths, as she knew was entirely possible at this point, considering the way that he had helped her cover up her own husband’s, Margaery was about to find herself at a terrible impasse.

On the one hand, it would be terribly stupid to allow Baelish to be accused of anything, especially by a senior member of the Small Council, that he was also helping her to cover up. Not when, for all his help, he could very much bring that against her in response.

Their fates were intertwined, at the moment.

And on the other hand, she would very much like to see him brought down for it.

But if she refused to even listen to what Varys had to say, now, it would only serve to make him suspicious about why she was going to such effort to protect Baelish, why Baelish had gained so much power recently, and she could not have that, either.

His eyes flashed. “I do, Your Grace.”

And he pulled a knife out of his robes that, by all rights, he should not have had.

Margaery blinked at it dumbly. “Am I supposed to be impressed by this knife somehow, Lord Varys, or are you threatening me? I did not think you were so stupid.”

Varys set the knife on the table between them, lifting his chin. “This is the knife that was used by the assassin who nearly killed Bran Stark, in Winterfell, Your Grace, after his fall.”

Margaery glanced down at the knife. It was a pretty thing, she would allow, if a bit simple for something she suspected might have been made out of dragon glass.

She had not known Sansa, when Bran Stark had fallen from a great height and been crippled. Had not known her when an assassin had supposedly tried to kill him, though she didn’t remember hearing about that. She suddenly suspected there was a reason for that.

“Bran Stark?” she echoed, and wondered how obvious she was these days, that Varys could so easily capture her attention with a single name.

Because, even if he was lying, she could have easily discovered whether that was the truth, and she owed it to Sansa to at least hear him out, after he had invoked the name of her brother.

“It belonged to your husband. But before that, it belonged to Petyr Baelish. And that is just the start of the larger web he’s been weaving around all of us, playing us like pawns, since Jon Arryn’s death. And I fear that if you allow him free rein in King’s Landing for a moment longer, he will force us to face the same fate.”

Margaery felt her heart grow cold. “Explain,” she muttered, as she stuffed Aegon’s letter into her pocket, where it could not be seen.

“You see, when-“

“I didn’t mean to recieve a history lesson,” Margaery interrupted him, even as her thoughts drifted back, as always, to Sansa, of what this would mean to Sansa, to know who had attacked her brother, of how this would break Sansa, to know that she was playing nice with the man who had orchestrated all of this in the first place, far more than they had even guessed so far, and they had guessed something of it, after all.

As much as it hurt her, she knew, of course, that wasn’t what she was allowed to focus on, at the moment. Because if she focused on what Baelish might have done to the Starks while claiming all of this time to Sansa that he had loved her mother, Margaery might not be able to contain her rage at the other man.

Might give in to the manic pleasure glinting in Varys’ eyes, at the idea that she was about to bring his greatest enemy down for him.

And she couldn’t afford to do that, when he had such information held over her head and Margaery had no idea who he might have told about what she had done, in order to ensure his own survival. Or what he might yet do, if she threatened him at all.

She had to put the safety of her realm first, before the justice this could bring to House Stark, before…

“Explain what this has to do with me, now.”

Varys cleared his throat. “Because, Your Grace, just now, Lord Baelish told the men guarding the King’s tomb to stand aside and let his mother pass. And he had a blonde whore at his side, while he did so.”

Margaery went still, feeling suddenly very cold.

* * *

“How is she?” Megga asked, as she took a seat next to the older woman.

Brienne of Tarth, a woman whom Megga still had to fully understand, but whose devotion to Sansa fascinated her all the same, where she sat at the foot of Sansa’s bed, her faithful guard, let out a long sigh.

She had refused to leave Sansa’s side since the other girl had fallen ill, standing as her guard or her nurse, alternately, doing everything that the maesters commanded of the servants watching over Sansa when her own serving girl, that little traitor Rosamund, was nowhere to be found.

Megga knew that Brienne was something of an enigma to the majority of the court, not just to her.

Everyone knew of her…complicated relationship with Jaime Lannister, who had never so much as looked at a woman other than his sister more than once, but who looked at Brienne of Tarth, this strange knight who had returned him to King’s Landing at Catelyn Stark’s request, like she was the sun itself.

And Megga had spent enough time spying for Margaery, or for Olenna, or for Sansa, enough to have seen the number of times that Brienne had left chambers that were most certainly not hers, in the dead of night.

But she also knew that Brienne was devoted to Sansa, as she had once been devoted enough to Catelyn Stark to drag a one handed kingslayer across the Seven Kingdoms because the other woman had asked it of her.

There was a story behind that which no one at court knew, either, but Megga would have to be a fool not to think that Brienne would lay down her life for Sansa now, even if she couldn’t quite understand why.

She hadn’t known Sansa before, that was certain. As the sole heir of House Tarth, she would not have had much occasion to leave her home before the war began, though Megga thought she remembered seeing the other woman in Renly’s camp before that, when he had first decided to marry Margaery, before all of this craziness had begun.

Yes, she was an interesting woman, indeed.

She reminded Megga a little of Lady Nym, which perhaps explained her fascination with her. Loyal, just a bit too odd for a nobleman’s daughter, and good with a sword.

Speaking of Nym, though, only made Megga feel all the more worried for the other girl. She hadn’t heard a single thing from the other woman, since she had left for the Westerlands to drag Prince Tommen back here if she had to, and while she knew it would be dangerous to try and get any sort of messages out of the Lannisters’ stronghold these days, but Megga felt as if she would go mad, if they didn’t hear anything from the other woman for much longer.

She needed…she needed to know that Nym was all right. She needed…

And Brienne, talking with her during their constant vigils by Sansa’s bedside, made Megga feel a little less mad.

“The maesters say that she is deteriorating once more,” Brienne offered, quietly. “They believe that they may have narrowed down the exact illness that has befallen her, but it is a tricky one, and if they get it wrong…” She cleared her throat. “If they get it wrong, they say it will only cause her affliction to spread.”

Megga swallowed hard. “Margaery will kill them if anything happens to worsen her condition,” she said, but didn’t bother to point out the obvious.

That if Sansa died because they couldn’t figure out what poison had been used against her either, that wouldn’t matter. She would already be lost, and, Megga had the horrible feeling that by then, they would have lost Margaery, as well.

She didn't say it, and didn't have the chance to even if she might have been so inclined, for suddenly the door to the room flew open and Alla was rushing inside, red faced and wide eyed. Brienne was on her feet in a moment, looking ready to defend against the slip of a girl if she had to, before she realized what she was up against and sat back down again.

“Lady Nym,” Alla announced, panting. “She’s…she’s returned.”

Megga’s heart skipped a beat. “She’s back?” She whispered, something like hope filling her chest.

Nym was back. Nym had returned to her, hopefully in one piece, and…

Megga glanced between Brienne and Alla, conflicted, because she had promised Margaery that she would watch over Sansa when she could not, but…Nym was back.

Nym was back, and dear gods, Megga wanted nothing more than to run out into the Great Hall and throw herself into the other girl’s arms, no matter how badly that would reflect on the both of them, no matter the weakness that would expose of their relationship to anyone with eyes, the same way that Margaery could not properly worry over Sansa, just now.

And if Margaery, in her current, fragile state, could manage such a thing, then so could Megga, she told herself, straightening her gown.

She had to.

And then Brienne reached out, placing a hand on her arm. “Go,” she said, and there was something gentle about her eyes, even if her lips looked vaguely amused. “I will watch over the Lady Sansa, and send for you if there are any changes.”

Megga wilted in relief. “Thank you,” she breathed, and all but ran from Sansa’s chambers, at that moment, ran all of the way out to the Great Hall, where half of the nobles had gathered already, having heard the same thing that Megga had.

And, of course, what they found was Lady Nym, surrounded by four members of the Kingsguard, whether to protect her when Cersei inevitably found her, or to arrest her, Megga couldn’t say…

She reached up then, covering her mouth with her hand as she realized a horrible truth, realized what was about to happen, the only thing that could happen, as Tommen Baratheon trudged along beside Lady Nym and the Kingsguard, looking distinctly uncomfortable and out of place in his nightclothes and Lady Nym’s leather jacket, hugging himself.

There was a large bruise on his cheek, but other than that, she noticed, he seemed all right, and she wondered if that would be enough to curtail Cersei’s wrath, though she very much doubted it.

Cersei, whom they had lied to when they told her that they had no idea what had happened to her poor son, that they would help her find the boy, when they had known where the boy had to be all along, assuming that he had survived the Baratheon soldiers retaking the Rock, where Nym would be taking him…

Godsdamnit, Megga thought, _Why couldn’t you have just brought the boy in through the servants’ entrance? Or at night?_

That way, at least, they could have prepared for this. That way, it would have been easier for everyone involved, for Nym, so that she would not have to face Cersei’s wrath head on, and for Margaery, who would then not have to pretend, point blank, that she knew nothing of what Nym had been sent to the Westerlands to do.

From the look on her face, Nym didn’t seem to notice the sentiment.

Megga gritted her teeth, glancing nervously over at Margaery, as the other woman entered the room, unfortunately a few steps behind Cersei, though the both of them were moving quickly, despite having come from completely obvious directions.

Megga had heard that Margaery had refused to allow Cersei to see her son’s corpse, just as everyone these days was not allowed to see Joffrey’s body, but that the woman had been persistently at the Sept each day, trying to get some glimpse of it all the same.

Megga supposed she might have felt a little sorrier for the other woman if she had not caused Megga so much pain on her own.

Cersei, at least, didn’t seem to notice the tension hanging in the air as she caught sight of her son, standing surrounded by unfamiliar guards.

In the next few moments, she moved faster than Megga thought would have been possible, for a woman of her age.

“Oh gods,” Cersei whispered, running her fingers through her son’s hair once she had rushed forward to meet him, in the throne room. “Oh gods, I thought I’d lost you.”

Tommen shook his head, leaning into her touch.

It would have been…almost touching, if it wasn’t Cersei, Megga thought, and if her heart was hammering in her chest at the thought of what was coming next.

“I’m fine, Mama,” Tommen told her, ever the uncomplaining, sweet child that Megga vaguely remembered him as, and Cersei blinked at him, looking for a moment near tears herself. “Lady Nym brought me here. She said that I needed to…” he glanced at Nym, then, and there was nervousness there, Megga noticed, “that I needed to be at my brother’s funeral.”

Cersei’s eyes lifted, to where Lady Nym was standing, alongside Margaery, and narrowed, darkened.

Megga’s throat clogged.

“I see,” Cersei muttered, in a way that implied she very much saw what Tommen himself did not. “And…was the journey grueling?”

Megga closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, and letting it out slowly.

Fuck.

Fuck, they were all about to lose this tentative alliance before it even had the chance to be signed into agreement, she realized. They were all about to be fucked, because the moment Cersei realized that Margaery had not only lied to her, but had kidnapped her only son…the woman’s wrath would be great.

Megga shivered.

She knew something of that wrath, after all.

Tommen shrugged his thin shoulders. It was only then that Cersei seemed to notice that Lady Nym, rather than holding a sword at her son’s throat, was instead holding a cat. Ser Pounce, if Megga wasn’t mistaken; she thought she remembered the boy talking about it with Loras, more than once.

Megga bit back a smile at the sight.

“I...Lady Nym took care of me,” Tommen said, and Cersei eyed the other woman up and down.

“Did she,” she said, in a voice that clearly implied her doubt, about that. Then, she rounded on Margaery. “On the Regent’s orders, I suppose?”

Margaery swallowed hard, looking suddenly nervous, and Megga had a terrible feeling about all of this.

Because if they were going to get out of this at all, if they had a prayer of not entering another war because of this, a war that Megga still wasn’t certain whether or not Sansa had wanted it in the first place…

“Of course not,” Margaery gritted out, in a voice that Megga barely recognized as belonging to Margaery, it was so flinty, before turning on Lady Nym as well, and Megga’s heart leapt up into her throat as she realized what Margaery was about to do, what the only thing she could do in this situation, without totally losing their alliance altogether, was. “I told you I had no idea where Tommen was.”

Cersei scoffed. “As if your little guard dog here would have gone off and kidnapped my son on her own terms,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, Tommen nearly forgotten in the aftermath, Megga thought idly.

Megga closed her eyes.

No.

No, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t just stand by and let Margaery do this, just to save an alliance that Olenna wanted but Margaery did not, an alliance that had very little chance of actually succeeding…

But she knew that she had to. She knew that she was just going to have to stand here and look unconcerned, as it happened, as well, because she knew Cersei Lannister and that creature she called a maester, the one who lived in the Black Cells and had done whatever he wished with his prisoners there.

She could still hear Rosamund’s screams, sometimes…

Megga shook her head; she could only hope that after it was done, after Margaery had done this thing which Megga wasn’t sure she herself would be able to forgive Margaery for, Nym would find it in her heart to forgive the both of them.

She supposed she was going to have to hope that Lady Nym had meant it, when she said that she had pledged herself to Margaery, before. She had sounded offended, the one time that Megga had questioned her on it.

Megga had not bothered to ask her about it, again.

Margaery licked her lips, lifted her chin. Did her best to look unconcerned, as she issued her next order, though Megga knew her well enough to see the guilt in her expression.

“Guards,” Margaery said, and Megga did the only thing she could do, then; watched as Lady Nym’s eyes widened, as the guards moved closer to her and further from Cersei, “Arrest this woman for kidnapping the brother of my husband, and the son of our newly made ally.”

Something shuttered, behind Lady Nym’s eyes. And then, the guards were reaching for her, and she yanked her arms out of their grips.

“Let go of me,” she hissed, looking furious, and her eyes sought out…Megga’s, in the crowd.

Megga went very still, as their eyes met, for a fraction of a second, but she could only hope that it was long enough. That it was long enough to persuade the other woman to trust what was happening, to not fight it.

Because if she fought it, she was going to get them all killed.

Lady Nym sagged, as the guards grabbed at her, as Megga thought of how this might be disturbing her, after what Ser Robert Strong had done to her.

She turned back to the Queens, then. “I returned him to you, didn’t I?” She demanded, sounding suddenly very different, indeed. Like the stories the Tyrells told their children about the Martells, long ago. “No one asked me to, but I wandered into a war to bring him back to you both. If it weren’t for me, he’d probably be dead.”

Vicious, fierce creatures, with no regards to dignity.

It sold the lie well enough, when they were adults, to convince them to still loathe House Martell, after all.

All save for Willas.

“And you, what?” Margaery asked, coldly, and even Megga could admit that the other girl was doing a fair job of keeping it together long enough to sell this particular lie. “Thought that you could bring him here and sell him to the highest bidder, once you realized that your cousin and ally was no longer in command in Dorne?”

Lady Nym stared at her for a moment in obvious confusion, her hands jerked tighter behind her back by the guards when she didn’t answer.

Megga forced back a flinch, told herself that Sansa and Margaery had hid how they felt about each other for years at court, and she could damn well do the same.

“I…” Nym licked her lips. “Where is the Lady…” she looked around, and then abruptly cut off.

Megga winced, thinking for a moment that Nym was about to expose that Sansa had been the one behind all of this, but she managed to cut herself off, just in time.

And, as furious as Cersei looked at the moment, she didn’t seem to notice the slip, much to Megga’s relief.

And, she imagined, Margaery’s, if the way the other girl wilted a bit was any indication.

“I...see,” Lady Nym said, slowly, and Margaery thought that perhaps she really did see, to her surprise. Then, “I stole the boy for the Martells, for my sister. But when I found out that she had already crowned Myrcella, that she had been usurped by her own husband, I thought perhaps I might find a better price, here. I see I was...mistaken.”

Cersei snorted; Megga honestly couldn’t tell if the other woman believed the lie or not. They had the advantage that she knew little enough about Nym save for that she was a bastard, and the woman didn’t seem to have a great opinion about those, ironically enough.

Lady Nym dipped her head in Margaery’s direction. “I submit myself to your judgment, Regent.”

Margaery closed her eyes, for the barest second, and Megga grimaced, willing not to show that much weakness in front of Cersei.

If she showed even a drop of it, she knew the lioness would pounce.

“Send her down to the Black Cells,” Margaery said, finally, and Megga forgot how to breathe, even though she had known this was coming. “She shall be tried within the week.”

The guards started to drag Lady Nym away, and Margaery almost remembered how to breathe again.

“That’s not enough,” Cersei hissed out, reaching out to pull Tommen back against her chest. The boy let out a grunt.

Megga sucked in a breath.

Margaery raised a brow.

“She kidnapped a royal prince, a noble. The Heir to Casterly Rock,” Cersei sneered, “If nothing else. A bastard halfbreed. I demand that she be executed, as is the law considering those not of...noble stock.”

Lady Nym spat to the side. “My father was far more noble than your cunt of a self is,” she hissed out, and Cersei looked outraged.

Margaery looked more annoyed by the outburst than anything. “Send her to the Black Cells,” she repeated to the guards, as she opened her eyes once more. Then, “She shall be tried, as I said, and when she is found guilty, as she very likely will be, you will abide by my judgment, Goodmother.”

Cersei gritted her teeth together. “I demand to be one of the judges,” she hissed out.

“As a member of the aggrieved party?” Margaery asked, quirking a brow. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

Cersei looked furious, but didn’t contest the words, this time.

She knew she wouldn’t get away with it, that even if Lady Nym had kidnapped her son and she was rightly furious about it, it would come to nothing.

Megga almost felt sorry for her.

And then the guards were dragging Lady Nym away for something she had been tasked with doing in the first place, and Megga felt her heart clench at the flinty look in the other woman’s eyes, as if she was disappointed in what was going on, but hardly surprised.

Megga remembered her telling her how Margaery was one of the few women she’d met who she actually thought might fix things for the better, here.

She had sounded almost spellbound, as she said it.

Megga wondered if she still felt the same, now.

Cersei lifted her chin as the door slammed behind the guards, wrapping one arm around her son and pulling him close. Tommen looked almost uncomfortable at the embrace.

“Margaery won’t let anything happen to her,” Alla promised in a whisper, squeezing Megga’s hand.

Megga glanced down at their intertwined fingers, for a moment, not daring to point out that she didn’t know whether she feared that, or hoped for it.


	28. King's Landing

_“Sansa, I can’t do this,” Margaery whispered._

_They were standing just outside of the Great Hall, and Sansa had been fearing this moment from the minute Baelish had announced that this was their best course of action, that this was what would be expected of Margaery, and that otherwise, they would all find themselves short a head._

_Margaery had been in too much shock, Sansa thought, to really understand what he had been saying at the time, and to be honest, she was not entirely certain that the other woman knew what she was doing now, but at least they had managed to steal away a couple of hours in that time, to_

_Sansa took a deep breath. “You can,” she whispered back, not bothering to go on and say that it wasn't as if they had a choice about this, squeezing Margaery’s arms even though she knew how Margaery kept reacting to that, knew that the other girl couldn’t stand the feel of someone touching her, lately._

_But she did it anyway, saw for a moment how it seemed to ground Margaery before the girl gave a full body flinch._

_But Margaery was already shaking her head. "No," she breathed, and for a moment, Sansa was terrified that she was going to start hyperventilating again, that she wouldn't be able to go out there, just as she seemed to fear, because dear gods, she wouldn't even be able to talk. "No, I really can't. They'll know, the moment they see my face. The moment they see..." she gestured to the bruises, after a moment, and Sansa flinched._

_Wanted to tell her that, if she really didn't think she could, she didn't have to do this, that Sansa would gladly take on this burden for her, if she could._

_But she knew that wasn't the right answer, much as her heart might want to give it, after everything she had seen tonight, as exhausted as they both currently felt. Everything had to be perfect._

_Margaery needed to be the one to make this announcement, because it wasn't as if anyone would believe that Sansa shed a tear for King Joffrey, especially if she was the first to announce it, or Lord Baelish, for that matter. Margaery had to._

_If she didn't, even if they tried to explain it away as the grief of a wife, Cersei would be suspicious, and everything that they did tonight may very well be examined in the years to come, so it had to be perfect._

_Baelish had explained that, and while a part of her still felt vaguely ill about going to him for help on this at all, she knew that he was right._

_Even if it pained her, to see Margaery looking this terrified and traumatized, to see her begging not to be sent out to go and do this thing, after she had just been forced into something else horrible._

_Even as she had the thought, Margaery took a step back, and then another, hugging herself, as she had been doing when Sansa had walked into that room and seen her standing over Joffrey's corpse, seen Ser Meryn Trant standing over her._

_The thought gave her the sudden motivation she needed to respond, reaching out to grab Margaery's arms again, ignoring the way that she flinched this time, hoping that it might ground her._

_"You can," she repeated, forcing herself to smile, even though nothing she had seen tonight made her feel very much like smiling. "You are the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Margaery, and I believe in you. You can do this."_

_Margaery swallowed hard, shaking her head. "They all know I hated him, really. They won't believe the shock is from...is from..." she trailed off then, shaking._

_Sansa bit the inside of her cheek, secretly fearing the same. "You just watched a man brutally murdered by a group of violent men who attacked you, as well," she said, perhaps more harshly than she had intended, if the way that Margaery flinched was any indication. She lowered her voice, softened it. "You have the right to feel a little shock, over that alone."_

_Margaery swallowed hard, and Sansa could see in her eyes that she was holding back the words she wanted to say, that that wasn't what she had just witnessed at all, and Sansa breathed a sigh of relief when she kept it to herself._

_They were in a private room just off of the Great Hall, and it could not hurt to be too careful. Baelish had all but told them to never bring up the truth again, if any of them wanted to live._

_And Sansa hated that she knew he was right about that, because from the look on Margaery's face, from the way she'd been acting from the moment Sansa had walked in on her, she had a feeling this wasn't the sort of thing Margaery should keep to herself, not at all._

_She leaned forward, pressed a kiss to Margaery's forehead, forced herself not to react to the violent way that Margaery stepped back from her, two more steps than were needed to put space between them._

_"You can do this," she repeated, and Margaery licked her lips, let out a slow breath._

_"You're right," she whispered, swallowing hard. "This was...this was what we wanted, from the beginning. It was. It...it was," she went on, and Sansa bit back a sigh._

_"Now go out there," Sansa said, softly. "You can do this, and I'll be right there in the crowd, watching."_

_Margaery forced a smile. "At least I don't have to try and convince you," she said, but it sounded very tired, indeed._

_Sansa forced herself to laugh, because she couldn't stand the silence that she knew would stand between them if she didn't._

_And then, heart in her throat, she watched as Margaery turned and walked out the door, to where Baelish was standing, to where he held out an arm to her and she took it far too easily for Sansa's liking, just as Sansa had gone far too easily to Baelish to help fix all of this._

_It felt like taking the arm of the Stranger, Sansa thought, and grimaced at the thought, grimaced again when she noticed that Baelish was looking at her, not Margaery._

_"Are you ready, Your Grace?" he asked Margaery, and the other woman gave him a tight nod._

_Sansa sighed, knowing she had to wait before she followed them, because it would look far too suspicious, if they all went together. Breathed in, and then out, once, twice._

_She couldn't get the image of Margaery, standing there, covered in blood, out of her head. Couldn't get the look of shock on Ser Meryn's face, as she twisted the knife, out of her head._

_She breathed in, and out._

_Stepped out into the hallway, and then it was a short walk indeed into the Great Hall, where Margaery was already waiting, sitting on the chair beside her husband's throne, the one reserved for his mother or his wife, as the nobles and guards all gathered, looking bleary eyed and confused at the summons, especially when the king was not even present._

_Sansa pitied them their ignorance, as she stepped up beside the other ladies. Her gaze sought out Margaery's, found that Margaery was already looking for her, and she tried to project reassurance, because she knew Margaery needed it, even if her own stomach was roiling with nervousness._

_Margaery cleared her throat, loudly, the sound cutting off the frantic murmurs of the nobles, no doubt worried about an attack, either by Stannis or the smallfolk, Sansa thought, miserably._

_She wondered how many of them would be gone by midday._

_“I am afraid that I…” Margaery’s voice shook, and she cut off abruptly. Across the room, Sansa could feel Baelish’s eyes boring into her, and she knew from that single look that if Margaery screwed this up, right now, they were all going to find themselves short a head, as he had said._

_She needed to do this right. She could panic about it later, but right now, Margaery needed to keep a level head._

_And from down here, amongst the crowd of faceless nobles staring up at their new Regent, Sansa wasn’t sure how she could possibly help her with that. Wasn't sure how she could take on some of this burden for Margaery, who clearly, desperately needed someone to do just that for her, in her current state._

_For a moment, Sansa thought she might blurt out the whole truth then and there, either that, or faint dead away in front of so many people, and while that might actually lend credence to their story, it wouldn't help matters._

_Not tonight, when they needed so firmly to establish Margaery as the new Regent, before someone else tried to do so._

_That was paramount, as Baelish had explained. If Margaery did not become the Regent, they would not be able to stifle this story before it gained ground._

_"I am afraid that I have...terrible news," margaery said, softly, from where she sat in the chair beside her husband's empty throne. She chewed on her lower lip, obviously hit the cut there if the way she flinched was any indication. It was a sign of vulnerability their queen rarely showed, and Sansa grimaced. Margaery took a deep breath, and placed a hand on her pregnant belly._ _“My husband has been murdered,” Margaery announced, managing to put enough of a healthy grief into her voice that it was believable._

_The room fell silent, gasps quietly filling it, but that was the only other sound that Sansa could hear, beyond her own breathing._

_“He was killed,” Margaery continued, and her voice was still shaking, but it was now full of quiet fury, and Sansa didn’t know how she managed to act so unpredictably while still managing to seem convincing._

_Then again, she had learned from the best._

_“By cowards, in the dead of night,” Margaery continued, and she still sounded furious, her fingers scratching into her sides in a way that made Sansa shift in discomfort. “Let into the Keep through a secret passage that allowed them into our bedchambers in the night. They…” her voice cut off again._

_Thankfully, the nobles seemed too shocked by the realization that Joffrey was dead, whether they had hated him or not, to particularly care._

_“They killed him, right in front of me,” Margaery said, staring down at her arms now, and the nobles could not have failed to notice the bruises on her arm, the blood on her legs. Baelish had pointed that out, as well, that they would all see she must have been in the same rooms as her husband when he died, would have to only just have managed to survive the scenario, herself._

_Which, incidentally, helped them with a different part of the lie._

_“I myself only survived,” she went on, and her voice was still shaking, “Because of the selfless act of Ser Meryn Trant, who ran in front of one of the fanatics when they attempted to…” she licked her lips, glancing down at her bruised hands. “And he lost his life for it.”_

_He would not be missed, Sansa thought idly, as she thought of the bloodied knife still in her pocket. Though, somehow, despite her condition moments ago, Margaery managed to sound saddened by his death._

_“These…murderers, they must be found,” the Grandmaester gritted out then, always to be relied on when needed to make such grandiose statements, Sansa thought, sounding horrified. “They have murdered our king, and must pay the price for it!”_

_He glanced at Margaery with the last of those words, as if he only then thought to ask her permission for making such a statement._

_Margaery dipped her head. “Of course,” she murmured, softly, still managing to sound terribly grief stricken. “That duty will fall to the Hand of the King. I task him with chasing down these murderers and seeing them brought to justice for…kingslaying. For the murder of my husband, and the father of my child.”_

_Sansa personally thought she might be laying it on a little thick, there, but she didn’t dare let a bit of that show on her face._

_No one responded, though after a few moments, the crowd began to shift restlessly as they realized that Tyrion Lannister was not stepping forward to accept that task._

_“Where is our Hand of the King, Lord Tyrion?” Baelish drawled then, stepping forward, out of the crowd._

_The look that he gave Sansa was distinctly pleased; at least this was going the way he’d though it would, Sansa thought._

_“Should he not be the first to deal with these fanatics, with these traitors who have butchered our king?”_

_But the Hand of the King did not appear, at his words, as they had known he would not._

_Absolute, dead silence fell over the room._

_Sansa closed her eyes._

_She knew where he was of course, just as Sansa did; he had already left King’s Landing this night, hours or less before Joffrey had been killed, as they had told Baelish._

_And Sansa…she still felt guilty about all of this, still felt guilty that in doing this, she was damning a man who had only ever been kind to her, who had only ever tried to help her the best he could, despite his last name._

_But if she didn’t, if they left this murder without a culprit and with far too many questions, she would be damning the woman she loved._

_And that…was unacceptable._

_She couldn’t lose Margaery. They couldn’t have come all of this way only for Sansa to lose her to Joffrey, now that he was finally dead._

_Nothing else mattered, beyond that._

_Baelish looked disgusted, as he turned back to face the nobles once more. “Has no one seen him?”_

_Margaery cleared her throat, glancing at the guards, motioning for them to go and find the man._

_They wouldn’t, of course, but appearances had to be kept up. That was what this was all about, after all._

_“Surely there is…some other explanation for his absence, here,” Kevan Lannister spoke up then, looking somewhere between furious and bemused, and Sansa knew this would be enough._

_They would not have to say that Tyrion had let the fanatics into the Keep himself, not tonight; they would only have to cast enough suspicion on him that all of these nobles believed it, the way they were believing everything else that Margaery was saying._

_Margaery, who had spent tonight being…being hurt by her own husband, killing him purely out of fear for her own life, and who still managed to stand up there before the Iron Throne and look like the Queen that she was._

_Sansa felt her eyes pricking with tears._

_If she could have spared Margaery any of this, either what had happened tonight or the speaking now, she would have, dear gods._

_Up before the Iron Throne, Margaery lifted her chin. “Of course,” she said, reaching up to brush her hair out of her eyes. “I am sure that there is an explanation. The…traumatic death of my husband, something that could only have been helped by someone within the Keep, has merely made me…paranoid.”_

_The Grandmaester cleared his throat, stepping forward then, and Sansa had never thought of him as such an ally before. “With good reason, of course,” he rumbled, and Sansa closed her eyes again. "Tyrion Lannister has never been a friend to the King, even if he is an uncle, and for him to be gone,_ _tonight..."_

_He trailed off._

_He didn't need to say anymore, after all. He had already sown the seeds of suspicion for them, and there was no taking it back, now._

_Sansa opened her eyes again, hoped that Tyrion really had well and truly left, and wouldn't be coming back to find his head off his shoulders._

_The nobles were still muttering amongst themselves; they hadn't liked Joffrey, obviously, but the novelty of his death would not wear off for some time, and the thought that someone could simply walk into the Keep and attack him at another nobleman's word...no doubt it frightened them._

_If only they knew the truth of what had happened last night, Sansa thought, wryly._

_And then of course, because none of them had really liked Joffrey, Mace Tyrell, who could always be counted on for such things, spoke up, then._

_"And so who is to be the new King?" he asked, with his customary grace. "Prince Tommen, or my daughter the Queen's child?"_

_Sansa grimaced, wishing it had been someone else, but supposing it made sense that it was him._

_Well, it wouldn't matter; Cersei surely wouldn't find out every detail of what had happened tonight._

_“When the King’s son has been born, the inheritance of the throne will, of course, be assured. In the mean time,” Varys spoke up then, seeming to have chosen his side already, “I propose that a Regent be named to keep the peace.”_

_Silence._

_Then, from Baelish, “Surely the Regent is clear; they should be the mother of the child, until we know whether it is a male or not.”_

_He had said it because they knew otherwise, Mace Tyrell would want the Regency, and would be able to claim it, with all of the nobles behind him, all of the soldiers. And if Mace took the Regency, Baelish was certain, they woudln’t be able to keep control of this situation._

_Sansa knew that meant he would not be able to keep his control, that Mace, for all of his fumbling, would be able to take it from him, but at the moment, that didn’t matter._

_They needed him, just as much as his newfound power needed them, now._

_Still, this was moving too quickly, Sansa thought. They were going about this too quickly; surely, some of the nobles would realize that, would know exactly what was going on, what they were covering up._

_But no one moved forward to stop it, as several other members of the Small Council dipped their heads in agreement with this. As they all turned to the front of the room, where Margaery stood, looking conflicted._

_But it didn’t matter, she realized. It didn’t matter, to any of these nobles, because none of them cared about Joffrey. They only needed to be able to believe it, to have someone to turn to now that chaos threatened them again, and they had that._

_A believable story, a Regent who wanted the Regency more than anything. Had killed her own husband for it._

_Sansa shivered._

_“Long live the king,” Margaery said, so softly that half of the nobles had to lean forward to hear her._

_Another long silence, as these nobles exchanged glances and made split second decisions._

_“Long live the King!” Mace Tyrell cried, and the rest of the nobles followed suit._

_Sansa only then remembered to breathe again._

_Perhaps they really would manage to survive this, after all, she thought._

* * *

If there was one thing that always ended up causing problems between Sansa and Margaery, beyond their own stubbornness, Margaery thought bitterly, it was the fact that they never failed to not communicate with one another.

She supposed that there were always reasons for that, always justifications.

But dear gods, if she’d known just a little earlier about this suicidal mission that Lady Nym had gone on to find Tommen, if she’d known about it at all before it happened, perhaps they wouldn't’ be in this mess.

Or perhaps they would. Margaery swallowed hard; it wasn’t as if she could talk to Sansa now about it, after all. Not when she was currently locked away in her bedchambers, being tested again and again with different poultices meant to purge the poison from her, none of them succeeding.

Margaery knew that the longer the poison remained in her system, the less likely Sansa was to eventually awaken from it, and that terrified her more than anything, more than the thought of Cersei putting together the very obvious answer, that Lady Nym had stolen Tommen under orders from the Crown, even if they hadn’t been Margaery’s orders, more than the thought of a war with this new boy king.

She sighed, rubbing at her temples as one of her guards leaned close, no doubt in an attempt to comfort her and ask what was wrong, as they walked down the steep steps into the Black Cells.

Margaery flinched away from him, almost instinctively. He may be a Redwyne, but the last time she had been so close to a member of the Kingsguard, it had been Ser Meryn Trant.

Who was dead now.

She cleared her throat. “I’m fine,” she said. “The babe is coming soon; it’s merely making me ill.”

The man looked uncomfortable, as all men did when a woman mentioned childbirth. “You don’t have to come down here, Your Grace. I’m sure that one of our interrogators…”

“No,” Margaery interrupted the other man, quickly. “Lady Nym came to King’s Landing and swore her allegiance to me. She owes me an answer, for this.”

And she wasn’t about to let Lady Nym get tortured, again, for something that was ultimately Margaery’s fault.

She grimaced; because that was what was happening here, wasn’t it? She was allowing a woman who had only been following orders, even if they were, admittedly, Sansa’s and not Margaery’s, to be imprisoned for it.

She wondered if that made her any different from Lady Nym, who had gone to her uncle to imprison her own sisters so that she could plot treason with someone else.

She paused, abruptly, outside of the cell that she had been told Lady Nym was being kept in, finding that sudden thought strangely unsettling, before she nodded to the guard to open the door for her.

Lady Nym was pacing in the middle of the straw covered floor, hand pressed against her forehead in much the same way that Margaery’s had been earlier, and the sight made Margaery grimace.

It reminded Margaery eerily of the last time she had been down here, when Sansa had been imprisoned for a crime that she had not committed. How she had looked when she had turned around and seen Margaery there, how uncomfortable Margaery had felt even then, in the realization that Sansa thought Margaery was there to save her when she wasn’t, not really.

She’d do anything to have that moment back, now. At least it would mean that she could actually do something to help Sansa save herself, rather than feeling so desperate and helpless while Sansa wasted away on a bed, overseen by uncaring maesters instead of Margaery herself, even if there was little she could do herself.

Margaery cleared her throat as the cell door shut behind her.

“Nice place, this,” Lady Nym said, stopping her pacing to turn around and cross her arms over her chest, glowering at Margaery. “I mean, I was really getting tired of the silk sheets and all that damned perfume in the Maidenvault, Your Grace.” She sighed, leaning her head back against the far wall, eying Margaery with something like irritation. “I suppose I was getting tired of all that finery.”

Margaery reached up, rubbing at her temples in exasperation.

“I saw a Dornish lord thrown in the cell next to me,” Nym said, then. “Was wondering what a Dornish warlord was doing in King’s Landing, before I realized that my dear half sister never arrived as your ambassador.”

Margaery opened her eyes.

“What the fuck is going on?” Margaery demanded. “Why did you leave King’s Landing, without my permission, I might add, and bring Tommen here? I thought…”

She’d thought that Lady Nym had abandoned her, had gone crawling back to Arianne, rather than remain with her, when she had first learned of the other girl’s absence. It had been petrifying, and just when she had thought that she might lose Sansa, as well.

And then she had learned that Sansa had told her to go and find Tommen, and Margaery wasn’t certain that was any better, not when Sansa had been the one to beg for mercy, on Tommen’s behalf, in the first place.

“Because I had my orders,” Lady Nym said. “From Sansa.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “Yes, well...Sansa isn’t in any condition to be giving orders, these days.” She licked her lips. “And what did she tell you to do? Kidnap a little boy and terrorize him? They’re saying that you killed Martyn Lannister.”

And if there was one thing that Margaery could not afford at the moment, besides being seen as a child murderer, as Cersei would no doubt paint her, it was losing Kevan Lannister’s goodwill. Kevan Lannister, who would see through Margaery’s honeyed words even better than Cersei had, and she did not labor under the delusion that she had convinced Cersei for a moment that she knew nothing of this, not after Cersei had laid eyes on her son, here in King’s Landing.

Plus…From what little she knew of Martyn Lannister, he was little older than a child, a boy who had been forced to become a member of Tommen’s Kingsguard as Cersei’s way of manipulating Kevan into doing as she willed.

A hostage, in the same way that both Tommen and Shireen now were, and he had died for it like a soldier.

Lady Nym shrugged. “He was in the way,” she said, with the quiet calm of a woman who had no regret for the thing she had done.

Or perhaps, had just enough regret to attempt flippancy over it, Margaery thought, narrowing her eyes.

“He was little more than a child,” she spat back at her.

Lady Nym shook her head. “He had a sword in his hand, and he got in my way. Tried to stop me, even after I explained to him that the boy wouldn’t be hurt.” She looked away. “I didn’t…I didn’t want to hurt him, Your Grace.”

“Oh, and I imagine knocking him out wasn’t an option,” Margaery hissed back at her.

Lady Nym raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you give a fuck about whether someone, a Lannister, no less, lives or dies?” she asked, the earlier regret gone from her voice, and Margaery sniffed. Hard.

“I am trying to keep us all from a civil war,” Margaery snapped at her. “Something that only Kevan Lannister, at the moment, totally supports me in. The moment that boy,” she jerked her thumb back in the direction that Tommen had just gone in, “Opens his mouth and lets Kevan Lannisters know you killed his son…”

“He won’t,” Lady Nym interrupted her. “I let him know that would be...unwise, trust me.”

Margaery grimaced again.

“But I found out, and they will soon, as well. Cersei will see this as an act of war,” Margaery continued, coolly, ignoring her reassurance. “I hope that you think Sansa knew what she was doing, because I’m not sure that I do.”

Lady Nym coughed. “No offense, Your Grace, but that’s rather rich, coming from you.”

Margaery blinked, turning back to face the other woman. “What did you just say to me?” she asked.

“Sansa…” Lady Nym made a face. “Don’t know how I feel about her personally yet, Your Grace. Takes me a while to decide how I feel about someone. But the girl was trying, trying hard to clean up your messes, ever since you bashed your own husband’s brains in. I’d say she was trying her best, even if it was a mistake.”

Margaery moved forward, hissing at her, “As I recall it, you were happy enough at the thought of Joffrey dying,” she said. “Hells, that was the reason that you agreed to come back with me in the first place.”

“The reason I agreed to come back with you,” Lady Nym said, moving forward until their noses were nearly touching, “Was because I saw that you were the sort of pragmatic bitch who would do whatever it took to get what you wanted, and what you wanted was revenge against the Lannisters. So why do you think I should care if one Lannister dies? I would have thought a woman as pragmatic as you would realize that Lannisters, innocent or guilty, are going to die in this quest of yours, for vengeance. My aunt died, and she and her children were innocents, and the Lannisters still laughed about it, years later.”

Margaery sucked in a breath. She could understand these words, coming from Lady Nym. Could understand the hurt that drove them.

But she could not understand the thought that Sansa would have sanctioned such a thing, after she had fought so hard to try to keep them from going to war against the Lannisters because she wanted to avoid bloodshed.

“Think about it this way,” Lady Nym said, when Margaery remained silent. “There are hundreds of Lannisters who aren’t going to die because Sansa sent me to bring Tommen back here. Cersei doesn’t have a leg to stand on, without him, once you have him swear away his claim to the throne. That is why Sansa ordered this.”

And Margaery understood that, she did.

“And yet, she sent you to go and retrieve him,” she said, hoarsely.

Lady Nym shrugged. “It’s not as if she has many people to trust, in King’s Landing these days,” she pointed out. “And I wouldn’t be missed, she knew that.”

Margaery reached up, covering her mouth with her hand. “Cersei poisoned her,” she whispered, and Lady Nym went still, shock rushing across her features. “She poisoned her because she knows about us, being together. And I…” she swallowed hard. “I don’t want to know what she’ll do now that we’ve taken her son away from her.”

Lady Nym stared at her. “So you had me arrested and made it look like you had no idea I’d taken Tommen,” she surmised.

“What else should I have done?” Margaery asked. “It’s not as if she’ll believe such a story for long, but it will buy enough time to finalize this alliance, and that is all that matters, at the moment.” She let out a shaky sigh. “It’s all that can matter.”

Lady Nym swallowed. “How is Sansa?” she asked.

Margaery’s jaw ticked. “She’s been poisoned,” she murmured. “The maesters say they don’t know if she will wake. Likely by Cersei, but I can’t prove that anymore than I want her able to prove that you kidnapped that boy on Sansa’s orders.” She shook her head, feeling something like a migraine coming on. “So I’m going to need you to stay down here until she’s gone. It shouldn’t take too long, of course, but that’s something I need you to do for me, without complaint, without fighting it.” She met Lady Nym’s eyes. “Can you?”

Lady Nym grimaced, glancing around at the dark walls of her cell. “My father spent some of his final days in these cells,” she said, finally, and Margaery grimaced. Lady Nym’s eyes sought out hers, in the near darkness. “I hope that I shall not suffer the same fate.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “I promise that you won’t,” she said, and Lady Nym met her eyes for a long moment, before nodding, once.

Margaery couldn’t tell if the other woman believed her, or not.

She sighed. “But right now, we need to talk about your cousin, Arianne.”

Lady Nym lifted her chin. “Anything in particular?” She asked, still attempting to sound flippant, as she had before when she had mentioned the boy’s death.

Martyn’s.

Margaery wondered if he had died with the same honor that his brother had.

“What the fuck is she doing?” Margaery demanded, crossing her arms over her swollen breasts.

Lady Nym raised a brow. “As if I should know,” she said, and sounded…disappointed, again. “Your Grace, I know you think that because I ran off you can’t trust me again, but I swore an oath to you, once. Where I come from, that means something.”

And, much as she didn’t want to, Margaery found herself believing the other woman.

* * *

Shireen glanced around her chambers in bemusement as she got up for the morning, wondering where her new lady’s maid was. She was always present whenever Shireen first awoke, much though it usually frightened her. 

Truly, she did not know what to make of her situation, since she had arrived in King’s Landing. A part of her had expected to see the inside of a prison cell, because it wasn’t as if Ramsay Bolton had ever tried to be kind to her.

While she had lived in Dragonstone, she had had fine enough chambers, she supposed. She was a Princess, and so every affordance had been allotted her, though her father was more concerned about the state of the war than the finery of her chambers, and her mother had just been concerned with keeping her relatively out of sight.

In Winterfell, she had suffered no allusions about being a prisoner, about being nothing more than that. She was a hostage, kept alive only in case her father turned around and decided to try and take Winterfell back from the Boltons, and she had known it from the moment she had been forced to watch Ramsay Bolton kill all of her father’s loyal bannermen, men left behind in Winterfell to protect her and the place itself.

But she hadn’t had the nightmares, in Winterfell. The waking world had been far too much of a nightmare, for her, and sleeping had always been done lightly, knowing that at any moment Ramsay Bolton or his woman might drag her from her slumber and force her to participate in some ungodly act, to watch someone else be killed.

Now, though, while she slept, she dreamt about what had happened to Walda Frey and her poor, newborn son.

She supposed it was because she was no longer in a place as terrifying as the sleeping world, but it hardly made her feel better, when she awoke from her nightmares shaking, to find some unfamiliar Tyrell girl leaning over her, asking if she was quite well.

The girl, who was apparently a lady’s maid to the Queen Regent herself, didn’t look anything like Myranda, but Shireen still flinched away from her all the same, every time, wishing that they would allow her Onion Knight to sleep in her rooms, though she understood that was inappropriate, now.

He slept in a chamber just outside her own, which was nice enough. They could have thrown him in a prison cell for being loyal to Stannis Baratheon, after all, and she was not quite certain how he had managed it.

She wondered if these Tyrells would force her to marry, young though she was, and birth a son that would be less useful to them than Ramsay Bolton’s brother had been to him. Sometimes, she had been terrified that Ramsay Bolton was keeping her around for as long as he was because he intended to marry her, even if that didn’t make sense with his current marriage to Arya Stark.

She took a deep breath as the door to her chambers opened, and the lady’s maid who had been assigned to her stepped in, smiling.

“Shireen,” she greeted, because on the first day she had been assigned to Shireen, she had called her “lady,” and Shireen, who was used to being referred to as “Princess,” had not responded, not out of willfulness, but because she genuinely had been confused by the moniker.

They had settled on first names, after that.

She dipped her head as the lady’s maid - she thought her name was Alysanne, and that she was rather young to be a lady’s maid - stepped into her cambers and shut the door behind her, pulling out the gown Shireen was to wear and setting it on the bed.

That was another thing; the extravagant gowns that Shireen had been forced to sit for fittings of on the first day or so she had been here. It seemed the Tyrells wanted to keep her in pretty dresses, rather like a doll.

She didn’t mind that, though. It had been a while since she felt like a doll, longer still since she had been able to wear something she hadn’t already worn for multiple days in a row, because, being kept in the crypts, Ramsay Bolton hadn’t much cared what she looked like, most of the time.

It was almost…nice, to be wearing a gown that not only fit her, but wasn’t dirty, either.

The first time she had worn one of these gowns, the Onion Knight’s eyes had been shining when he looked on her.

Shireen reflected on her dutiful knight as Alysanne helped her into one of these new gowns, wondering why the Tyrells even bothered if she wasn’t going to be leaving her chambers today, either way.

She was surprised he had not already knocked on the door, asking if she was decent and would like to share the break of fast together, as he had done almost every day since her arrival here.

Her Onion Knight seemed almost…more on edge, these days, than he had even while they were prisoners within the crypts of Winterfell.

When she asked him about it, her knight merely made a face.

“I don’t trust it, Princess,” he said, and looked like he regretted saying even that much when Shireen flinched and asked, quietly, what he meant by that.

“I’ll protect you, Princess,” he told her, patting her on the head in a way that made her feel far younger than he normally did. “Don’t worry about that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You think they don’t mean to truly be kind to me?” She asked, clearing her throat to make her voice appear stronger. “Do you?”

He made a face. “I think…I think that Ramsay Bolton, madman or no, at least made his intentions very clear, Princess,” he told her. “And these people surely haven’t.”

Shireen mused on that for a moment, regretting asking, suddenly. She didn’t like waiting, and waiting for something that she thought might be bad.

She had spent half of her life waiting, in Dragonstone.

“How long do you think it will be before they do?” She whispered, because he was right. At leas with Ramsay, she’d known she was in danger.

She hadn’t slept in sheets this nice since she had still been living in Dragonstone.

Shireen swallowed hard, and her Onion Knight reached out a hesitant hand, running it, after a moment, through her hair. And Shireen, who hadn’t seen her father in ages and had no idea how her mother was holding up, leaned into the touch.

Her Onion Knight went very still, at the action, before he pulled away.

He did that often, these days. Offered her comfort before he seemed to remember that he wasn’t the father she wanted, and pulled away from her.

She wished he wouldn’t.

Stuck here, in the heart of King’s Landing, she didn’t know when she might see her father again.

He grimaced. “I will protect you,” he had repeated, and would say no more of it.

“My lady?” Alysanne asked, then, and Shireen grimaced as she realized the other girl had been attempting to get her attention for some time.

She didn’t bother to correct her on the title just now, either.

“Hm?” She asked, and then glanced up, realizing that, as if he had been summoned, her Onion Knight was standing in the doorway of her chambers. She glanced down, realized the gown she wore felt rather too loose, today.

Alysanne looked amused. Her knight did not.

“You have a visitor,” he told her, and she could see the moment he remembered not to call her “Princess,” from the way he pursed his lips in Alysanne’s direction.

Shireen sniffed, feeling her heart clawing its way up her throat, wondering if this was the moment the Tyrells would reveal their true colors, wondering how she was meant to react around a Tyrell, anyway, when she was nothing more than their captive.

And then her Onion Knight stepped aside, and her visitor made himself known.

Shireen cocked her head, feeling rather confused that this was the first visitor she was to have.

When she was very small, she remembered Cersei Lannister sneering at her, telling her she didn’t want a sickly thing like her around her son, while her mother held her by the arm, and it was a strange memory, one that she had thought was a dream.

But now, she wasn’t quite as certain.

She knew that Cersei Lannister had never allowed her children around Shireen if she could help it, citing that she feared spreading the disease to them even after she was assured that Shireen was safe to be around.

“Shireen,” Tommen said, and she was surprised by how happy he seemed to see her. She blinked, wondering what he was doing simply walking into her chambers.

She hadn’t had the fortitude to leave these chambers since she had been assigned to them, unsure if she was even allowed to, for all that there didn’t seem to be a guard at her door, most times.

“They said you were here,” he went on, as if it wasn’t strange at all for him to simply walk into her rooms.

She supposed they were cousins, for all that.

She wasn’t sure what to make of that, if she was being honest. It wasn’t as if they knew each other well, despite being cousins.

She supposed perhaps he was lonely, the way she had learned as a much younger child not to be, because she spent far too much time alone for that.

“I’m just down the hall from you, now,” he said it proudly, as if he thought she ought to be happy about how close they were, and Shireen’s brows furrowed.

“I…I saw, when they brought me here,” she allowed, slowly, glancing nervously at her Onion Knight out of the corner of her eye.

To her annoyance, he looked like he was trying not to smile. So, too, did Alysanne, for that matter, which hardly made Shireen feel better, when the other girl was not much older than her, after all, and Tommen much younger than either of them.

"I wondered..." Tommen measured his next words carefully, as if he thought she might yell at him for them, and she felt a small stab of pity for the other boy, despite herself, even if he was just a bastard and a threat to her father's reign. "I wondered if you might like to play together, sometime."

He was nervous, she realized, and she wondered why for a moment, when she was just a prisoner and could not say no to him even if she wanted to, that she knew of, when she realized why he was asking.

Because he had no one else. Because they lived just down the hall from one another.

He was just as much of a prisoner as she was, Shireen realized, feeling suddenly very tired at the thought. Lannister or no, he was in the same gilded cage, but at least who he was would protect him better than her.

The thought made her shiver.

She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling suddenly very alone, despite all of her attempts throughout her life to banish such a feeling.

She had been nice to Edric, she told herself. Had spent time with him, without caring that he was but a simple bastard, and had enjoyed his company more than she had expected to, when her mother had first warned her about him.

She supposed she could be nice to Tommen, as well, when he was also only a prisoner, like herself.

"I...I would like that," she admitted, and Tommen beamed at her.

"Right now?" he asked, but it was Alysanne who spoke up, then. The Onion Knight didn't seem to approve of the interruption, face pinched when she did so. 

The Onion Knight had told her to be careful around Alysanne. The girl was a Tyrell at heart, after all, even if she was not entirely one in name, and no doubt she was repeating everything Shireen did and said around her to the Regent herself, and to half a dozen of her agents.

Still, Shireen stiffened, at the sight of her speaking up, moving slightly away from her Onion Knight and Tommen. 

“Her ladyship wishes to have the morning brunch with you,” Alysanne told her, and Shireen blinked at the other girl, wondering if she had been chosen for Shireen because they were of such similar ages.

Alysanne forced a smile.

Shireen lifted a brow. “The Regent wishes to have brunch with me?” She asked, because up until now, ever since that first day when Margaery Tyrell had welcomed her to King’s Landing, the Regent hadn’t seemed to pay her any heed.

She had no idea what they would say to each other, were they forced to eat together.

Alysanne grimaced. “No, M-Shireen,” she corrected herself, hastily. “No, Lady Olenna wishes to have brunch with you.”

And Shireen imagined she could not refuse an offer from the Lady Olenna anymore than she could have from the Regent, she thought, with a small sigh.

Alysanne made another face. “I could…tell her you’re ill, though I fear she won’t believe me,” she offered, softly, and Shireen perked up a bit, at the offer.

Myranda had never offered to tell Ramsay that she was ill, even when she had been, for being left in the cold crypts so long one night. It was…strangely heartening, to think that this girl on the other side of a war might think such kindness towards her, but she knew it was not to be.

She didn’t want to risk being dragged before the lady because she had refused to come willingly, after all.

“All right,” she murmured. “I suppose I would be…happy to have brunch with her ladyship,” she said, and Alysanne beamed at her, making her wonder if her offer of begging off for Shireen had been only made to confuse her, to manipulate her into going anyway.

She had a feeling she would be facing many such scenarios, here in the rose garden.

Shireen forced herself to return her gaze to Tommen. "Perhaps tomorrow?" she asked, hoping this wouldn't become a regular occurrence. Either this pity she felt for Tommen Lannister, or daily meals with the Queen of Thorns. 

But her mother had been a Florent of the Reach, she reminded herself, for all that the Florents and the Tyrells had never gotten along, as far as she knew, and the Florents had bent the knee to her father convinced that the Tyrells would not and they might gain Highgarden out of it.

Pretenders, all round.

But her mother being of the Reach, that had to mean something, though. It had to mean that Shireen had more than just a stag’s blood in her veins, that she could survive the petty backstabbing she’d heard so much about, in this place, as much as she could the cold of Winterfell’s crypts.

She lifted her chin. She could do this, she told herself. She could do this.

* * *

Margaery took a deep breath, as she stopped outside one of the doors in the Maidenvault, steeling herself as she crossed her arms over her chest, asking herself if this was really what she wanted to do, just now.

“Your Grace?” One of her guards asked, and Margaery bit back a sigh. “Are you well?”

Gods, she wished they would stop asking her that. None of her guards had ever asked if she was well before her husband’s death, save for Loras, even if these were very different guards.

“I’m fine,” she gritted out, perhaps more harshly than she’d meant to, and knocked on the door.

A moment later, it opened, to reveal Lord Randyl Tarly on the other side, squinting out at her. She wondered if he was always such a late riser, or if the business of being on her Small Council these days was simply too much for him.

She knew her father had appointed him, but was rather ashamed to admit that she was unsure of the capacity. She also knew that he resented the fact that his daughter Talla had been invited to the court before he had been, but then, Margaery had wanted to make sure that she was surrounded by people who wouldn’t get in her way.

She was still unsure what to make of Lord Randyl. She knew that he was loyal to their family, with the sort of vehemence that many Houses of the Reach did not exactly share, but little beyond that.

She did not know much about Tarly, save for that he had sent his firstborn son to the Wall and desperately wished that all of the Reach would forget about it, but she did not imagine that the sort of man capable of such a thing was kindhearted.

And she knew that having an understanding of the courtesies of court hardly made one kind, but still, it surprised her that he bothered, military man though he was.

But she was here today because she knew a little about the work that he had ever done faithfully for their own House; fighting their battles for them.

Whatever else he was, he was skilled at that, and it was for that she needed him, in the long run.

“Lord Randyl,” she said, forcing a smile in the man’s direction. She knew that he was enamored of her grandmother, much though he seemed to find the rest of her family’s House to be upstarts, and she could only hope that she could gain the same favor from him.

“Your Grace,” he bowed deeply before her, the sort of courtly bow that noble lords hardly ever afforded ladies, these days, and Margaery blinked in surprise at the courtesy. “I…Is it appropriate, for the two of us to be alone together in my chambers?”

He said it like he already knew the answer.

Margaery resisted the urge to roll her eyes and let him know that she had hardly been shielded from scandal, during her time as Joffrey’s Queen, and was hardly going to worry about it now that she no longer had a jealous husband to contend with.

“Might I come in?” She asked, pointedly, and Randyl squinted at her for a moment longer, before pushing his door open wider and letting her inside.

Margaery stepped nimbly past him, could almost feel the glare burrowing into the back of her neck as her Kingsguard joined her, and her eyes caught sight of the young man making Randyl’s bed.

He couldn’t have been more than four and ten, and Margaery closed her eyes, for a moment reminded of the young man who had helped them murder her husband.

She wondered if Lord Randyl’s servants had as much reason to hate him as his eldest son.

He glanced at the boy at the same time as she did, muttering at him to get out, and the boy all bu fled the room, then.

“I hope you are enjoying your time in King’s Landing, my lord,” Margaery said, folding her arms over her chest because she wasn’t entirely certain how to start this conversation. Randyl Tarly seemed like a fairly straightforward man, as all men at arms did, and not one particularly interested in politics, beyond the ones that justified war.

She did not know if he would even be interested in her proposition.

He grunted. “It is pretty enough, Your Grace, and made all the better for its Regent,” he said, smoothly, and Margaery forced herself to blush, like a young maiden.

“But I hear that you would much prefer to be on the battlefield,” she went on, pointedly.

He shrugged broad shoulders. “I know my duty, Your Grace, and feel I might be of more use there, considering the number of advisors you already have.”

She couldn’t tell if that was a slight or an observation, not from this man.

“I…Wonder,” she said, glancing at her Kingsguard, “If we might have a word alone.”

Randyl looked horrified, her knights looked no less so, but Margaery enjoyed the little thrill that ran through her, for a moment, when she merely had to arch a brow and they were all scurrying out the door like maids caught at something they shouldn’t be.

The door shut behind them, and she turned back to Randyl.

“I…do apologize, but it is difficult, as you said, with so many advisors,” she told Lord Randyl, forcing a calm smile. “Knowing who to trust.”

He grunted. “If you cannot trust your guards, who can you trust?”

She pressed her lips together. “Exactly,” she agreed, but didn’t think his question had actually been rhetorical.

She bit back a sigh; this was not going as well as she had hoped it would. She was used to men who schemed to get everything they wanted. Ones who seemed quite content to hold a sword confused her greatly.

“I hear that your son, too, is a good fighter,” Margaery said, pressing her hands together because she didn’t quite know what to do with them without making them shake.

A moment ago, she had been fine with the idea of being alone with this man, and now that she was, she was terrified.

Randyl hummed, taking a step back from her, either because he saw her discomfort or because of courtesy, though Margaery could not say which. “He knows his duty, Your Grace.”

She smiled. “I am glad to hear it. And why is he not here, in King’s Landing?” She asked. “I had hoped to meet him. I have heard such wonderful things, from my grandmother.”

Randyl all but glowed, at that. She supposed it must be nice, to know that others thought your child deserving of some respect.

She wondered if, years from now, people would think her child deserved respect, or if he would be remembered as nothing more than the deadened babe in her womb, once the dragons arrived.

She shivered.

“Forgive me, Your Grace, are you quite well?” Randyl asked her, and Margaery resisted the urge to snap at him, reminded that he had not been around the last dozen times anyone had asked her such a thing.

She sighed. “I am…quite well, Lord Randyl,” she told him. “It is only, you haven’t answered my question.”

He hummed. “Even now, Dickon is doing what I hear, by all reports, is a remarkable job of keeping the Greyjoy fleet far from anywhere near Oldtown. I do not wish to brag about his accomplishments, of course, but we have high hopes for him, in our family.”

But Margaery had not heard much of what Lord Randyl had just said, her back stiffening at the beginning of his words.

“The Greyjoy fleet,” she echoed, slowly, and Randyl Tarly stared at her like he did not understand she was asking any sort of question at all.

He nodded. “It has been my solemn duty to defend our shores from them since we realized exactly who these pirates were, Your Grace,” he said. “Though I have mostly been delegating to my son, whom I trust with such matters even if it means I am not there to deal with them, myself.”

Margaery licked her lips, feeling far more cold now than she had a moment ago.

“What?” Margaery asked, and, at his surprised look, carefully schooled her features once again. “Yes, of course. And...how are these attacks progressing?”

He grimaced. “I’m afraid that we have been found wrong footed one too many times, Your Grace,” he told her. “My son himself leads these attacks, so you can rest assured that we will do everything we can to stop them, but I am afraid that we do not have the resources to devote to a threat quite this…unpredictable. The Greyjoys have always been a rebellious bunch, but their actions of late…”

He trailed off, perhaps realizing it wasn’t appropriate to go into detail about such actions around a woman, she didn’t know.

Margaery pursed her lips.

Gods, if she was to fill in the blanks about what Lord Randyl was saying, it sounded as if they were already losing the Reach’s coastline to Euron Greyjoy and his band of vagabond Iron Islanders, and Margaery hadn’t even known about it. Her Grandmother had not seen fit to warn her about it, and Margaery knew why, knew that she was still trying to protect her, but from the way that Randyl was talking about it…

Gods, it sounded like they were losing that battle. Desperately.

And if Cersei realized there was another potential ally that she might turn to, even if it was a Greyjoy and she knew one had little reason to trust her House, ahead of the Tyrells, Margaery had no doubt that the other woman would reach out to them, if only out of sheer spite, especially now that she must think Margaery had been the one to order Tommen’s kidnapping.

Margaery was almost tempted to allow that, if only because she loathed the thought of allying with the woman herself, and because she thought Cersei Lannister almost deserved a man as depraved as they said Euron Greyjoy was, if such rumors were to be believed, but she knew that was not something she could afford.

Not when they apparently needed Cersei against Targaryens and Martells alike. Not when Tyrell allies were dropping like flies, these days.

She sighed, and when Randyl gave her a concerned look, forced herself to cover it up with a smile.

“I see,” she said, though truly, she did not. “So…we are fighting a war already,” Margaery murmured.

She wasn’t a fool, even if she knew little enough about war strategy, herself. They did not have the men to stretch out, in order to fight the Greyjoys, the remnants of Stannis’ army at the Rock, and now, this Targaryen and his newly Dornish allies.

Randyl Tarly sighed. “I am afraid so, Your Grace, though, of course, I promise you that we are doing all we can-”

“You said that already,” Margaery said, almost idly, as she held up a hand to quiet him. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and then lifted her head, forcing a smile. “Lord Randyl. I have a proposition for you, as the Regent, which I hope that you shall take most seriously, and keep to yourself until such a time as is appropriate to make the announcement.”

He squinted at her. “Your Grace, I do not unders-”

“Lord Baelish has been a loyal and most ingenious advisor,” Margaery said, quietly. “He has been a better Hand of the King than our current one, certainly.”

Tarly was not blind to that, she had to know. He was here, often, telling of his rather blunt appraisals of the issues of late, but he was not a fool. He knew that Kevan Lannister only remained Hand of the King because Margaery could not afford to sever their connection with House Lannister for good, that Baelish reigned in all but name, these days, as well.

“He...is a crafty man, Your Grace,” he said, in a way that clearly implied insult. “I am sure he would make a most skillful Hand.”

Despite herself, Margaery smiled. “Indeed he is,” she agreed. “But I have found that often, clever men are the first to die on the battlefield.” She hesitated only a moment longer, before explaining herself. “And I think that with the coming war, I shall need a Hand who is adept at the ways of war. I cannot ask my father for such a thing, but you have served the Reach well as a military man, Lord Randyl. And so, as your Regent, I beg of you to agree to take this position, when the time comes.”

Randyl stared at her for a moment, and then dropped to his knees. “You honor me, Your Grace,” he told her, dipping his head. “But…” he lifted his head, slowly. “What about Kevan Lannister?”

Margaery swallowed hard, staring down at him. “I will deal with him,” she said. “He is...also a clever man, but clearly he cannot provide the Crown with what it needs, these days.”

Randyl swallowed hard. “From what I understand, Your Grace, I would be quite honored to take up the position, but you will forgive me for saying that it sounds rather underhanded, and I am not a politician.”

Margaery hummed. “I understand your concerns,” she told him, “But as I told you, I am not looking for a man who fights with his words.”

He took a breath. “Then, as I said, I would be honored.” A pause. “And when might I take up such a position?”

There, she had him.

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek. “Not for a little while, I’m sure,” she said. “Though I do hope you shall begin preparing before then; I fear that by the time you do, we may find ourselves in need of your stratagem.”

He gave her a knowing look. “And Lord Baelish? Do you not think that he will be annoyed for being…passed over?”

Oh, but she didn’t intend that he feel passed over, Margaery thought. In fact, she rather hoped they could avoid his getting a step ahead of her altogether.

“He will simply have to accept the way things are,” she told him. Then, “I understand that your son is betrothed to a young woman of the Reach,” she said. “A child, they say.”

Randyl stiffened. “And what of it?”

“Well,” Margaery took a step closer to him, “To show you that I am serious about your family’s favor with ours, after the loyalty you have shown our House for many years, I wondered if I might submit some…other candidates. To your daughter, of course; I understand that such things are beneath you.”

He raised a brow at her. “I’m sure she’d like feeling useful, Your Grace,” he said, which was, at least, not a rejection.

She grinned. “I am glad to hear it,” she said, and turned towards the door.

The moment it shut behind her, she could feel her face growing hot with anger. Fortunately, the object of her anger was not very hard to find, nor very far away from Lord Randyl’s own chambers.

She pushed past her grandmother’s frightened young lady’s maid, as she opened the door to her grandmother’s chambers unannounced, and rushed inside, only to find her grandmother fast at work writing letters.

Margaery felt more annoyance flooding through her at that, as she wondered who exactly her grandmother might be communicating with. What other plans she was cooking up without Margaery’s knowledge.

And here she had thought they would stop keeping things from each other. She had been honest of late, after all.

Her grandmother, to her credit, barely glanced up as Margaery stepped inside, merely raised an eyebrow and went back to her writing.

“When were you going to tell me that Euron Greyjoy is plaguing our shoes?” Margaery asked, as she bit the inside of her cheek.

Olenna let out a long sigh. “Of course, I figured you would find out eventually,” she said, setting down the quill she was writing with.

Margaery ground her teeth. “I don’t appreciate having to find out through Randy Tarly, though,” she said. “And here I thought we’d moved past that. Keeping secrets from each other.”

Olenna harrumphed, turning in her chair to face Margaery fully, now. “I think that is merely in our natures, child,” she said, and Margaery bristled, not appreciating being called a child, just now. Olenna raised a brow. “Or were you going to tell me about the letter that Aegon Targaryen sent you?”

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something rather foul. “I was handling it,” she said. “Are we handling Euron Greyjoy, or not?”

“That is not for you to worry about, darling,” Olenna pointed out, and Margaery gritted her teeth.

“Isn’t it?” She asked. “As the Regent?”

Olenna gave her a blank stare. “I don’t think so,” she said, and Margaery bit back a long sigh. “What you could worry about, though, is manifest. I had an interesting brunch with Lady Shireen. She’s quiet as a mouse, but I can see she has quite a few opinions about the way things should be, beneath all that.”

Margaery swallowed hard; she didn’t want to talk about Lady Shireen, never mind think about her. Every time she did, she was reminded that Shireen was a prisoner here, to be used against Stannis Baratheon when he returned from the North, as he eventually would if he was even still alive.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “I would think the safety of the Reach would be a more important concern than a little girl’s opinions on her father,” she pointed out.

Olenna shrugged. “House Florent, Selyse’s House, has been one of Stannis’ stronger supporters, since he declared himself king,” she said, and Margaery was tired of the history lesson already. She knew well how much the Tyrells and the Florents loathed one another, saw one another as rivals to ownership of the Reach, or as close to ownership as either of them thought they could get. “They would also very much like to see all of us out of their way, and the Reach theirs, if they could.”

“Well, they can’t,” Margaery pointed out, because she thought she had rather more pressing concerns.

“They certainly can’t now, with Shireen here in King’s Landing, their princess,” Olenna grunted, and Margaery raised an eyebrow at her, as she shifted on her toes, wondering what her grandmother had planned for the little girl, now.

“I thought we had taken her to keep Stannis at bay,” she said, slowly, because suddenly it didn’t seem like that, any longer.

Olenna hummed. “Stannis has a heart of stone, my dear, for all that his daughter has half a face of one,” she said, and Margaery flinched, not liking to bring it up.

Shireen was a cute little girl, for all that she had a marred face, though her grandmother was always one to point out another’s faults if she could find them.

“House Florent, on the other hand, once approached Tywin Lannister about marrying Tommen to Shireen, and ending the conflict once and for all, peacefully,” Olenna went on, and Margaery’s head jerked up.

“They did what?” She asked, staring at her grandmother.

Olenna shrugged. “Apparently, they realized House Tyrell would have Joffrey,” she went on, and Margaery flinched, “but that Joffrey wouldn’t last for long. Trust them to try and take anything they might from us.”

Margaery was shaking her head, swallowing hard. “I…”

And then suddenly, it clicked.

“That was why you wanted Gendry brought here, and Tommen declared a bastard,” she said, slowly. “Gendry has no aims for the throne, not with you holding his leash, and if Shireen marries Tommen when the boy has already been declared a bastard…” She shook her head. “She won’t have a good claim, either. Or at least, not one taken very seriously.”

“And House Florent will at least know that her life has been saved because of it,” Olenna said, not unkindly. “I told you I wouldn’t kill anyone who didn’t need to be killed, my dear.”

Margaery shook her head again. “I…” She almost felt guilty, for underestimating her grandmother, on this. “Thank you,” she whispered, and felt her eyes pricking with unshed tears.

Olenna waved a dismissive hand. “You ought to thank Sansa, not I,” she said. “It was her idea, all engineered to keep that silly boy of Cersei’s from getting himself killed because of his dear mama.”

Margaery stared at her, remembering how vehement Sansa had been about the alliance with the Lannisters, at first.

She swallowed hard. “Did you really think Cersei would bring her son to King’s Landing just to negotiate?” She asked, hoarsely. “She’s not that foolish.”

Olenna hummed. “We did think that,” she pointed out, and Margaery was glad she hadn’t called her “dear,” at least. “That’s why we sent Lady Nym to go and find the boy while Cersei was on her way here.”

“So you…never had any intention of this alliance,” Margaery said. “For all that you’ve pushed me into it.”

Olenna pressed her lips together. “Whether he’s a bastard or not, having Tommen here keeps a handle on Cersei, either way,” she said. “And right now, it rather looks as though we need her.”

Margaery grimaced.

“Varys has informed me that the mines of Casterly Rock have dried up,” Margaery said, shaking her head. “They can’t fund their war, and more than that, they’ve lost the Rock.”

There, it wasn’t as if Margaery didn’t tell her grandmother anything, now.

Olenna sucked in a breath through her teeth. “And I suppose this means you wish to abandon them and see what fate might bring us with Aegon Targaryen,” she said, her tone making it very clear what she thought of that.

Margaery could feel blood rushing into her mouth. “We don’t need them, now that we have Tommen. And the Lannisters are hardly a threat, if they can’t even keep their own home out of the hands of Stannis’ deserters,” she pointed out.

And, more than that, she could admit, in the privacy of her own mind, that she very much did not want to honor an alliance with Cersei Lannister.

“I thought you were the one who told Sansa to kidnap Tommen, anyway,” she pointed out. “I would think you would be happy that they’re hardly a threat.”

Olenna hummed. “Not if it means facing a larger one.”

Margaery let out a sigh, wondering if she thought Cersei was a greater or worse threat than this new king.

“Do you remember when you returned from the dead,” Olenna said, and Margaery threw her head back in annoyance, the child in her womb or the knowledge that Sansa had not yet awoken from her poisoned sleep making her more impatient than usual, perhaps, “And returned to King’s Landing, returned to your husband’s good graces, perhaps better even than you had left them?”

Margaery gritted her teeth. “Of course I-”

“But you didn’t,” Olenna interrupted her, then. “Instead, you found yourself held captive by a bunch of fanatics whom Cersei Lannister had thrown into power because she felt threatened by you, indirectly. Nearly got yourself killed for the adultery you committed with Sansa Stark.”

Margaery was grinding her teeth, now. “I remember, Grandmother,” she muttered.

“Cersei Lannister, armies or no, Casterly Rock or no, should not be underestimated,” Olenna warned her. “You’ve been pitted against her far too many times in recent years not to realize that, though you always seem to. If we cut ties with her now, she will find some way to fuck us over for it, in the future. Near future, at that, while this child in Storm’s End keeps twiddling his thumbs about going after a woman.”

Margaery flinched.

“And what is your plan on that end, anyway?” Olenna asked, openly scoffing, now. “It’s not as if you can entice another husband in your…” she glanced down at Margaery’s very pregnant belly. “Current state. And if you bend the knee to him, after everything our family has done to get you to this place now, I swear by the gods House Tyrell will not follow you.”

Margaery jerked, mouth opening and closing. “I…” she stammered, feeling her face grow hot at the open repudiation in the other woman’s tone. “I wasn’t planning to bend the knee.”

And she wasn’t.

Even now, when the power behind the throne she claimed for her son felt more like an anchor around her neck than freedom, Margaery found the idea of giving it up, after everything that she had suffered to get here, after everything the people she loved had suffered in order to get her here as well, repugnant.

Selfish, even.

“Then why didn’t you tell us about the letter?” Olenna asked, arching a brow. “So that we might have better prepared for this? Might have sent our armies in response, might have at least mobilized them?”

“Taking them away from the shores of the Reach so that Euron Greyjoy can have his way with them, you mean?” Margaery demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

Olenna let out a long sigh. “Sit down,” she said, and Margaery just stared at her. Olenna kicked out the chair across the table from where she had been writing before Margaery had interrupted her. “Sit.”

Margaery sat, feeling strangely like a petulant child, in that moment. She pushed her arms down to her sides.

“The Dornish have made it clear that Aegon Targaryen is not our friend, or they would not have so easily broken their alliance with us the moment they realized he was in Westeros,” Olenna pointed out, harshly. “I think it would be…a mistake, to abandon the Lannisters, who still have a rather large army indeed, for this boy we barely know, whose claim is not even proven.”

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek. “I told you,” she said, the words tasting like ash in her mouth, “I don’t plan on just handing the throne over to him. But the very fact that he sent that message means that he has qualms about just coming in with an army and destroying us, or that he doesn’t think he could manage it. I’d like to figure out what else I can about him.”

Olenna gave her a long look. “And when you have, and still have Cersei to contend with?” She asked, pointedly.

Margaery shook her head. “I know you think it would be better to keep her around, as an ally. But I know her. She won’t ever mean it, whether we have her son or not, whether she thinks she has no other options. She’ll always mean to bring me down, because I’m the woman who stole her son from her. So I’m asking you,” she folded her hands in front of her. “I’m asking you permission to let me deal with her, first.”

Olenna’s look was long, searching for something Margaery was reasonably certain she had thought Margaery had lost some time ago. “You do realize it was not a few days ago, when you told me the thought of anyone else suffering because of you sickened you so much you sought comfort in a septa for it.”

Margaery pressed her lips together. “Not her,” she whispered, not quite certain how to put her feelings into words. “Never her.”

She had taken the life of the son; somehow, it seemed only fitting that she take the life of the mother, as well. As if she had committed only half a sin, and that was why it weighed on her so.

And in any case, the septa was dead, and along with her, Margaery’s one chance at redemption. She supposed that she may as well continue digging her own grave.

For her son.

For Sansa, so that she didn’t have to keep falling into such plots without a hint of remorse.

For herself, so that she could tell herself that finally having this damned throne meant something more than it felt like it did, these days.

Olenna let out a deep, long sigh. “Very well,” she said, and Margaery’s heart leapt in her throat, at the other woman’s words. “But only if you agree to my demands, as well.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “All right,” she said, before she had even heard them.

* * *

Margaery felt another twinge in her stomach, as she walked along the hallway in the Maidenvault. She was already here, having visited her grandmother, and she supposed she had no excuse not to go and see Sansa, now.

It was the sort of thing that a caring queen would do, even if she didn’t know Sansa well, she supposed.

She sighed; there was no use pretending, not in the privacy of her own mind, though even when she had been married to Joffrey, she’d never felt safe unless she was thinking on pretense, as well.

She closed her eyes, opened them again, as another stabbing pain hit her above her bladder, and she glanced down sadly at her full belly.

“Couldn’t you just hold still?” She asked it, and admittedly felt rather silly when one of her guards quietly asked, “Are you well, Your Grace?”

She sighed. “Of course,” she said, forcing a smile that she didn’t feel. “Merely overtired.”

“Perhaps Your Grace should return to your quarters,” he suggested then, tensely, and she remembered that he was a distant cousin of hers.

She was quite certain that Garlan had terrified all of the new members of her Kingsguard when he had overseen their appointment, letting them know in no uncertain terms how foolish it would be to allow anything to happen to her.

She supposed she had been a less than kind employer, in that regard; she always seemed to be doing something that terrified them, one way or another.

She shook her head. “I have a visit to make after this one, as well, so I’m afraid that shall have to wait,” she informed the guard, who, if she was not mistaken, let out a small sigh at the words.

Margaery resisted the urge to smile, the pain in her stomach feeling a bit less noticeable, now.

And then she was outside of Sansa’s chambers, and Brienne was there, arms crossed over her chest, looking very annoyed, indeed.

Frankly, Margaery was surprised to find her not guarding Sansa from within the other girl’s chambers, these days. She was beginning to get concerned about when Brienne herself was eating and sleeping.

When she said as much, Brienne merely pressed her lips together. “She has a visitor already, Your Grace,” she said, her eyes staring straight ahead, and there was something about the way she said it that made Margaery feel a bit cold.

“Who?” She demanded, but Brienne just looked away.

And that gave away perhaps more than she thought it did, Margaery thought, as she felt something sick and cold slithering down into her stomach, that same feeling she got every time she found herself alone in a room with Petyr Baelish.

She sighed, opening the door, trying not to let her anger over the fact that Baelish had clearly abused his privileges as a member of her Small Council to get in to see Sansa alone, when Margaery had given very clear orders that no one be allowed to see her without her own permission.

Up against that, there was little Brienne could do to stop him, especially when half of King’s Landing expected him to be named Hand of the King any day now, Margaery thought, bitterly.

And it wasn’t as if she was going to be able to disappoint them, either.

Once inside, Margaery paused in the doorway, her eyes narrowing and stomach twisting at the sight of Baelish, standing in that doorway, staring down at Sansa where she lay on the bed with something like despair in his eyes.

She knew, of course.

She had known from the very moment she had seen the two of them alone together for the first time, huddled together in an empty corridor, foreheads practically touching.

And dear gods, she hadn’t known if Sansa knew, because gods knew it had taken her long enough to figure out Margaery’s own interest, but the sight of them, together like that, had done nothing to reassure Margaery about everything they were doing.

She had suspected before then, of course. Baelish, for all his secrecy, was hardly subtle about the way he lusted after a woman that Margaery also loved. He wouldn’t have helped them, she knew, if it had been only about gaining something to blackmail her with, over Joffrey. He’d have been far more successful going straight to Cersei, then.

He’d done it because Sansa had asked it of him, and because he knew that he could gain something out of it.

And Margaery had hated him for it, but at the time, he had been a necessary evil.

Now, watching him lean over Sansa like he had any right to be alone in a room with her at all, Margaery reflected that she didn’t think there were enough things he could do for her in the world that would make up for the ugly pit of jealousy rising up in her throat, at the sight of him so close to Sansa, alone, while she lay defenseless and unconscious on that bed.

She thought of what Varys had told her, of how he had gone to Cersei in the Sept with Olyvar, because of course he had, the first chance he thought he could.

Frankly, she was surprised that he had come to see Sansa at all, for all he professed in private to care for the other girl.

Something about the sight made her think of herself, laying underneath Joffrey, helpless against him in the same way that Sansa would be helpless against Baelish if he wished to do anything to her, just now.

She grimaced as she watched him; he clearly thought that he was still alone, if the way he bent down and kissed Sansa’s forehead, with all of the tenderness of a lover, was any indication.

Margaery was grinding her teeth together by the time he eventually pulled away from Sansa, straightening once again.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, alerting him to her presence, and watched the way his back stiffened, at the sound.

“Your Grace,” he said, slowly turning around.

Margaery forced a smile. “I’m glad you came to see her,” she said, lying through her teeth. “I haven’t been able to, as much as I’d like, and its good to know someone who cares for her is nearby.”

His answering smile was equally false. “I was surprised to see that the maesters were not attending to her, when I arrived,” he said, and the words were almost an accusation.

Margaery lifted her chin, reminded of what Varys had told her, of how he had gone to the Sept with Olyvar to grant Cersei access to her dearly departed son. Of how ever since then, Cersei had looked on Margaery like she would like to have her killed at any moment.

“The maesters say there is nothing…” her voice broke, and she looked away from him, then. “There is nothing more that they can do, from their end. They do not know the poison that was administered, and believe that the rest is…up to her.”

She had wanted to kill them, when they told her that, her newfound guilt over the deaths of those who had died at her command in the past notwithstanding.

This was Sansa, after all. She had killed all of those people for her in the past, and it was not as if she could not kill a few more. She had demonstrated that easily enough in recent months, after all.

But she hadn’t, of course, because doing so would only hurt Sansa, in the end.

Now, all she had left were her prayers, prayers to gods that she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore, gods who had only ever brought her guilt and shame for her actions.

Gods whom she had only really felt comfortable speaking with at all because Septa Unella had been there to stand between them, before.

And now, she was gone.

Margaery sniffed, glancing down at Sansa on the bed.

If she could forget the last few days, she could almost pretend that Sansa was merely in a deep sleep, her hair spilling out on the pillow underneath her, nightgown perfectly still against her slow breathing chest. She looked like a princess in a fairytale.

Margaery hurriedly looked at the far wall. “Lord Baelish,” she said, and her words were measured, slow. “There is something I wished to raise with you.”

He looked at her, looking slightly annoyed. “It cannot wait?” He asked her.

Margaery’s jaw twitched. “It is my intention to…ensure that the alliance with Cersei Lannister is not upheld,” she told him. “Kevan Lannister being Hand of the King was only meant to serve that purpose. And so, now that it is no longer necessary, I wonder how you would feel about replacing him.”

He eyed her, carefully, Sansa almost forgotten, she thought, annoyance filling her at the thought.

But then, they were a bit alike in that way, she and Baelish. Both far too able to compartmentalize their thoughts. She thought it was part of the reason she hated him so.

She thought of the information that Varys had brought her, about this man and everything he had done, everything he was capable of.

A part of her wanted very much to arrest him, rather than attempt to play the long game, but she knew that would only hurt her, just now.

“I know you are the sort of man who wishes for power more from the shadows,” she went on, “But you are the only one in King’s Landing that I know I can trust, at the moment, and so I must ask you.”

He was silent for a moment longer, and then looked down at Sansa again. “You know, these past few months, I have been at her side when no one else has.”

Margaery gritted her teeth.

“And I have wondered about you,” he went on, “about the distance that you’ve put between the two of you, a distance that she clearly didn’t care for. A part of me wonders if that isn’t the reason she moved so much closer to me, because she felt…isolated.”

Margaery had often wondered the same thing, about when they had first gotten together. If Sansa had done so because she felt alone, and Margaery was the only one to show her kindness in King’s Landing.

She sniffed, not liking the accusation in his voice any more than she had appreciated it, earlier.

“But I could see that you were…struggling,” Baelish said. “To be honest, I found it a bit…disappointing, after all of this time. All of the ambition you’ve shown.”

She was biting the inside of her cheek so hard that she could taste blood, now.

“But that…farce, it worked well for you, didn’t it?” He raised a brow at her, and she could see that he was reluctantly impressed, at this point, and she wanted to feel almost…flattered, by the realization. “You were able to have half of King’s Landing underestimating you while Sansa and I did the hard work, were able to make me…underestimate you, as well. Were able to make me overreach myself, tell Sansa things I never would have, if I’d known…And the moment Sansa fell in that room, you were back to your ways. Which makes me wonder if…any of it was real.”

He stared at her, as if expecting her to confirm or deny his words.

“If not, then you are an even better actress than I gave you credit for, Your Grace,” he went on, and Margaery struggled not to react even to that.

Instead, primly, she asked, “Why would you approach Cersei Lannister in a place as public as the Sept, if you didn’t want it getting back to me?”

His half smile was answer enough; he’d wanted it to get back to her. Whatever he believed about her now, that she had been pretending at her trauma all of this time, clearly the fact that she knew about his plotting had been some sort of test.

Clearly, he also underestimated Varys’ stubbornness. She had a feeling that, even if she wasn’t starting once again to feel like her old self, the other man would not have let her get away with not hearing of it.

“I understand that you…dislike me, Your Grace,” he told her, and she snorted, at the response. “But I merely wished to remind you that the two of us?” He gestured between them. “We need each other. You as much as I.”

She met his gaze. “And it bothers you as much as it does me, doesn’t it?” She asked him, her tone lightly mocking. “That somehow, in all of this, it has turned out that you and I need one another desperately, and Sansa needs neither of us at all.”

He looked down at the bed, scowling. “Right now, it looks like she is the one most in need.”

Margaery shook her head. “You would not have gone to Cersei if you believed she had attempted to kill Sansa. You know something about this poison that I do not, don’t you?”

He was silent.

Margaery’s heart thudded in her chest; she hadn’t quite believed her own words, when she asked the question. Hadn’t believed that a man who pretended to love Sansa as he did could truly wish her to remain in continued harm.

“You bastard,” she breathed. “What is wrong with her?”

He shrugged thin shoulders, and she suddenly understood why Cersei had felt the need to lunge across a table at her, earlier in their negotiations.

“I know only that Cersei enjoys her tests as well as I, though she is playing a different game,” Baelish told her, calmly. “And at the time she poisoned Sansa, she didn’t believe you to be guilty of her son’s death, and therefore had no reason to kill her.”

Margaery snorted. “As if she wouldn’t think that Sansa might have some reason to help her husband kill Joffrey.”

He shrugged again. “And I know that she brought her creature with her, out of the darkness where he’s been in hiding all of this time. If she really wanted to kill her, she might just as easily have given her the plague that’s been crushing the lower city.”

Margaery ground her teeth, hating that he was right. “So you think if I can find this maester, he will know the antidote?”

“I would question, Your Grace, why he might give it to you, however,” Baelish said, and Margaery swallowed hard, as she met his eyes.

He knew more than he was letting on, clearly; he always did, and she loathed him a little more for it.

“How long have you known?” She asked him. “About Olyvar?”

His lips pulled into a small grimace. “How long had you been sleeping with him, Your Grace?” He asked her.

Of course.

Of course he had known, this entire time.

It mattered little to him whether the heir to the throne was the rightful one or not, clearly, not when he had been so helpful to the Lannisters in propping up Joffrey.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathed out slowly. “Get out,” she whispered, while her eyes were still closed and she couldn’t think about the consequences of her words.

When she opened her eyes again, he was gone, and Margaery found herself moving closer to the bed, as if she could better protect Sansa that way, when he had already left.

She couldn’t think about that right now. Couldn’t think about the fact that Baelish had most likely known about the fact that she and Olyvar were committing treason from the very first night it had happened.

About the fact that whatever he’d been planning, he’d been months ahead of her, had months longer than her to think about it.

Not when the rest of her world already felt like it was going to shit.

Instead, she ran a hand through Sansa’s hair, the sting of Baelish’s words, his accusation that she had somehow orchestrated her own emotional state so that Sansa would rely on Baelish, so that he would be less suspicious of Margaery, still ringing through her ears.

She could confess to having done many things she was not proud of, in her quest for power, but that wouldn’t be one of them. Not when Sansa had confessed to her how much Baelish frightened her, genuinely.

Not when the sight of them together, even at the height of Margaery’s melancholy, had her setting her teeth and wanting to arrest him for that alone.

She sighed, sitting down on the bed beside Sansa, fingers still tangling in her hair, as the other girl lay still as death beneath her, and hiccuped.

Her grandmother had told her that it had been their plan, all along, to be rid of Cersei and have Kevan installed in her place. He was, as her grandmother had put it, a far more reasonable man, even if there was a concern that he might attempt to broker peace with Aegon Targaryen for the sake of the realm.

That she would go along with Margaery’s new plan to be rid of Cersei, as well, so long as she did things Olenna’s way.

That was a life choice she was terribly familiar with, and so Margaery had agreed, even as she wasn’t sure what it was she was agreeing to.

She had known they were plotting something more than it had seemed, when they had invited Gendry to come to King’s Landing.

But getting rid of Cersei…Because that was what it would take, Margaery knew that. The other woman had a terribly unhelpful way of clawing her way up out of every corner she was thrown into.

And Sansa, for all that she had sought to spare Tommen, had agreed to it, with whatever secret letters that they had been sending to each other for these past few months, after Margaery had banished her own grandmother.

She swallowed hard, looking down at her fingers in Sansa’s red hair.

She couldn’t believe that Sansa would agree to be rid of Cersei with Olenna, but then again, she had agreed to help Margaery be rid of Joffrey, hadn’t she? And then, there had been Ser Meryn.

And now, Margaery was just finishing the job.

A job that, once done, there would be no septa for her to confess to, there might not even be Sansa to confess to, if the girl never woke up, if Baelish was wrong about what Cersei had done to her.

“I need you to wake up,” she whispered against Sansa’s ear. “I need you to tell me that I’m doing the right thing, Sansa, now more than ever.”

But Sansa lay stubbornly still.

Margaery set her jaw, reaching up to rub at her eyes, before she stood to her feet and walked out of the room.

“If Lord Baelish wishes to see Sansa again,” Margaery said tightly in Brienne’s direction as the door shut behind her, “I don’t care whose authority he claims. He does not do so alone, do you understand? You may call other guards, if necessary.”

Brienne looked almost…relieved, at the order. “As Your Grace commands,” she said, and Margaery nodded once, shortly.

“And Brienne?” She asked, gently.

The other woman glanced at her.

“Get some rest yourself, would you? I can send my brother to come and guard the Lady Sansa, if that’s what concerns you.”

The other woman forced a smile. “Yes, Your Grace. I shall endeavor to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!


	29. King's Landing

“Lord Kevan,” Margaery said, the last of her visits for the day.

She had sought him out in his chambers, these chambers that had belonged to far too many Lannisters before him, she thought idly, as she glanced around.

The guards outside his door, for all their gold cloaks, had let her through the door without a word, and Kevan was there, sitting at his desk and looking fairly miserable.

She wondered if he had just been forced to endure some more of Cersei’s presence, and sympathized, or whether he was merely miserable about the current state of the Rock.

A part of her was genuinely shocked, for all that she had known about the Baratheon deserters there, that House Lannister had somehow managed to lose control of the Rock. They’d had it for as long as she had ever known; it was a fixture in the Seven Kingdoms, just like the fact of so many Houses fighting over a damned throne.

“Your Grace,” he said, standing to his feet as she entered. She knew that it was unusual for her to seek out her Hand, these days, when all of her issues usually went through Baelish.

But that was fine; she wanted him slightly wrong footed, for this conversation. She had a feeling it was the only way she’d be able to get through to him.

“What are you doing here?” He asked her after a moment, as the door shut behind her, leaving the guards outside.

Margaery forced a smile. “Can I not merely wish for the advice of my Hand?” She asked him.

He didn’t look amused.

“I’m not sure that we have anything to say to one another, my lady,” he told her, calmly. “That should not be said over the Small Council table.”

Margaery bit back a sigh. “Oh?” she asked, idly. “And why is that?”

He scoffed. “Does your Dornish girl ever do anything without first asking your permission, these days?” he asked her, coldly, and Margaery flinched.

Yes, she had known that it would be easier to convince Cersei of Lady Nym’s duplicity than anyone who had been in King’s Landing for any length of time, lately. She knew that Lady Nym had been her own personal guard even back when Cersei remained here, but it had been some time, since then, and Cersei certainly didn’t know all of the reasons behind Lady Nym’s actions.

But Kevan Lannister...he had seen how close Lady Nym was to her, these days. To her ladies. To Sansa.

He would know that whatever story Lady Nym had spun in front of the court, a story that Margaery had spun, his son had still been killed in all of this, and Margaery had only arrested Nym so that Cersei wouldn’t try to declare war on her again, or something.

And while she could not take back the past, she did regret that Lady Nym had killed his son. For all that it was a terrible waste of life, it was also no doubt going to make Kevan Lannister an enemy, unless she could fix this, as her grandmother had bade her to do.

But she did not know how anything could make up for the loss of a child, not when he had lost two now, from two different women.

Margaery swallowed hard, crossing her arms over her chest. “I had no idea that Lady Nym was going to take the boy,” she murmured, which was not in fact a lie.

It wasn’t as if Sansa had seen fit to share such information with her.

Kevan scoffed, half turning away from her, and Margaery forced herself to keep talking.

“I spent some time with Tommen, when I was still married to his brother,” she offered, and at that, Kevan paused. “And my brother spent more time with him. Doted on the boy, from what I understand, and from what little I understand of his upbringing before our arrival in King’s Landing, he certainly needed the attention. I would never order harm to come to him. Lady Nym acted alone, and for that, she will be punished, I promise you.”

She remembered when Lady Nym had bent the knee to her alone, remembered the look of adoration in the other woman’s eyes, even if she had been feverish, at the time.

Lady Nym would do what she asked of her, if it came to that, much as that made Margaery feel a bit sick, as well.

Kevan swallowed hard, turning to face her once more. “She killed my son,” he said. “And I don’t care if it was on your orders or not, she did it to please you, you have to admit that.”

Margaery swallowed hard, not bothering to deny the words, not bothering to point out that Lady Nym had plenty of reasons of her own to want to kill a Lannister, even if she did not agree with the age of the boy she had killed.

“And I am...truly sorry for your loss,” she murmured, surprised that she meant the words. “I have not even brought this child into the world, yet, and already, I would die for him if it were asked of me. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a son.”

But she could imagine the pain of losing a brother. Had already lost enough of them, because of this man’s family, sympathetic though he seemed or not.

“So believe me when I say that I did not kill your son,” Margaery bit out, moving closer to him, so close she could feel his breath against hers. “Cersei did, the moment she decided to turn this into a one woman war.”

He jerked, where he stood, taking a step back from her. Margaery felt something almost like pity for him. “Cersei…”

“You know exactly what she is,” Margaery interrupted him. “Exactly what she has always been. The moment my husband died, the moment she thought she might get away with it, she turned around and crowned Tommen. She didn’t do that because she cared about his right to the throne, or because she cared about him at all. She did it because she couldn’t stand the thought of losing her hold on the Iron Throne. You know it, I know it. She got a taste for that power, and she couldn’t stand letting go of it once more.”

Kevan stared at her, didn’t try to dispute any of her words, which was something of a mercy, she supposed.

“She has agreed to negotiate with you,” he allowed, slowly, but Margaery merely scoffed.

“I have known that woman long enough to know when she does not mean the things she says,” she pointed out, coldly.

He sighed, steepling his fingers together in front of him. “To be honest, Your Grace, I am not certain what it is you would ask of me. I have lost two sons; she holds my daughter, now, and my sister. I would not lose them as well.”

She lifted her chin. “And I hold Tommen.”

His eyes hardened, and Margaery forced herself to relax, a bit.

She would never hurt the boy, of course. But Sansa had brought him here for a reason, after all.

“We cannot afford to fight a war on four fronts, my lord,” Margaery said, tightly. “And you’ve lost the Rock. You cannot afford to turn your back on me. Surely you understand that, even if she does not.”

He cocked his head, squinting at her. “Frankly, I’m surprised that this offer isn’t coming from your father. Or, perhaps, your grandmother.”

“I suppose you think that a little slip of a girl such as myself shouldn’t have much say in political matters,” Margaery said, turning up her nose at him.

He snorted. “You sound like my niece,” he said, and it took Margaery a moment to realize that he was referring to Cersei. She made a face. “No, I have nothing against your being a woman, or young, for that matter. But you have proven, time and time again since declaring your Regency, that you do not have the ability to run these Seven Kingdoms, nor, perhaps, do you have the inclination for it.”

Margaery stared at him in disbelief.

Yes, she knew how she had been acting as of late. Knew how foolish she had been.

But he didn’t know anything about her. Didn’t know anything about the way she had suffered, at Joffrey’s hands, the way she had suffered because of the things he dreamed of doing, and couldn’t. The dreams that had become her nightmare.

She had survived him, though.

She had survived him, and perhaps it had taken her a while to come back from that, and this man had no right to judge her after coming straight out of that family. After still allowing Cersei Lannister a place at that table, at a time when she could finally, potentially, be gotten rid of.

She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes. Green eyes, just like the rest of his godsbedamned family.

If only he knew that if she thought she had a chance in the seven hells of getting rid of the rest of his wicked family, she’d take it in a heartbeat, at this point.

And perhaps she would spend the rest of her life feeling guilty for such thoughts, but in this moment, it didn’t matter.

“I weathered your great nephew,” she whispered, coolly, and, when he blinked at the open vitriol in her voice, “Years, I weathered him. Perhaps not as long as House Lannister, but I weathered him all the same. I saw sides of him that his brother didn’t see, that his mother never saw, or, if she did, never acknowledged it. If she had, I cannot believe she would have loved him so dearly, mother or no.” She lifted her chin. “And if you think I did all of that simply to be handed a throne I had no wish for, well...Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do, my lord.”

He stared at her, looking vaguely surprised by her words, as if he hadn’t imagined that there was any passion underneath her exterior, and Margery felt a vague feeling of annoyance at that, as well.

“So let me make myself very clear when I say that by dealing with me, there is nothing you are losing out on,” Margaery said. “I am the Regent for this child,” she placed a hand on her stomach, “And I think that out of your two options right now, I am the one least likely to get any more of your children butchered in the night. Or Tommen, for that matter, whom I have no reason to kill so long as he remains here, in King’s Landing. Safe from his mother’s influence.”

Kevan flinched, looking away, scrubbing at his face.

“So,” she went on, coldly as before, “Will you help keep her under control, or not?”

He blinked at her. “What exactly do you have in mind?” he asked her, sounding only vaguely interested.

But it was enough, she thought. Just enough.

She forced a smile. “I want to know exactly what it will take to shift the balance of power under the remainder of your soldiers to you. And what it will take for you to be rid of Cersei’s influence.”

He stared at her. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know you, perhaps. But Cersei killed my firstborn son, even if I have yet to determine who, besides Lady Nym, killed Martyn. So you don’t need to worry about her influence on me.”

Margaery shook her head. “Not good enough. You’ve lost the Rock,” at the look of surprise on his face, she merely smiled. “I don’t want your word that you’ll step out of my way. I want your word that you’ll help me move Cersei out of mine.”

* * *

“My lady,” the septon they had brought into the Keep, for her private prayers, because as yet, it was too volatile in the city for her to go back to the Sept of Baelor, glanced up as she entered the private sanctuary they had created, looking surprised to see her.

Margaery couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “I’ve come…to pray,” she said, and reflected on how she hadn’t done so since before Septa Unella had been murdered.

She hadn’t seen the point, since then.

Septa Unella had been her bridge back to the Faith, and without her, Margaery doubted the gods wanted to hear anything that Margaery had to say, after all.

The septon nodded, composing himself quickly as he stepped forward to meet her. “About the child?” He asked her, because that had been what she most focused on, aloud.

In her head, and into Septa Unella’s ears, she had prayed for forgiveness, but she could not bring herself to entrust that prayer to anyone else, even with Sansa near death and unable to do anything about it this time.

“No,” she said, sighing as she took a kneeling position on the floor of the little sanctuary, still feeling uncomfortable at the way that the septon, as always, loomed over her. “I…”

She looked away from him, up at the fresco that had been painted into the stained glass window of this little sanctuary instead of him. She found the Father’s stern gaze.

“I wish to pray for the health of the Lady Sansa,” she whispered, still looking at the father in lieu of the man in front of her. “She…she is a dear friend, and the maesters say that there is little more that they can do for her, now.”

The septon, when she chanced to look at him again, was surprisingly sympathetic, at her words.

But then, she supposed he ought to be. She paid him well to live here, at her beck and call, at the beck and call of any of the nobles who wished to use his services, rather than at the Sept, with the rest of his brothers.

She swallowed hard.

It felt strange now, coming here without the septa there, to stand between them, to tell the septon what it was that the Regent wished to pray for, for her. That was much of how it had gone, in the past.

And without the septa here, with full knowledge of what had happened to the other woman, because of her, Margaery felt rather like a fraud, coming here at all.

But Sansa woudln’t awaken, and Garlan was busy enough these days, worrying about her for other reasons than the need to take on more concerns about her.

And so, she was back here.

The septon eyed her for a long moment, and then dipped his head. “Very well, Your Grace. We shall pray for the Mother’s Mercy, for the Lady Sansa.”

She forced a smile, still thinking about what Baelish had told her of his suspicions, that all of this was a test on Cersei’s part, just as his going to her had been, he claimed, yet another test.

Margaery bent her head, folding her hands together in front of her, and listened to the septon pray. There was something about his voice that was oddly soothing, she thought, as she listened to him, as she hoped to believe anything he was saying might somehow benefit Sansa in some way, if only because he was, at least, a septon.

And, when he had finished and she opened her eyes, she could see something like a foreign light reigning down on the maiden in the fresco.

She tried to tell herself it meant something.

“I also…I wish to pray for guidance,” she said. “Sometimes, the true path is hard to understand.”

The septon blinked at her. She remembered saying something eerily similar to the High Sparrow, and shivered.

“Sometimes it is not that it is hard to understand, Your Grace, but that it is hard to take,” he told her, as the High Sparrow once had.

She shivered again. “I am…surrounded by enemies, here in the Keep,” she whispered, hoarsely. “Enemies I am uncertain of how to deal with. Or…no. I understand how I need to deal with them, but I do not know…I’m not sure…That is, my heart is telling me one thing, I feel, and the gods another.”

She glanced up at the septon again.

“I don’t suppose that makes sense,” she whispered, hoarsely.

He sighed, still looming over her. “Unfortunately, Your Grace, far too much sense,” he allowed. “What is your heart telling you that you think the gods would not approve of?”

She licked her lips.

She wasn’t quite certain how to tell a man of Faith that her heart was telling her that she should kill Cersei Lannister before she allowed any more harm to befall them because of the other woman. That the thought of letting her live struck fear in her heart, for whatever else the other woman might be capable of.

She wasn’t quite sure how to tell him that she thought the gods might disapprove of her wish to kill another woman, another mother.

“I can see the conflict you feel over this choice, Your Grace,” he said, and she glanced up at him, sharply. “And I ask you to merely reflect on one thing.”

She swallowed hard. “Yes?” She asked, glad that he had not asked further questions about the choice she was going to have to make.

“Whether you feel this task you must take on is yours to make judgment on, or the Father’s,” he said, and Margaery flinched.

“I am the Regent,” she whispered, remembering her grandmother’s earlier scolding. “Sometimes, that means making choices that should be left up to the gods.”

“And is there no other choice, Your Grace?” He asked her. “No third option?”

Margaery licked her lips, staring at him, wondering what it was he thought she was trying to decide on, because it felt to her as if he was coming perilously close to that answer on his own.

“I thought I asked you to pray with me, septon,” she said, finally. “Not counsel me. I have a Small Council, for that.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then sighed. “Somehow, I feel that it might not do any good, Your Grace. Your mind seems already made up, for good or ill.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “You are not like the last septon I had to deal with,” she said, wryly.

He raised a single eyebrow at her. “He was…a misguided man, in many ways, Your Grace, but there were some things that he was wise about. I cannot say I am unhappy that you do not find us similar, however.”

She flinched. “Before she…passed,” she said, slowly, “Septa Unella told me that the weight of our sins remains with us for the rest of our lives. That only through trying to do good, to atone, in some acceptable way to the Faith, might we be rid of that weight, balance it with those good things.” She glanced up at him. “Do you believe that?”

He pressed his lips together. “I think that a woman who has sinned as much as Cersei Lannister has will face her own judgment, eventually, Your Grace, without any help from you.”

Margaery jerked, standing abruptly to her feet. “I did not ask you-”

“Unfortunately for the both of us, Your Grace, I do have eyes, and living in the Keep, I see things,” he pointed out, softly.

Margaery eyed him for a moment longer, and then sighed. “So you think that my…removing her,” she could not say aloud the real word she associated with the thought, “Would merely add to my own sins, rather than be rid of hers.”

He reached out a weathered hand, taking her hand into his. Margaery flinched at the touch, and he raised an eyebrow.

Then, “I think that Septa Unella and the High Sparrow were wrong about some things, Your Grace,” he told her, calmly. “I do not feel that all of our good acts and all of our bad actions can be balanced against one another in order to free us from punishment. I do not believe that a forced atonement signifies a true change of heart.”

She swallowed hard. “Then what will?”

His eyes were soft. “I believe that only an earnest desire to do good can make one whole again, Your Grace, not a balancing act, or anything like it.”

Margaery looked away. “And keeping a tally is hardly the action of one reformed to do good,” she surmised, but it was not as if she could explain to him that as a Regent, as Olenna had explained to her and as she had known in her heart all along, what had happened to her husband, and all of those people in the Sept, they would not be the last horrible things she did.

At least with the septa, there had been hope that if she did enough charitable acts alongside such actions, she might gain forgiveness.

Now, she felt that hopelessness from before weighing down rather heavily on her again. Coming to the septon had not been the relief she had hoped for, and Margaery moved towards the door of her own volition, before a sudden thought stopped her, spurred on by the worries she felt whenever she was outside this door.

She turned around, slowly, and found the septon still watching her.

“Tell me, this new High Septon that Baelish has picked,” Margaery said, “What do you think of him?”

The septon, frankly, looked surprised that she was asking his opinion on such a matter. “Your Grace, the High Septon is chosen by the septons, and-”

“We both know that isn’t the case, this time,” she said. “His many duty is to keep the peace with the people, but I also understand that he was meant to annul Lady Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion Lannister, as a personal favor to Lord Baelish. And yet, he hasn’t done so. I don’t suppose you know why.”

She didn’t understand why Baelish would have chosen a man whom he didn’t think would do his bidding, and yet, there was something almost comforting in the knowledge that this High Septon might not be another complete fraud, even if it made her wonder if he might try to seize power as his predecessor had done, as well.

The septon swallowed thickly. “The High Septon says that he cannot…in good conscience, annul the marriage between two individuals when one of them is not even present in Westeros to defend himself against Lady Sansa’s accusations of never consummating their marriage, even if he is a…”

“Traitor?” Margaery asked wryly, raising an eyebrow. “I wonder why that should cause any concern.”

The septon just gulped, and was quiet.

Margaery stared at him for a moment longer, before she huffed, holding out an arm expectantly. The last time she had been here, though her stomach had not been quite so full, Septa Unella had been the one to help her up again.

The septon appeared almost hesitant to touch her, but he helped her to her feet, all the same.

Margaery sent him a relieved smile. “Thank you,” she said. “And, if you do so happen to see this new High Septon again any time soon, do let him know that the Regent wishes to meet him. To congratulate him on his new appointment.”

The man gulped, looking nervous, and she supposed he was thinking of the last time she had come into contact with a High Septon. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Margaery nodded to him once, glanced up at the fresco of the Seven that had been placed on the wall of this little makeshift sanctuary, and walked out of the room, closing it behind her, finding all of her guards waiting where she had left them in the hall.

“Tell Father to go ahead,” Margaery told her brother, as she walked out of the sanctuary and found him waiting there, alongside the rest of her Kingsguard. “We have Lord Kevan, for however long that will last.”

Garlan stared at her for a moment longer, and then nodded, shortly. “He’ll cause quite a ruckus doing this, you know,” he reminded her. “Especially if you aren’t seen to be there, openly supporting it.”

Margaery just shook her head. “We can’t worry about that,” she told him. “I want her gone before she destroys anything else.”

Garlan grimaced. “Marg, are you sure this isn’t just…” he grimaced again, clearly knowing how she was going to respond even before he asked the question.

“Just my own hubris?” She asked, and then snorted. “You don’t know her like I do.”

“You forget, she did live with me for a time, in the Reach,’ he told her. “And she was awful, that entire time, but she wasn’t…unmanageable.”

He only seemed to realize what was wrong with his statement after he had said it, face going white as she turned to face him.

“She killed Willas,” she bit out, and then went very still, as the realization hit her belatedly.

Because no, she hadn’t.

Margaery had spent all of this time loathing Cersei, believing that of course she had been the one to kill Willas, because she had seen the guilt that Sansa had felt, over sending an innocent man to his death in Oberyn, and believed that guilt had to be the truth, had to have a genuine reason.

And perhaps Margaery had felt just a bit guilty over all of that, as well.

But Cersei hadn’t killed Willas, even if she had killed Loras, even if there were plenty of other reasons to loathe the other woman.

Ellaria Sand had done so, according to her grandmother, who had no reason to lie about all of that, now that he was gone.

And dear gods, she’d killed him before…

Margaery felt her knees grow weak, felt Garlan’s hands wrapping around her arm in an effort to keep her upright, in a viselike grip.

She flinched a little at the touch, but didn’t try to pull away from him, leaning on him heavily as they stood there in the hallway, the guards looking uncomfortable at yet another reminder of their Regent’s weakness.

She didn’t mind admitting that part of the reason she felt so weak, just now, besides the shock of the reminder of what had happened to her own brother, was the realization that Garlan probably didn’t even know what had happened to him, either.

It wasn’t as if their grandmother had any reason to tell him. Not when he had always been the obedient child.

And yet, the thought of telling him herself…

She swallowed hard, eventually pulling back from him when she could remember how to breathe again.

“Are you all right?” Garlan asked her, intently. She was aware that he had asked her that multiple times, this being only the first time she’d been able to hear it.

Margaery shook her head, cleared her throat, loudly. “Fine,” she gritted out, though she wasn’t, not at all.

She remembered how furious she’d been, when she stalked into Oberyn Martell’s prison cell and demanded to know if he’d had anything to do with what had happened to her brother, if he’d…

And he’d seemed so innocent, as he replied that he had no idea what she was talking about. That he was sorry for her loss, because Willas had been a friend to him, as well, and perhaps more than that, as she had always suspected.

And Ellaria Sand had killed him, and now, she didn’t know if Oberyn had been laughing behind his sad smile to her the entire time.

She took a deep breath, and then another.

“Margaery, I think you need to slow down,” her brother said then, interpreting her silence as further pain, she supposed. “You’re moving too quickly these days, and the maesters say that the baby could come…soon. I know when Leonette was expecting…”

“I’m fine,” Margaery repeated, even as she felt a twinge, deep in her abdomen.

Her brother huffed out a breath, clearly skeptical, but Margaery was already moving.

“And Garlan?” She called, and he returned to her side almost immediately.

“The Dornishman,” she said, and tried not to notice the way that he flinched at the reminder of the man. “Lady Nym said that he was a warlord, as we suspected, and not some dignitary who had never seen the end of a spear. Have you learned anything from him?”

Garlan made a face. “He…Yes, sister,” he said, and she knew it had to be bad, if that was his answer. He sighed when she just kept staring at him. “You were right. This has all been Arianne’s plan.”

“And yet,” Margaery whispered, almost to herself, “Why would she let him in on that secret, knowing he was coming here? Why bother with the charade of Gerold Dayne usurping her throne at all, in that case?”

Garlan sighed. “I don’t know. And Margaery?” He sighed. “He doesn’t, either. Trust me.”

She shook her head. “All right,” she said. “All right, I do. You know that.”

Her brother’s eyes were sad, as he nodded at her words.

* * *

“Your Grace,” the woman said, and Cersei bit back a sigh, forcing herself to face the other woman.

She knew what the other woman was doing, what a bunch of cowards all of these nobles, who had stayed behind in King’s Landing while she had been forced away, or who had fled in the months that the Sparrows had King’s Landing and only now returned that her son was dead, they all were.

All trying to butter her up, now that she was once again on the side of the Regent, now that they understood that either way the wind turned in the future, it might be good to have made a friend of her.

Well, she wasn’t going to forget what fair-weather friends they all were, all of these cowards who smiled so prettily at her, and asked after the Rock that had fallen into the hands of a bunch of traitors and criminals, and who said nothing as her son was held here like a prisoner, himself.

She had only been able to see him a couple of times, since that Dornish half-breed had brought him here, though the Tyrells made a valiant effort of pretending that he was not, in fact, being held captive against her.

From what she could see, he was in perfect health, or as much it as she had left him in, and he seemed content enough, since he had brought that damned cat and been reunited with the other one, the one that had belonged to the other Dornish half-breed who had lived here, a lifetime ago.

And he didn’t seem to understand that he was being held here by her enemies, so that she might cooperate during their negotiations, either. Had shaken his head and explained that he had gone to see his brother’s burial place, which was what Lady Nym had said she wanted to bring him here for, anyway.

And anyways, she was quite certain he had never really wanted the crown she had so bravely offered him.

Well, he would regret not wanting it, she thought, if the Tyrells tried to take his head for it.

She shook her head; it hardly mattered, at the moment. She was merely glad that, even if he was a hostage, the Tyrells were not treating him unkindly. He had food every day, and seemed happy enough, though it killed her a little more, each day that he was kept here.

Not that she would allow him to be kept here forever, of course, no matter what the Tyrells wanted in their alliance, no matter how they tried to pressure her, and use her son against her, as they had once used Joffrey against her.

She sighed, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes. She still was uncertain how she was going to sneak her son out of this place, how she was going to get him out of this den of beasts, though she knew it was the only way she would ever see her son live to adulthood.

Or anything close to it, she thought, grimacing.

The negotiations had not gone as badly as she had thought they might; indeed, the Tyrells had not asked for so many unreasonable things. They did ask for the crown, whether the child in Margaery’s womb was a boy or not, marrying Margaery to Tommen with the permission of the new High Septon, if it was a girl, but Cersei figured that she only had to contend with that until she could get Tommen to safety.

After all, she knew the truth about this child in Margaery’s womb, now. Knew that it was no more Joffrey’s than Joffrey had been Robert’s, and therefore, she had no reason to care whether it lived to breathe Westerosi air, or not.

But for the time being, she could accept that they needed one another. Without the Rock, and without ever receiving a response from Euron Greyjoy, the one and only time she had written to him, Cersei was rather in the lurch.

And the Tyrells were, too. For all that Euron had never reached out to her with any interest, the man certainly was making a game of the Reach’s coast, from what she heard, and now that the Martells had abandoned the Tyrells for this Targaryen boy, supposedly…

Well, they had a common foe, in the Martells, and Cersei intended to do whatever it took to get her daughter back, to make sure that Tommen was safe.

The rest of it, she was sure, could be dealt with later, when they had destroyed worse enemies, and she could content herself with knowing that the Mountain would make sure Margaery Tyrell, the little slut, had a painful death, as she deserved.

But still, being here at all, faking smiles she didn’t feel and pretending she didn’t lay awake each night, not sleeping for fear that she may wake in the morning to find that the Tyrells had harmed her son in some way, she loathed it.

So she could barely pretend happiness, each and every time that the nobles came up to her in the Great Hall, attempting to curry favor with her once more.

If she had learned anything, from her banishment, it was that in the end, their favor hardly mattered.

“Yes?” She asked, slowly.

The noblewoman smiled at her, and went on about how glad she was that the Regent and Cersei had managed to mend fences, had come together with her son’s death, tragic though that death had been.

And Cersei smiled through gritted teeth the whole while, pretending it wasn’t killing her inside, to hear such words.

“I wondered, Your Grace, if…” the woman began, but suddenly Kevan was there, standing beside Cersei, gripping her by the arm and making polite excuses to whichever noblewoman whose name she had forgotten, and pulling her along in the Great Hall, into a smaller corner.

She yanked her sleeve free of his grip, then. “What do you think you’re doing?” She asked, through clenched teeth. “You were the one who told me…”

And then she saw the look on his face, and despite herself, her heart began to hammer. “What is it?”

He grimaced. “Cersei, something is about to happen,” he said, and his voice was pitched low and intense, and Cersei squinted up at him while her heart hammered in her chest. “I have spoken with the Regent, and I am warning you now…for the sake of your son, do not fight this.”

And that hardly made Cersei feel any better, as she felt her face pale and glanced around the room, found Mace Tyrell and a group of half a dozen guards marching towards them.

“What on earth…?” She began, but the knowing look on Kevan’s face made her stomach twist.

“Whatever this is, I will not forgive you such a betrayal,” she hissed. “I still have your children, in the Rock. I can still…”

Kevan’s face was stone. “I did only what I thought best for our House, Cersei,” he said, even if he did sound almost apologetic, which only frightened her more. “And Martyn is dead, and you have lost the Rock.”

“Martyn is dead because that half-breed whore killed him,” Cersei hissed out, “And now you would break bread with these people behind my back? How dare you?”

He reached out for her again, but she flinched away from him.

The nobles who had been lining up to pretend nice with Cersei were suddenly all pulling away, forming a rather wide berth as Mace Tyrell and his green cloaks neared.

“Cersei, I beg you, don’t fight this. Don’t make a scene, not if you want Tommen to be all right by the end of it,” Kevan said, proving he had never known her at all, Cersei thought, bitterly.

Though, if his words had been meant to calm her down, they had surely done the opposite.

And by then, Mace Tyrell was standing before the two of them, frowning.

He did not take any sort of time delivering his message, either, Cersei thought, as she felt something like fear clawing up her throat.

No, she thought, as he opened his mouth. No, she had agreed to negotiate with them, and for all that their demands were unfair, she had been trying her best, for Tommen’s sake, especially after they had dragged him here and then pretended not to have done so.

No, this wasn’t fair.

“You have been…kindly asked to leave King’s Landing, first thing, Lady Cersei,” Mace said, and he was all but sneering the words.

Lady Cersei.

Cersei closed her eyes at the words.

She had been expecting some sort of betrayal like this, of course, though this specific one seemed rather too obvious, even for the Tyrells, after they had gone to such lengths to pretend they wanted an alliance with her.

The Tyrells had made it clear, in the short time that Cersei had been here and even before that, they had no intention of remaining friends with House Lannister so long as Cersei championed her son’s cause above their new child puppet’s.

They had even kidnapped her son to make that clear, but a part of Cersei was surprised that they were sending them away, now that they had their hostages. After all, keeping them here would all but cripple the Lannister army.

She glanced over at Kevan, where he stood beside her, and saw that her uncle, the traitor, did not look any more surprised by the sudden turn of events than Cersei felt.

Of course. Because he had told her, not so very long ago, that he very much intended for this to happen, had known that it would happen, and only asked that she not fight it, as if she would ever agree to being strong armed by a Tyrell.

Cersei drew up to her full height, glowering at Mace, now. The man had always been something of an opportunistic coward, even if she didn’t think that she would be able to glare him out of this sudden motivation.

Well, if he thought that she was going to take such an insult sitting down, he was a more fool than she had thought.

“I was invited to King’s Landing on the invitation of the Regent,” she snapped. “Whom you are not. I will not be dictated to on whether or not I may be permitted to remain here by anyone but her.”

And the Regent, of course, was conveniently not present, just now. In fact, Cersei had barely seen her mingling amongst the nobles, a sacrifice all those in power must make, these past few days.

Mace lifted his chin, somehow looking down at her for all that he was a shorter man than she. Cersei found it degrading.

“This order comes directly from the Regent,” he informed her, and the nobles behind Cersei shifted uncomfortably.

Of course it had, because Margaery Tyrell would have enjoyed this, setting up this situation so that after she had already taken every opportunity to humiliate Cersei since her arrival here, she had one more chance to do so, to remind her of her place now that she had let the little chit gain any control at all.

Hells, Cersei was surprised that she was not here herself, to witness Cersei’s humiliation. But then, perhaps she had realized that was too heavy handed, even for her.

Cersei had clearly made a mistake with that one, by not strangling her in her sleep the first time that she had dared to insinuate they were sisters, as she had once threatened. She had clearly never known her place since then.

And Cersei was going to make her pay for this humiliation, somehow.

Well, she would make them all pay, one day, for this.

Poisoning Sansa had not been a punishment, but an attempt to parse out just how much the Stark girl meant to Margaery Tyrell. And now that she knew, Cersei fully intended to make use of that.

But it wasn’t as if she could do that if she was suddenly, once again, banished from King’s Landing.

“And by what grounds?” Cersei demanded, because the Regent might be well within her rights to banish whomever she pleased, but Cersei was the mother of a King, and she had a right to know why, damn it.

“She also commands that you are banished forthwith from King’s Landing, for both your suspected treasons in convincing Robert Baratheon that Tommen and Myrcella Lannister were his children, and for the poisoning of Sansa Stark, one who bent the knee on behalf of House Stark to their new king,” Mace continued, and fuck him, he was enjoying this, too.

Cersei felt the air knocked out of her, at those words, as if Mace had just punched her in the stomach. Gods, he might as well have.

It was one thing, for Stannis to send letters about this, for Mace to make such a claim while he was safe in Highgarden and Joffrey could laugh it off, but for him to publicly accuse her like this…

She had thought that the Tyrells had learned from the last time that they had made this accusation, especially when they championed Joffrey’s unborn child as their King, but evidently not.

She didn’t know why she was surprised, at this point.

Cersei’s fists clenched at her side, and she glanced once more towards Kevan, saw the lack of surprise in his eyes at all of this.

Fuck, but he’d known this was going to happen. Had known what the Regent and Mace Tyrell were going to accuse her of, and he had stood by and let it happen, with barely a warning towards her.

She would kill him for this, she would.

She didn’t know what the Tyrells had offered him, to make him turn on his family in such a deplorable way, especially when she had already told him she held his son and daughter, whether Martyn was really dead or not, but she hoped it was worth it, for such a betrayal, for such a cowardly act when his niece and the grandson of his own, adored brother were in such a trial for their lives.

“I didn’t think the Regent so stupid,” Cersei sneered, “As to want to court war with such words.”

Mace raised an eyebrow. “Does your ladyship threaten war, should she leave this building, over such accusations?” he asked, calmly.

Of course.

Of course she fucking did, Cersei thought, fury rushing through her.

Margaery Tyrell had the numbers, with half the Westerlands uncertain who they should support, and Storm’s End belonging to that bastard, now, who owed his livelihood to her, even if House Lannister would put up a damn good fight.

A war would not be so great a threat to her as it might be to Cersei, and if she threatened war now, she would only be seen as petty, no matter how much Cersei might crave the thought of it.

“And with what army, my lady?” Mace went on, and it was then that Cersei closed her eyes once more, understanding the full depth of her uncle’s betrayal. Understanding why he was not fighting a word against this, why he had told her not to.

Of course.

Of course, he had gotten something more than the satisfaction of seeing her humiliated, out of all of this.

Jaime was North of the Wall, nowhere to be found. Tyrion was as good as dead if anyone ever laid eyes on him in Westeros again, and if the Tyrells insisted on continuing the insane story that Cersei’s last remaining children were bastards, then, besides the bastard in Margaery’s womb, there was really only one other person to profit, from all of this. Not if he simply stole it from her, as he clearly intended to do by undermining her like this, in front of all these people, with the help of the Tyrells.

Cersei saw red, shrugging off her uncle’s touch when he reached for her again.

Gods, if her father were still alive, he would have rained such a vengeance down upon his own brother, they would have stopped singing songs about Castamere over it.

She hoped that, for the scant amount of time he was able to before she ripped it back from him, her dear uncle enjoyed being known as the new Lord of Casterly Rock.

“These…all of this, these are nothing more than ridiculous accusations,” Cersei snapped, even as she heard the murmuring of the court behind her growing louder, “Meant only to slander me as I attempt to mourn my son alongside his wife, who, in her jealousy, never cared for the bond between us.”

If Margaery Tyrell could play a crowd of nobles, then she could too, damn it.

“Your son, who banished you from this court in the past. One of his last declarations as King, in fact,” Mace said, coolly, and damn him, he had never seemed this intelligent while he served on the Small Council beside her father. “The Regent graciously allowed you to return for his funeral ceremony, and you only abused her trust and goodwill by plotting treason immediately, once you arrived.”

Cersei scoffed. “Fine,” she said finally, taking a step back from the other man, for she could see that he was not to be reasoned with.

None of them were. The Tyrells only ever understood one thing, that was clear; the edge of a blade, and if it was a fight they wanted so badly, Cersei would be happy to oblige.

“Allow me to gather my things and find my son, and I will be gone from this place, if that is what the Regent wishes.”

Mace’s smile was more of a sneer, though the crowd amassing did not seem to notice it. They seemed only to notice Cersei’s pettiness, and she hated them for it, as well. Not so long ago, they had all been bowing and scraping before her, after all, and now, they would not even meet her gaze.

“I am afraid that will be impossible, Your Grace,” Mace told her, and his eyes were alit with a spark that she wished she could extinguish herself, before all of these witnesses.

And then Cersei heard what he had said, and her heart skipped a beat. She forgot to breathe.

Beside her, even her traitorous uncle looked apologetic, though clearly, he had known about this, as well.

The world went black, around the edges of her vision, and she knew.

Because of course, the Tyrells and Kevan too, couldn’t accept her defeat gracefully, would know that even if her uncle had stolen her birthright from her like this, with whatever legality he and these Tyrells had come up with in order to do so, she would not simply accept it sitting down.

She would fight tooth and nail, feeling she had nothing to lose.

Unless.

Mace had not even explained himself yet, and yet already her heart hammered, knowing what it was he was about to say.

She couldn’t breathe, suddenly.

Cersei reached up, pressing a hand against her throat, feeling her pulse jumping wildly against her fingers, a pain in her head.

 _No_. No, Margaery could humiliate her all she wanted, she could force her out of the city and into a war Cersei wasn’t entirely certain she could win, into the streets if that was what Kevan so desired, but Cersei could not allow this. Would not allow this.

She couldn’t do this.

She could not do this.

She couldn’t take the last thing that belonged to Cersei from her, not when she was already stealing a home that belonged to turncoats and mutineers, Cersei thought. Not when she had lost a son, and so recently, likely a daughter, as well.

She would not allow it.

“Excuse me?” she gritted out, and her teeth were grinding so hard against one another that she could feel a migraine coming on.

Mace pursed his lips, looking almost embarrassed as he said his next words, for at least he had something of a conscience, she thought.

Her uncle, by comparison, looked pained, and still would not meet her gaze.

Traitor, she thought angrily. At least Mace Tyrell, coward and fool though he was, was able to do so.

“By your own admission, Your Grace, you cannot be trusted to further the interest of the Crown, just as your son the King, may he rest in peace, did not trust you to do so. The Regent, owing to her great love for her late husband,” he continued, and Cersei scoffed again, this time incredulously and loudly enough for anyone in the Great Hall to hear, “Does not believe it would be within the interests of Tommen Lannister’s safety, to return him to your…care, especially given the current state of the Rock, as it is understood.”

Cersei fought back a silent scream. “What did you just say to me?” she demanded, and yes, that was her heart, beating hard against her ribcage, something like panic welling up within her.

No.

No, she was not going to allow this to happen. She was not going to allow them to get away with this, godsdamnit.

That feeling of utter helplessness was rising up again. She couldn’t breathe, could barely think.

Panic welled up within her, at the very thought of what would happen to Tommen, the moment those great gates shut behind Cersei, for the Tyrells had made it clear they had no reason to let him live, now that he was nothing but a threat to their own heir, and with what the Martells had already done by crowning Myrcella, they knew they could take no chances.

No.

She had already lost her son because of this shrew, lost the final months that she might have had alone with him, and now Margaery Tyrell meant to take away her other son, as well. To take away her birthright and her son, in one fell swoop, and leave Cersei with nothing.

She felt something like hot tears blinking at her eyes, because if she had had her way, Tommen would never have come here in the first place. She had left him in the Rock for his own protection, and now, Margaery was trying to take him from her for good, the way she had Joffrey when she had first begun whispering in his ear.

“The Regent has decreed that Tommen Lannister shall remain in King’s Landing, under the protection of the Crown,” Mace said, and at least the bastard looked uncomfortable, explaining this to her, ripping away everything she held dear with a few choice words.

She would make him feel quite a deal more uncomfortable, before this was over.

“No,” she said, and her mouth suddenly felt very dry. More murmurs, amongst the crowd, but Cersei could not bring herself to give a fuck about any of them. “No, my son returns home with me.”

“Cersei…” Kevan interrupted, then, and his eyes were full of sympathy as he spoke, but damn him, Cersei didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t want anything from him, she thought, as her breaths quickened.

“No,” she repeated. “My son returns home to the Rock with me, or I will not leave this place until I have arranged that with the Regent.”

Mace again shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “The Regent has given our soldiers express permission to drag you from the Keep by your hair, Your Grace, should you refuse to leave,” he said, and now, those murmurs were so much louder.

Cersei could heard them all, those words whispered around the throng, pounding against her skull.

“I will not leave without my son,” she said, and hated the way that her voice rose in the panic she felt, that she found it suddenly more difficult to think straight.

No, no this could not be happening.

“No,” she breathed, that helpless feeling rising up again. “I beg you,” and she reached out, gripping Mace Tyrell’s arm in a vice like grip, ignoring the guilt that flitted across his face, at the action. “I beg you, let me leave with my son, and I won’t cause any trouble. I will go, without a fight, just let me leave with my boy.”

She was not above begging, not for this. Not even as the guards who had accompanied Mace into the Great Hall reached out for her, pulling her grip off of Mace Tyrell, as the man suddenly found himself unable to meet her eyes.

“Please,” she whispered, hot tears sparking at her eyes. “Please, don’t do this. Give me my son, and I’ll go. I’ll let her have her damn throne. _Please_.”

Because she knew damn well that if she left her son here again, as she had left Joffrey here, then she was never going to see him again. She was going to lose him, in exactly the same way that she had lost Joffrey, because he was a threat to the child that Margaery Tyrell still carried in her womb.

She fought against the guards holding her back, thrashing against them, screaming feral curses at that whore and her unborn child, before she felt the grounding hands of Kevan Lannister, on her shoulders, attempting to still her.

But he had not bothered to speak up, as she begged for her son’s life, as he profited directly from it, and she would not forget that soon.

“Cersei, Cersei, you have to calm down,” he was saying, forcing her to come back to her body, and Cersei tried to fight him off for several more moments before she realized that it was useless.

Mace was staring at her as if he thought her truly a wild animal now, and not a woman at all.

She would make him pay for that thought one day, as well.

“I will not leave here without my son,” she whispered, and hated the tears shining in her eyes.

Mace was no longer looking at her, but at Kevan, now. “The Queen Mother is to leave the city within the hour, if she does not wish to be escorted out via guard, and without any of her belongings,” he told Kevan, not even bothering to look at Cersei, now.

She flinched as she felt a tooth crack beneath the force she was using to grind them.

“Then I will accompany her,” Kevan said suddenly, and Cersei half turned in his hold, blinking up at him in bewilderment, because, for all that he had followed her father blindly, Kevan had never shown himself to be a friend to her.

And yet. And yet, he was the Hand of the King, now that Tyrion was gone, betraying her again by murdering her son so brutally, and here he was, speaking for Cersei.

Mace blinked at him, but he did not seem surprised by this, either. No small wonder there. No doubt, he’d been hoping that Kevan would retire as Hand of the King so that he might snatch up the title.

“That is your choice, of course,” Mace said. “But the Hand of the King cannot serve the Crown anymore from the Westerlands than the Prince Tommen can remain safe there.”

But the words were very cultured, she realized, as if they had been planned ahead of time.

Of course; the Lord of Casterly Rock would be far better served going back to the Rock to return it to House Lannister, of course, she thought, bitterly.

And Kevan would make a better Lord of the Rock than he had Hand of the King, she couldn’t help but think.

“Oh, is he still a prince?” Cersei spat out, annoyance filling her.

Kevan reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose. The action reminded her of Tyrion, and she stiffened, fully aware of the fact that she was not safe, standing between these two men.

Gods, the moment she had him alone, back in the Westerlands, she was going to rip her uncle apart herself, if she had to. If there truly was not a single soldier still loyal to the true heir to the Rock.

Kevan did not hesitate, reaching up to rip the insignia of the Hand of the King from his chest, and throw the pin down on the ground before them.

Cersei heard it hit the ground with a dull thud, and blinked.

“You may tell your Regent that she should take a good look at the legacy her husband left behind, before following in his footsteps,” Kevan said, coldly. “I return to the Rock an ally of the Crown, but this…show, was unnecessary.”

Mace Tyrell no longer looked so pained by the thought of forcing a mother and child apart.

“You have one hour,” he repeated, and then was gone, leaving his soldiers behind, no doubt to ensure she actually did as she was told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!


	30. King's Landing

_Sansa’s heart skipped a beat when she opened the door to find Margaery standing outside of it, knocking expectantly._

_She couldn't’ remember the lat time that Margaery had willingly sought her out, had come to her room to do so. It made her almost blush, to think that perhaps the last time she’d done so, they’d been intimate._

_But by the stormy look on Margaery’s face, she very much doubted that was what the other girl was seeking her out for. Especially these days._

_Sansa felt her stomach sink a little, disappointed._

_“I’ve been looking for Garlan,” Margaery informed her, and Sansa blinked at her, and then realized suddenly why Margaery might be annoyed with her, now._

_“He’s down in the city, dealing with the plague,” Sansa told her, gently, always gently these days, because she didn’t know how Margaery was going to react to any specific thing, and especially not to this,_

_She knew how protective Margaery was of her brother; almost as protective as he was of her, these days._

_“He’s being exposed?” She demanded, rather shrilly, and Sansa bit back a cringe, finding that it was rather too early in the morning to find herself facing down another argument with Margaery._

_It seemed that was all they were doing, these days. In all honestly, Sansa was exhausted enough without having to fear another argument, another fight._

_“He won’t be exposed,” Sansa said, gently. “I told him to stay clear of any of the actual sick, but he insisted on going down there to try and figure out what’s going on. He’s taken several maesters with him, and…”_

_“And they don’t even know what the fuck is going on down there,” Margaery said, still hugging herself as she stepped further into Sansa’s chambers and Sansa hesitantly shut the door behind her, trying not to react to the very obvious way that Margaery flinched, at the sound of the door closing. “There’s no way for him to know that he won’t be exposed to…whatever it is. How could you let him go without telling me?”_

_Sansa grimaced. “He insisted,” she repeated, a little more firmly, this time._

_“He’s my brother, you know,” Margaery snapped, and Sansa flinched at the words. Margaery looked regretful not a moment later. “I…Sorry.”_

_She looked down at her shaking hands in lieu of Sansa, and Sansa closed her eyes and breathed out deeply._

_It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t matter, because Margaery wasn’t herself these days, and Sansa couldn’t blame her for being rather cruel, after everything she’d been through, lately._

_It wasn’t her fault that Sansa had lost all of her brothers, that she had no one left while Margaery still at least had Garlan. It wasn’t her fault that Sansa would have given her left arm for Robb to come racing into the Keep, when she was just a stupid little girl who still thought her brother was going to rescue her, to kill all of the Lannisters and to sweep Sansa out of here, back home._

_It wasn’t her fault that Sansa had daydreamed about that up until the moment she learned that the Lannisters had killed her brother for daring to rebel against them. It wasn’t her fault that the thought of him still stung, in a way she was sure was never going to go away._

_Just as she imagined what had happened to Margaery on the night of Joffrey’s death was never going to go away._

_“I know that,” Sansa said, gently. “I…I’m not trying to keep you from him, Margaery, or any of the decisions that I’ve been making with him, because you know we’ve been working together more recently. He just…we agreed that he would be better suited to keeping the smallfolk in line, especially with this plague still spreading. And I’m sorry you didn’t get consulted when he decided to move down there for the next few weeks, I am, but you were…”_

_Indisposed, she didn’t say, because she wasn’t sure how to say it without sounding like she was judging Margaery, which she most certainly was not._

_The other girl gave her an annoyed look, anyway, as she reached down and placed a hand on her slightly protruding stomach._

_“If anything happens to him, too,” she whispered, and then trailed off, and this time, Sansa did flinch._

_“I would never let anything happen to him,” she repeated, firmly. “If I had thought that there was too much of a danger, I would never have sent him down to Flea Bottom, but the sickness seems to only be effecting the very poor, and the elderly or young children. I don’t think that your brother…” she grimaced again. “He’ll be back within a fortnight. But next time, I will tell you, I promise.” She paused. “You are the Queen, and you…I should have told you.”_

_“But I’m not the Queen, am I?” Margaery asked, rather bitterly, and Sansa’s head jerked up, at those words. “I haven’t really been the Queen since my husband died.” She let out a bitter laugh. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I sacrificed so much to see him dead so that I could take what belonged to him, and now that I have it, it means nothing.”_

_“What, what do you mean by that?” Sansa asked hesitantly, genuinely confused._

_Margaery scoffed. “Come on, Sansa, it’s not as if you haven’t noticed it. The men on my Small Council look at me like they used to look at Joffrey; some unpredictable, breakable thing that might fuck them all over with a new whim. Even you…Even you look at me like you don’t know what I’m capable of, anymore. If I ever did anything that terrified them enough, if I step one foot out of line…” she hummed. “I’ll be removed far faster than the Mad King ever was.”_

_Sansa grimaced. “I wouldn’t let that happen,” she promised her, words she felt like she was repeating constantly, these days._

_Margaery shook her head. “Don’t you get it?” She asked. “That’s exactly my point.”_

_Sansa shook her head, even more confused, now. “I don’t understand,” she said, slowly, but Margaery just scoffed again._

_“You’re more the Queen now than I am, Sansa, and you don’t even seem to notice it,” she said. “With Baelish whispering in your ear, with the entirety of the Small Council at your beck and call, ordering around my brother and sending letters to my grandmother. You might as well be wearing the crown.”_

_Sansa shook her head, pained. “Margaery, I…”_

_She didn’t know how to answer that. Didn’t want to tell her that it all meant nothing to her, that she was only doing it because it had become clear to her, in recent weeks, that Margaery was incapable of taking charge herself, in her current state._

_Didn’t want to tell her about the fear clawing its way around Sansa’s throat, every night that Margaery was not her true self, was not the woman that Sansa remembered, the woman that Sansa had plotted to kill Joffrey for._

_Because she didn’t know how to say any of that, not right to Margaery’s face, not like this._

_So she stayed silent, and she knew that Margaery was annoyed with her, knew that Margaery thought she enjoyed this newfound power, after so long as a captive, and perhaps she did, but it still meant nothing._

_She would have given it all up again in a heartbeat if she could just see Margaery smile, once, these past few weeks._

_When Sansa didn’t continue, Margaery let out a long sigh._

_“And I just…” Margaery shook her head. “My husband is dead, and I thought that was everything I wanted, but now that he’s gone, the truth is, I just feel…empty.”_

_Sansa felt her stomach twist, at those words. “Empty?” She echoed, looking Margaery over, remembering how she’d been forced to put more guards on Margaery’s doors when Lady Nym had walked in on her looking like she might throw herself out of them._

_Sansa didn’t think she would, of course, but it was still an irrational fear, sitting in the pit of her stomach. A fear that she didn’t know how to fix, that she couldn’t fix by talking to Baelish or plotting things with Olenna, so far away in the Reach, or by passing some new law with the Small Council._

_Margaery sighed, reaching up to run a shaky hand through her hair. It was starting to grow out a little now, though nothing like the luscious curls she’d had once before, Sansa thought._

_“Never mind,” she said, and Sansa grimaced again, wondering when they were ever going to be able to just talk about what they meant without hesitation, without pulling back again because of it._

_Of course, she thought Margaery must have seen her flinch as something else, because the girl was already fleeing from her rooms like a young fawn before a hunter._

_“Just, next time,” Margaery whispered, “Next time, I’d be glad if you told me what was going on, if you could,” she said, and she sounded like a hesitant maiden, not the woman Sansa had fallen in love with at all. “That’s all. If I am to be the Queen.”_

_Sansa flinched. “Margaery,” she began, reaching out for the other woman, but Margaery only flinched back, at the implied touch._

* * *

The servants wouldn’t look at her, as they helped her to pack her things. They acted like they were packing her things to be ready for her death, and a part of Cersei supposed she understood the impression.

After all, she was being sent back to a place that had been taken over by men who clearly had cause to resent her, who saw her as an enemy, even though she had done her best to attempt to reason with the lot. Her servants, though she loathed the thought, were probably right in thinking none of them would survive this.

But that was their lot, to follow her into this, no matter what the cost.

Cersei let out a sigh, as she watched them pack her bags, as she watched them pack away what little life she had managed to carve out for herself while she’d been in King’s Landing again, after being banished once before by her own son, and now again by his whore of a wife.

The rooms she was staying in, not the rooms she was familiar with, of course, not the rooms she had spent so long of her life living in while she was here, looked terribly drab and blank, with most of her things packed away.

Like she had never been living her at all.

And then, finally, her servants pulled back, twisting to curtsey before her as they explained that they were finished packing her things, and would she like them to take them down, now.

Cersei made a face, and gestured for them to do so.

There was much that she would like, at the moment, and of course she was not going to get it.Because Margaery Fucking Tyrell was kicking her out of King’s Landing like some common strumpet.

And she was going to pay for it, Cersei thought darkly. She was going to see to it that one day, even if that day took longer than she had originally anticipated, the little bitch was going to pay for humiliating her like this, a second time.

For summoning her all of the way here just to send her away again, for stealing her son from him and no doubt already planning his death, believing him to be some sort of threat to her own child.

That little bastard fathered by a whore, whom she was attempting to pass off as Cersei’s son’s child, like the little whore that she was. Because of course she hadn’t had Joffrey’s child. No wonder Cersei had felt no connection with the child in Margaery’s belly, no real reason to protect the child who she had thought to be her grandson, had seen him as nothing but a threat, from the beginning.

Some part of her must have known that the child wasn’t her son’s. Margaery had been married to Joffrey for years before she finally gave birth, and if they were going to have a child together, Cersei imagined that they would have done so earlier than that.

So of course the child was a bastard, and one day, when she was on level footing once more, Cersei was going to make her pay for that, too.

A part of her had considered blackmailing Margaery, threatening to expose her secret unless she allowed her to take Tommen back to the Rock with her, but Cersei knew that if she turned around and accused Margaery of trying to pass off a bastard as the next King of the Seven Kingdoms at this point, after she had lost the battle, the realm would only believe she was being petty.

Margaery would know that, the moment she attempted to threaten her with it, and she was not in the mood to have the little chit laughing in her face, just now, after she had already ordered her banished.

None of them would believe her, and when Cersei finally did use the information against them, she was going to make damn well sure that she used it at the right time. She was going to make sure that the information actually saved her son’s life.

Still, it made her furious, to know that the whore was passing off her bastard as Cersei’s grandchild, as the last link that she would ever have to Joffrey. A part of her had wanted to figure out a way to make peace with Margaery just because of that, and now, she felt no guilt about not being able to do so, from her end.

Because she knew that Margaery wouldn't attempt to kill the boy yet. Not while the child in her belly wasn’t born yet, when the Tyrells had made clear during the few negotiation meetings she’d had with them that they intended to marry Margaery to Tommen if they had to, if the child was indeed a girl.

So they needed him, for now.

And Cersei was certain that she was going to have Tommen rescued from these horrid people, by then.

She took a deep breath, and then realized that she was not alone, in her rooms. Her servants had left already, but someone else was there, and she spun around, at whatever it was that had given him away.

“Qyburn,” she whispered, feeling ridiculously relieved to see him. One of her few allies left.

He swallowed hard. “I heard the news, Your Grace,” he said, shaking his head. “A dreadful business.”

Cersei wiped at her eyes. “Yes, it is. These people are animals.”

“Dreadful business,” he repeated. “I understand they only gave you an hour to make your leave. I have…certain experiments that may take longer than that to be rid of, but I could be out of the city by tonight, by Your Grace’s command.”

And, despite the grief she felt, despite how nice it felt to know that she had at least one friend still, even if everyone else had abandoned her, Cersei shook her head at those words.

“No. No, I need you to remain here,” Cersei whispered, and then, hesitantly, reached out to take his hands in hers. “I need to ensure that someone here still sees to my interests, and we are going back into a war zone against Stannis Baratheon’s castoffs.”

He pressed his lips together. “I do not like the thought of leaving you, Your Grace,” he told her, and, despite herself, Cersei smiled.

“Someone must remain, to protect my son,” she whispered, hoarsely. “To ensure that these Tyrells don’t kill him, and that the Mountain carries out the command I have asked of him. I would…appreciate it, if that someone was you. The last person I can trust, these days.”

He sighed. “As Your Grace commands,” he said. “Though I would warn you, I think they will try to find some way to be rid of me, if they can.”

Cersei licked her lips. “Then make sure they cannot,” she whispered, resisting the urge to shake him. “I beg of you. If you feel any loyalty towards me at all, and towards Tommen, who would be your king once we defeat them.”

“And the girl?” He asked, finally, and Cersei pressed her lips together. “She should not have slept this long. The poison that I gave her…it should have been out of her system by now.”

Cersei closed her eyes.

Of course it should have.

And she had no doubt, from the little display that Margaery had shown in the feasting hall, that the other woman would rain down unholy hell upon her, if Cersei happened to leave and Sansa died afterwards.

But a part of her very much wanted to see what might happen, very much wanted to see the look on Margaery’s face when Cersei actually did steal Sansa Stark away from her, especially now that she knew about the bastard.

“You have the antidote?” She asked, slowly.

Qyburn made a face. “Indeed, Your Grace, but it seems a pity to waste such a thing upon one deserving of your wrath.”

Cersei shook her head. “Her time will come,” she said. “If she doesn’t wake, if she does…it makes no difference. But if it seems like my son will suffer for it, then you must swear to me that you will save her. Understand?”

He nodded, hesitantly.

Cersei felt her throat closing off, wondered if this man was one she could trust with her son, even if she could trust him with her plans.

He dipped his head, and let go of her hands, disappearing into the shadows once more.

Cersei found herself strangely bereft, without him. But she shook her head, telling herself that didn’t matter, just now.

Right now, she just had to focus on her next steps. She could worry about the rest of it - worry how she was going to get Tommen, and then Myrcella, to safety - when she had the time to do so.

She had to.

She took a deep breath, and walked out of her chambers to find that the guards Mace had ordered to follow her here were waiting for her.

She grimaced, raising a brow at them. “Well, I’m still here,” she snapped, and the guards at least had the decency to look uncomfortable when they moved to escort her down the hall.

She had one last approved stop, before she was to leave this place. And Cersei harbored no delusions about when she might next step foot in this place, without an army behind her.

Saying goodbye to her son was not easy.

Joffrey had not given her the chance to say goodbye to him. He had banished her, without a second thought and without mercy, and now, she had lost him.

And a sinking, terrible fear in her chest told her that she was going to lose Tommen now, as well. That this would really be goodbye, for the both of them. That there was no coming back from something like this.

The Tyrells might even kill him the moment she was out of the city limits, now that they had Kevan so entrenched on their side.

As she entered his rooms, she found that he was being guarded by two of Margaery’s little maids, no doubt ordered to keep an eye on him for her, even if se did want to give Cersei and Tommen the illusion of privacy in this little moment she was so generously allowing them to have together, before she kicked Cersei out of King’s Landing.

Her son looked good, at the very least, after being kidnapped and then held prisoner for so long. Healthy, happy. She had done her best to check in on him every day since his arrival here, but with all of the negotiations that the Tyrells clearly hadn’t intended to honor from the beginning, she had not been able to see him as many times as she would have liked to.

Tommen glanced behind him, at the guards, the little maids that so pampered Margaery Tyrell, watching so intently. Spies, and she knew every word she said to her son, even if they might be the last words that she ever said to the boy, would be repeated back to Margaery, and, hells, perhaps even Olenna, as well.

“They…Mama, they say that you’re leaving,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. From crying, Cersei realized, her heart clenching at the realization. “They say…you’re leaving, and you’re going without me.”

Cersei closed her eyes, lest her son see her tears. “Ye…Yes, Tommen,” she said, and she knew what she had to say next, if she wasn’t going to leave her son traumatized by the thought of being alone with enemies all around. “Yes, I’m going back because some bad men have overtaken our home, and I need to help take it back for them. To make it safe for you.”

Tommen shook his head, looking confused. “I…I don’t understand,” he said, slowly. “Why would they send you for that?”

Cersei grimaced, glancing at the serving girls again, trying not to notice the guards standing behind her, carefully budgeting her time.

“Well,” she said, swallowing hard as she ran her fingers through his hair, determined to memorize every last moment she had left with her son.

This wasn’t the end, of course. The Tyrells may think that they had won this round, but she knew that they would at least leave her son alive for as long as they felt they could use him, and by then, Cersei would have devised a way to get him back.

She had to.

And when she had done that, she would make the Tyrells pay, make Margaery Tyrell pay, for putting her through this in the first damn place.

She could feel something like a headache coming on, and she reached up, brushing at her forehead, shaking her head.

“I am the Lady of Casterly Rock, now, with your grandfather gone,” she said, slowly, the words gaining momentum as she went on. “It’s expected of me. But…” she swallowed again. “I promise that I’ll come back for you, the moment its safe.”

He blinked at her. Then, slowly, “I’d like to come with you.”

She sighed, almost couldn’t understand why he would want to, when he’d shown no interest in playing king and little interest in Casterly Rock, for all that she had done everything she could to give it to him.

When she could hardly profess to be the mother to him, until recently, that she had been to Joffrey. Though, perhaps he supposed that was enough, being so young.

“I know,” she whispered hoarsely. “I know, sweetheart. But you’ll have to stay here, for a little while. When its over, I promise, you can come home with me.”

He nodded, looking very tired indeed, as he glanced back at one of the lady’s maids, saw her encouraging nod, and turned back to Cersei with a timid smile.

No, she thought. She wasn’t going to spend her last waking moments with him without his attention on her, without the chance to memorize every twitch, every nod.

She was going to get him back, she knew that, but if she didn’t…If this was the last time she saw her son because of these traitorous Tyrells and her traitor uncle…

“Tommen,” she said, pressing her hands to his cheeks, then his neck. “I love you. No matter what happens, I want you to remember that. I love you…” she felt her throat close off, swallowed hard as her son stared at her with shining eyes. “Don’t ever forget that.”

He stared at her. “I…I love you too, Mama,” he said, and Cersei’s heart clenched in her chest, as she wondered where she had gone so wrong with her youngest child that he loved her in spite of all of it.

That when she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t see a hint of guilt in them, a hint of a lie in his words.

She swallowed hard, leaning forward to kiss his forehead before pulling back once again, forcing herself to smile because she didn’t want her son to remember her sad, if the impossible happened and this really was the last time that they saw one another.

She took a deep breath, getting to her feet and turning back to her guards, giving them a simple nod.

They were kind enough to say nothing as they led her from the room, she supposed, even though they easily could have.

And then, just like that, they were eating the Great Hall of the Keep, dozens of nobles gathered to witness this last act of Cersei’s humiliation, as she was escorted from a place that had, for many years, been her home as if she were nothing more than a prisoner here.

Cersei forced herself to hold her head high and not make eye contact with any of the nobles that she passed, not make eye contact with Kevan when she found him waiting by the door.

He reached out to grip her arm, and Cersei shoved him off, not violently enough to make a scene, but she wasn’t about to let him drag her out of here, either.

And then they were walking out of the front gates of the Keep, their horses waiting outside along with the men that Cersei had brought here when she was first invited. She took a deep breath, and climbed up on her horse as Kevan climbed up on the horse beside her, even though it went against everything that her mind was screaming at her, just now.

Not to leave and let Margaery Tyrell get the final say, when she was passing off some bastard as Joffrey’s child. Not to leave her son here, alone amongst wolves.

“You do realize that you are Lord of Nothing,” Cersei sneered, as the gates of King’s Landing shut behind them. “We go back into a war with Stannis Baratheon’s traitorous army. So what have you really gained from all of this betrayal? Nothing.”

Kevan sighed.

“I hope you’re happy with that,” Cersei continued, mercilessly. “I hope you’re happy knowing that your wife will look on you every day from now, knowing what a coward you are. That you let a Dornish whore kill your son under Margaery Tyrell’s commands, and now you’re licking her cunt like a good little soldier, bought off. I hope you’re happy knowing all of the Westerlands knows what you’ve done, how you’ve betrayed your brother’s daughter.”

Still, silence.

For a moment, she had thought she might spark a reaction, but clearly, she had not.

“She will get her claws into him, just like she did Joffrey,” Cersei said, not bothering to turn in her saddle as she hissed those words at her uncle. “You know that. She might not have killed Joffrey with her own hands, that might have been my darling brother, or those Sparrows, or the fucking Martells, for all I know, but she killed him just as much, by exposing him to so many enemies. By turning him against those who loved him, and now she is going to do the exact same thing to Tommen, if she doesn’t kill him outright for the threat that he displays, in being a live, male heir.”

Her hands were shaking, where they clung to the reins of her horse. The animal let out a distressed noise, and she glanced down, surprised to realize how tightly she was holding them.

If she had looked at Kevan Lannister, after delivering that blistering speech, she might have seen his flinch, at her all true too words.

She could feel Kevan’s eyes on her, as they passed by the smallfolk, happy enough to throw rotting fruit at the woman who had caused the Slaughter of the Sept, even if they ought to lay that at Margaery Tyrell’s feet, and not hers, and Cersei wondered if Margaery had arranged for that, too.

She wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the woman had passed out rotted fruit just this morning.

“Then you should not have displayed him as such a threat by putting that crown on him,” Kevan told her, tightly.

As if this were somehow her fault, when all she had ever tried to do was to protect her son. Didn’t he understand that?

If she hadn’t crowned Tommen, he would still have been a threat to the Lannisters, but without an army to protect him, and she would have lost him no doubt, even earlier.

Cersei turned in her saddle, glowering at him, at those words, as if all of this was somehow her fault, when she had only ever sought to protect her children, before her jaw clicked shut. She had nothing more to say to this man, clearly.

“I will never forgive you for this,” she breathed. “I will never forgive you for stealing what is mine, and allowing those cowards to take my son away from me, when in all likelihood, I shall never see him again.”

Kevan swallowed hard, lifting his chin. “I was only cleaning up your mess,” he told her, harshly. “Making sure we didn’t all end up without our heads.”

“Yes, well, you profited well off of it, didn’t you?” Cersei snapped.

He sighed, ignoring the uncomfortable guards around them as Cersei could not. “I know what it is to lose two sons because of your ambition,” he told her, the words cold, and all the harder for it. Cersei scoffed. “And you will not lose your son because of this. I have carved out that much of a deal with the Tyrells, after all. They are willing to honor the negotiations that we made, so long as you are simply not the one that they deal with.”

Cersei swallowed hard, relieved that Kevan had at least been thinking of someone other than himself when he made this deal behind her back. Still, the fury rose easily enough.

“And who are they to decide how the succession should work in our lands?” She demanded.

He sighed. “I think you’ll find they’re the ones on the throne, Cersei,” he said, pointedly, and Cersei let out a silent scream.

He had thrown his lot in with these Tyrells, even if for some reason that she had yet to parse out, he sought to return to the Rock with her, and she would not soon forgive him for it.

* * *

“Lord Baelish,” Margaery said, as she took her seat on the Iron Throne, not moments after Cersei Lannister had vacated King’s Landing for good, and she knew they might avoid a scene while the woman was no longer here, “Step forward.”

She had not been in the Great Hall when Cersei had been escorted out, because she had known that it would only cause a scene, and she knew that it wouldn’t do for half of King’s Landing to think that she was being petty towards the mother of her dead husband, even if he had banished Cersei at one point.

But now that she was here, now that Cersei was gone and they were free of her, she knew that she had work to do.

Baelish looked almost…nervous, as he stepped forward at her behest.

And well he might have, Margaery thought, annoyance fluttering through her at the reminder of what Varys had told her, about what he had done.

Telling Cersei about her and Olyvar, forcing Olyvar to do it perhaps, and she hadn’t dared to go near him since hearing what he had done, though she had seen him several times by Garlan’s side, wanting to know what the fuck he’d been thinking, not even giving her a warning.

Of course, she wasn’t planning to punish him for that, today, even if a part of her very much wanted to.

She made eye contact with Lord Randyl, biting back a grimace, because she couldn’t show how she felt about this in front of someone like Baelish, even if a part of her wanted to.

They had spoken about this part beforehand, of course, because she knew that Randyl Tarly was a rather prideful man and wouldn’t appreciate being blindsided by something like this, would no doubt be furious about it.

And she needed him on her side, later on, though he had not been pleased by the implied duplicity, when she had first approached him, anymore than he had been pleased at the thought of plotting alongside of her, from what she could tell.

He gave her a subtle nod, as if she needed his permission for what she was about to do, though she did need him.

Margaery turned back to Baelish, enjoyed watching him sweat, after everything he’d put her through, lately.

She felt something hard and heavy sitting in her stomach as she uttered the words, “Congratulations, Lord Baelish. You are the new Hand of the King.”

The room erupted into scattered whispers, and then, as the words seemed to sink in, words they had been gossiping about for months now, they slowly began to applaud for the man.

Baelish’s lips twisted into a slow smile, and she hated him for it.

“You honor me, Your Grace,” he told her, dipping his head, and it reminded her of the time that Joffrey had given him Harrenhall, when he had joked about needing to find some heirs, lightly mocking.

The memory reminded her of the lust he held for Sansa, and she bit back a grimace.

“I hope that you shall live up to the title, Lord Baelish, of my most trusted counselor, now that Kevan Lannister has returned home to take up the position of Lord of the Rock,” Margaery went on, and perhaps she was laying it on a little thick, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, not just now.

“I shall endeavor to do so, Your Grace,” Baelish said, and out of the corner of her vision, Margaery could see the way that Randyl grimaced.

But when she looked towards her grandmother, she saw that the other woman at least looked pleased. But then, she would; this was her plan, after all.

Margaery wanted very much to be rid of Baelish, but her grandmother was the one who actually believed they might be able to get away with it, even after everything Margaery had confessed to her about what he knew.

She waved a hand, and he wandered back into the crowd.

Margaery lifted her chin, looking out at all of her subjects, and then stood to her feet, walking from the room.

She could hear footsteps behind her, and bit back a sigh, knowing that she was no doubt about to be followed with questions.

And, of course, Lord Varys did not disappoint.

“Your Grace,” Varys said, moving out of the shadows, then. “I wonder if I might have a private word with you.”

Margaery reached up, brushing the hair out of her eyes. She had never worn it down so long. But it covered the scars well enough.

“Lord Varys,” she said, feigning interest in whatever it was he had to say, despite the raging headache she felt coming on. “I assume this is about the new appointment to Hand of the King?”

Of course it was. She had known he would find that disturbing, after the things he’d told her about it.

He did not disappoint, walking alongside her when she did not stop for him.

“I believe that you are making a mistake, Your Grace, in appointing Lord Baelish as Hand of the King,” he said, something that was hardly a surprise to Margaery. “Petyr Baelish has ever looked out for his own interests, not anyone else’s.”

She knew he wasn’t here out of real concern, though, just as she’d known that he hadn’t brought her that information about Baelish’s past out of the goodness of his heart, either. No doubt, he was trying to figure out what it was she was planning, from this little conversation.

But she had no intention of making it obvious for him. She was tired of the men around her playing her like a pawn, these days.

Margaery hummed. “Well, it’s gotten him quite far,” she said, and tried not to show her surprise at the frustrated sound Varys made, in response.

“If you allow him, he will tear this kingdom down to further those ends,” he warned her, but Margaery merely shrugged.

“So you’ve said,” she said, and then shook her head. “But I’m afraid that I see no basis for your claims, and the guards at the Sept did not corroborate your tale, about his letting Lady Cersei into the crypts.”

Varys breathed out slowly through his nose, looking exasperated. “Because he has a fat purse,” he reminded her, but Margaery merely shrugged again.

“You know they think you’re…” Varys trailed off, grimacing.

It took Margaery a moment to realize what he was implying, with those words.

Margaery raised a brow, amused despite herself that this was the argument he had chosen to make. “The court thinks we’re fucking?” She asked him, smirking despite herself.

If only they knew. If only they knew he and Margaery were competing over the same woman, that Baelish would like very much to be rid of her, perhaps half as much as she would like to be rid of him.

And the woman they were fighting over…

“It…has been raised, Your Grace,” he said. “In order to explain his recent rise to power. And I am afraid that, with this new appointment, people will only wonder about it further.”

She sighed. “Well, there is no basis in the rumor,” she said. “And that is all it is. A rumor, based in jealousy and boredom, and nothing more.”

Varys sighed.

She rounded on him, then, skirts flying around her legs. “And who should be Hand of the King instead of him, Lord Varys? My father? You?” Her eyes narrowed. “Surely not.”

Varys lifted his chin. “I think even the court fool would make a better Hand than Lord Baelish,” he told her, levelly.

She smiled at him. “You know, I’ve never quite understood you, Lord Varys,” she told him. “You served the Mad King as faithfully as you served Robert Baratheon, and now serve me, when it has never brought you much advancement. I do not know if you were loyal to all of us, or none of us.”

“As I’ve told you, Your Grace,” he reminded her, “I serve the realm.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I have always seen you as one who cared about the fates of the people of this city, and of the Seven Kingdoms,” she said, calmly enough, as Varys met her gaze. “One of the few still sitting on the Small Council, in fact.”

Varys dipped his head. “The people are dear to my heart, yes.”

“I wasn’t aware you had one,” Margaery said, coldly, and he blinked at her, looking confused. “I know about your little urchins. The little street children who disappear from the streets, only to be found without their tongues…your little sparrows.”

Varys grimaced. “Your Grace…”

“It makes me wonder, then, what sort of man claims to love the smallfolk, and then enjoys mutilating children so that they cannot spill his secrets to anyone else.” She lifted her chin. “Makes me wonder just what sort of loyalties he might have, should his own secrets be exposed.”

Margaery hummed. “I’m sure that I don’t need to explain to you that it would put my Regency in a…precarious position, should I lose another Hand so quickly,” she said, slowly. “And I’m sure that if a member of the Small Council were to work against him, I would have to take the side of my Hand, in order to do so.”

As much as she told herself she didn’t believe the words, Kevan Lannister’s accusation was still ringing in her ears, that she was just as bad of a monarch as Joffrey had been, that she was just as unpredictable, just as cruel.

She wasn’t that, she told herself. She couldn’t be that, because she had killed her husband for being that thing.

And she didn’t like the thought of everyone else beginning to believe it, as well, even if she found herself needing to persuade Varys to back off. For now, after all.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Varys said, slowly, as he dipped his head to her once more.

Margaery sighed. “Show me a better solution instead of whispering useless worries that have already occurred to me, and I might consider what you have to say. After all, isn’t that what a counselor to the Regent is supposed to do?”

Varys blinked at her, looking surprised to see the familiar fire of the woman he had enjoyed arguing with so much in the past returning.

“Just as I thought,” she said, when he remained silent. “Good day, Lord Varys.”

Neither of them moved.

“Lady Sansa will awaken, Your Grace,” he told her finally, voice gentling, and Margaery squeezed her eyes shut, fury that he could read her so clearly rushing through her.

Then, she turned and stalked down the corridor, alone, not much liking the thought that Lord Varys could read her so easily.

* * *

She had avoided coming here since she had watched Sansa collapse in the feasting hall. Whether it was of her own guilt for what had happened to the girl, after Olenna had been the one to drag her further into all of this, or merely the distaste of watching someone so young, someone who reminded her, painfully, of the old Margaery, the one she had already lost, wasting away, she could not say.

But she had not come, every part of her resisting the thought that her doing so might do any good.

She was here now, though.

And Olenna could not say that she was surprised to see Brienne of Tarth standing outside Sansa Stark’s door, her faithful guard ever since the girl had fallen ill, and before then, as far as Olenna understood.

She remembered Brienne coming with Sansa to Highgarden, for the short time that the girl had been there before Margaery had forced them all to return so suddenly to King’s Landing after her little stint in Dorne, remembered how concerned the other woman had been about Sansa, during her time there, though Olenna had not seen that the bond was very reciprocated, as far as Sansa was concerned.

And even then, Olenna had known that it was because Sansa only allowed herself to trust so many people, after everything the girl had been put through, and she had just thought she had lost one of those people.

Olenna’s granddaughter.

Olenna closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she neared, as Brienne stood to her feet, clearly surprised to see her.

“My lady,” she said, dipping her head, and Olenna rolled her eyes, motioning for the other woman not to bow to her.

They were both ladies, after all, even if that didn’t seem to be a title that Brienne of Tarth cared particularly for.

Brienne of Tarth was a fascinating woman.

Olenna had thought so from the moment she’d learned that the other woman had consigned herself to the life of a glorified bodyguard for Renly Baratheon, had seen the love in her eyes the few times she had spoken of him, even though she could hardly know that he was far more interested in his wife’s brother than his wife.

It had been obvious enough to Olenna, from the moment Renly had first laid eyes on her granddaughter, and she hadn’t seen the spark of lust in his eyes that Margaery never failed to inspire in any man, at that age, that she wasn’t related to.

Of course, then she’d paid attention to the way that he interacted with Loras, and all had become rather clear.

Still, that wasn’t why she was here.

“How is she?” She asked, nodding towards the closed door, behind which Sansa Stark still lay in her deep, poisoned sleep, wasting away.

Brienne flinched. “Not…there’s been no real change, my lady,” she said. “They’ve been…they’re worried that she’ll start to starve before they can get her to wake up, though she’s been taking broth well enough.”

Olenna grimaced. She wondered if Sansa Stark had ever imagined that she might die like this, after everything she’d been through, wasting away in her bed, unable to even see her final moments.

Somehow, after everything she had endured under Joffrey’s reign, Olenna found it a damn shame that this just might be her end, instead.

She shook her head, biting back a sigh as she returned her attention to Brienne of Tarth.

“You’ve been a faithful guardian for her,” Olenna said, jerking her chin in Brienne’s direction.

Brienne wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I…promised her mother that I would look out for her,” she said, and Olenna raised a brow, thought that was another fascinating story that she didn’t have the time to hear.

But it was good to know, all the same.

Olenna had put quite a bit of the future of her plans in Sansa Stark’s hands, and it would be good to know that she had someone looking out for her, someone driven by the guilt of what had happened to Catelyn Stark, someone who would do anything for that girl.

She tsked, driving the point home. “It’s a damn shame, what happened to that woman,” she said, and was gratified by the way Brienne flinched. “Tywin Lannister was always a cruel bastard.”

Brienne swallowed hard. Olenna knew that after Renly’s death, when half of the camp had insisted that Brienne of Tarth had been his murderer, she had found herself in Catelyn Stark’s service, and while she was sure there was an interesting story behind that as well, she didn’t need to know it, not really.

She just needed to know that Brienne of Tarth would do anything for the girl laying on this bed in front of them.

She had a feeling she was going to need that reassurance, later on.

“I…I regret that I wasn’t there to save her, my lady,” she admitted, and Olenna raised a brow at her.

“You were only doing as she had asked of you, in coming to King’s Landing to watch out for Lady Sansa,” she reminded Brienne, not bothering to point out that she doubted there had been much one woman with a sword might have been able to do against all of the Freys, and those duplicitous Boltons.

The Boltons, with whom House Tyrell had now thrown in their lot, as if they hadn’t learned a damn thing from that experience.

Brienne flinched again; Olenna remembered that she had been rather more concerned with Jaime Lannister than Sansa Stark, in those early days.

Good.

Guilt was a wonderful motivator.

“I fear I’ve let her down, now, though,” Brienne said, voice whisper soft, as she nodded towards the door.

Olenna clicked her tongue. “Nonsense,” she said. “I hear from the maesters that they finally have hope of figuring out what is wrong with her, and attempting to rectify it. When she wakes, and she must wake, for all our sakes, you will still have your chance to keep her safe,” she said, and Brienne squinted at her, as if she knew that Olenna was trying to manipulate her about something but couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

Olenna bit back a smile. “Do you mind?” She asked, gesturing to where Brienne still stood in front of the door.

The woman flinched. “Oh,” she said, looking surprised to realize that she had been blocking Olenna’s way into the room. She stepped aside, and Olenna gave her a gratified smile before stepping inside, pretending not to notice the way that Brienne followed her into the room.

Somehow, the sight of Sansa laying on that bed, her face and skin like porcelain, her hair wet from sweat, made all of this feel far more real than it had been moments before.

Olenna sat down hard in the chair set beside the bed, leaning forward and resting heavily on her cane as she stared down at Sansa.

As she saw how futile the maesters’ efforts must be, after so long asleep. She knew what they warned her, but were evidently too terrified to tell Margaery themselves.

The longer Sansa slept, the less likely it was that she would ever wake again.

And Olenna couldn’t fathom how she would keep Margaery in line if that happened, if the worst happened and Sansa didn’t wake, and she was left as the only one who could keep a handle on this situation.

She was losing her granddaughter, she knew that.

She was losing her, and despite all of her best efforts, efforts that once would have been good enough, she wasn’t getting her back.

Sansa, at the very least, had a prayer of doing so.

Olenna sighed, reaching out to brush her hand against Sansa’s, where it lay on the bed. She heard Brienne of Tarth’s sharp intake of breath, but other than that, it was almost as if the other woman wasn’t even in the room.

Sansa’s hand was cold to the touch.

Olenna flinched back, sighing again.

She had done what she thought she had to do, in keeping the septon that Margaery kept on retainer rather well paid in order to ensure that he told Margaery the things that Olenna wanted her to hear, but which she rather doubted that Margaery would listen to, solely from her.

He’d been resistant, at first, but he was a man who appreciated the finer things, in the end, and so he’d done as she commanded.

And in truth, what she had ordered him to tell Margaery, those things about Cersei being a creature who couldn’t quite be forgiven, about the gods not exactly counting sins so much as intent…Olenna believed those things, if she was being honest, even if it was clear that the septon she had bribed did not.

But whatever Margaery’s sudden and knew fascination with the Faith, whether it was guilt or some strange desire for control, Olenna had known it was what she needed to hear, in order to get her head out of her arse. Olenna needed her at her strongest, and while she knew she couldn’t ave that, at least she knew that she could keep the girl from doing something colossally stupid again, like try to forgive Cersei after everything the other woman had done to them.

A part of Olenna had regretted having to tell Margaery at all that it had not been Cersei who had killed her brother, afraid of how the girl might react, but she’d known she had no choice in that, either. Not if she wanted to keep her from falling back into the arms of the Tyrells.

But she did not enjoy manipulating her granddaughter, no matter what the girl might think of her, should she ever find out why the septon had told her those things.

She missed the girl she used to be able to discuss almost everything with. Missed the girl who had laughed when her father had told her he wanted her to become a queen, who had tried to look strong when Sansa Stark had told them the truth about who Joffrey Baratheon really was, and had cried in her arms later, until Olenna had promised her that it wouldn’t matter, that she would ensure that nothing happened to Margaery.

And then she’d broken that promise, colossally, just because she didn’t trust a man who now held Margaery’s life in his hands, as if that was in any way better.

And she didn’t know if that was why she had lost Margaery, but she certainly thought that she would deserve it, if that was indeed the case. She had been the one to tell Margaery that a marriage to Joffrey would not be bad, because he wouldn’t last long enough for that, and now her granddaughter was a shell of the happy young thing Olenna had once known, and that was on her, she knew it was.

Olenna let out a long sigh, staring down at the girl laying lifeless on the bed. The one girl who might be able to bring her granddaughter back to her, if only she would awaken, and soon, damnit.

Because, even if Margaery seemed to be coming somewhat back to herself, from what Olenna could tell, it was not enough.

Olenna had told her to treat with Cersei’s people, and to deal with Cersei, if she had to, but in truth, she had thought that meant Margaery would pull herself up and have the woman killed, as would be best for all of them at this point, now that Kevan Lannister was agreeing to go along with their plan.

She had thought they understood each other, had even given Margaery that small permission she’d evidently needed, and Margaery had stupidly sent Cersei away, where she could get back to plotting against them in peace.

Oh, Kevan Lannister would try to stop her, for the sake of the Lannisters and for the sake of the realm, she was certain, but Olenna had not survived this long by underestimating the mad.

And she had learned her lesson about Cersei Lannister long ago.

She may not have been the one to kill Willas, but she had hardly made any attempts to hide her joy when he was dead and she could return to King’s Landing, nor had she hid her attempts on Margaery’s own life, on her chastity, on her happiness.

She was a horrible woman, and Olenna knew that the moment she was let out of their sight, they would regret it.

She’d thought Margaery had understood that, as well, but apparently the girl’s bleeding heart was just too large, these days.

Still, she supposed it made sense, with what she had told the septon to tell her granddaughter. Supposed it made sense that Margaery didn’t want to be responsible for Cersei’s life to the gods, as well, mad as it seemed to Olenna.

She supposed she was just going to have to be the one the gods blamed for this, in the end.

And Olenna…Olenna had made her peace with her gods a long time ago.

But her granddaughter had already tried to banish her once, horrified by her plans, and Olenna was worried that she might do so again, even if they were on speaking terms with one another again, even if she was starting to understand what, exactly, was wrong with her granddaughter in the first place.

And she was afraid that after these next steps, after what she had already ordered her men to do, Margaery just might try to do so one more time.

Which was why it was imperative that the girl on the bed get the fuck up and start working her magic on Margaery, once more.

Olenna let out a sigh. According to the maesters, who were sending her daily reports now, as they had been sending Margaery before she arrived, they thought they might have actually figured out what was wrong with her. It was a rare poison, the sort that evidently wasn’t used often enough for them to identify, the idiots.

She wondered if Lady Nym might have been able to recognize it, if they’d originally gone to her about this. If she’d been here when Sansa had originally fainted.

She sighed; she doubted the girl thrown in the Black Cells for doing exactly as Sansa Stark had asked of her was feeling very charitable, at the moment.

Olenna glanced over her shoulder as she heard the door shut, realized that Brienne of Tarth must have thought her trustworthy enough to leave alone with the girl.

It was oddly touching.

“You need to wake up, dear girl,” Olenna said, squeezing Sansa Stark’s cold, lifeless fingers. “You need to wake up and help me keep Margaery’s head on straight, or we’ll all be joining you with the Stranger soon enough.”

And, she thought it was probably just her imagination, but she thought she saw Sansa’s fingers twitch, at her words.

* * *

“I...Your Grace,” he said, and his voice was soft, nervous.

She sat down on the edge of his bed, and Tommen didn’t know what to make of the woman sitting before him, so very close, this woman who had been his brother’s wife and whom, for a moment, he had thought might well be his, according to the servants who had been tending to him, recently.

He hadn’t known what to think about that, when she had been married to his brother, and, from what he could tell, almost happily, but he had supposed that if it was for the good of the realm, as his mother had told him his coronation had been, he would do it.

But that moment was over; his mother had refused, and now she was gone from King’s Landing, forced to leave because she had made the Tyrells angry again, and Lady Nym had been right about that.

Margaery Tyrell was the Regent, and he wasn’t a King. He didn’t even have a crown, but more than that, Margaery radiated power, while he felt nothing but nerves, sitting up in bed before her.

He was rather surprised to see her here at all, the same day that she had sent, or that the Tyrells had sent; he wasn’t sure on that front anymore, his mother away.

He had thought they might give him time to brood about it, at least, and she hadn’t taken much of an interest in him before, besides the few times they’d spoken before Joffrey had died.

Oh, she’d always been courteous with him, always behaved like a lady, and her brother had been terribly nice to him when he’d been teaching him how to fight with a sword, but nothing more than that.

He was surprised to see her here now, in his bedchambers. The same bedchambers he’d had when he’d still been a prince, but from what he’d heard, he wasn’t even certain if he was that anymore, not to them.

“Mother never allowed me to have visitors before,” he said, softly, and licked his lips.

Margaery’s smile did not come so easily as it had before, when she was married to his brother, but Tommen had not thought those smiles were real.

He glanced down at her very full stomach, and wondered if the smiles that had created that child had been real, either.

“Your mother isn’t here anymore,” she reminded him, the words almost gentle, but they still made him flinch. “And I’m not a visitor, Tommen,” she told him, and her eyes were...strangely sad. “I am your goodsister.”

And it struck him, then, that she had not called him ‘Your Grace,’ as she was meant to do.

Well, she didn’t need to. Not if he wasn’t a King, and she was the Regent.

He hadn’t quite understood why his mother had thought it should be otherwise, when her unborn child could very well be a boy and then he would not be King, but he knew his mother was impatient.

Perhaps Margaery was more patient than his mother.

He hoped so. His mother had told him that she crowned him in order to protect him, and he hadn’t believed himself to be in any true danger until Lady Nym had found him.

Now, looking at the slow, sad smile on Margaery’s face, he wondered if his mother had been right, and he truly was in danger, here, more than ever.

He swallowed. “How is…” he glanced down at her very wide stomach. He had never seen a pregnant woman before; his mother didn’t let him see many people, and she thought that pregnant women looked unseemly, after all.

Margaery glanced down at her own stomach and let out a little chuckle. “The baby, your nephew?” She waited for his nod. “The maesters say that he is going to be very well.”

Tommen nodded, relieved.

He hadn’t wanted to be king, and he was glad that the baby was going to be well, because the baby was the rightful king, after all. That was why he was here, he knew, and not because Lady Nym, who had frightened him greatly and who he was glad he hadn’t seen since she brought him back here, had wanted him to go to his brother’s funeral, anyway.

“Did you love my brother?” Tommen asked suddenly, and wasn’t quite certain where the question had come from.

Perhaps it was from the thought that if the child wasn’t a nephew but a niece, he’d find himself married to her, even. If that was still an option; he didn’t know much anymore, it felt like.

Margaery blinked at him. Her eyes were still sad, the way his mother’s had been since Joffrey’s death had reached them. He wondered if she mourned her husband as Cersei mourned his brother.

“Did you know that most people in arranged marriages often never meet until their wedding day?” Margaery asked him, calmly, and Tommen blinked, confused by the way she had answered a question with a question. She sighed when he merely shook his head. “I was lucky, to meet your brother before then. To know who he was before he put his cloak around my shoulders.”

Tommen sucked in a breath.

He could see it in her eyes, then; she truly had known who Joffrey was. He hadn’t doubted that, in the long months of their marriage, for Joffrey had hardly tried to hide himself from his new wife, the way he had often hid himself from their father, and then Sansa, for a little while.

But she hadn’t seemed to mind knowing who her husband was, and now, Tommen couldn’t help but wonder if any of it was real. If she, like himself, like Myrcella, like Sansa, had merely survived Joffrey.

He swallowed hard at the thought.

He couldn’t help thinking, then, of all of the times he had come into contact with Margaery, while she was still married to his brother. She hadn’t gone out of her way to spend any sort of time with him, not like Myrcella had, the moment she’d gotten back to King’s Landing, or even, strangely, Sansa Stark.

But she had always endeavored to be kind to him, he’d noticed that. At feasts where they all had to endure his brother’s madness, when she helped him find a new tutor, even though his mother hadn’t liked that.

When she’d introduced him to her brother, Loras, who had been happy to teach him to fight with a sword, something his mother hadn’t liked, either, though Tommen had been more than grateful that Margaery and her brother had thought of it.

He’d like her brother, who hadn’t seemed anything like his sister.

But perhaps Tommen simply hadn’t known who Margaery was, before this moment.

He could see the sadness in her eyes, as she spoke of his brother, now, but he didn’t think it was because Joffrey was dead. After all, she hadn’t answered his question, about whether or not she loved him.

He supposed now that it would be foolish to expect an honest answer. If she admitted that she hadn’t loved him...well, that was simply not the done thing.

He wondered if Myrcella shared that sad eyed expression, now that she knew, in Dorne.

“Lady Nym said that you were the one who thought I should be here for Joffrey’s...for his funeral,” Tommen said, slowly. “But...why?”

Margaery raised an eyebrow, cocking her head as if studying him, in the near dark. “Did you not want to be here?” she asked him.

He swallowed. “My mother didn’t want me to come here. She thought I might be in danger.”

She sighed, leaning back against the bedpost framing his bed. “Did you want to be King, Tommen?” she asked him.

He wondered why they’d never spoken before.

“I...No,” he whispered, reaching down to fidget with the frayed edges of his bedsheets where they sat around his belly, nervous.

He didn't know why he told her that truth. Some part of him knew that his mother would be the one to suffer for it, but it was the truth.

And he was tired, tonight. He hadn’t been expecting visitors.

“Mother said...Well, she said I was the Heir now, because Joffrey is dead, but I...I always thought he would be better suited for it,” Tommen said, and that was a lie. “I...I don’t much like the thought of everyone depending on me, like that. Of...disappointing them.”

Well, he didn’t want to be king, that was the truth, but he hadn’t thought Joffrey would make a good king, either, and he hadn’t.

He was already dead, after all.

Margaery hummed. Her eyes had grown soft, with his admission. He wondered if she understood a bit of what he had meant, now that she was sitting on the Iron Throne as her child’s regent.

“You realize why your mother was wrong now, don’t you?” she asked, and her question was rather leading. She sounded like his tutors did sometimes, when they were trying to guide him to the right answer.

He didn’t like having the thought, about her.

“I...Everything’s confusing, because the baby isn’t born,” Tommen offered, and this time when Margaery smiled at him, it came more quickly, if a bit more strained. “When the baby’s born, they’ll be the Heir, if it’s a boy.”

The smile on Margaery’s face vanished as quickly as it had come. She reached out, then, taking Tommen’s hand in her own, and placing it on her stomach.

He startled at the action, and then paused, because he could feel something, within her. Could feel the baby, kicking out against him.

He swallowed hard, stared up at her, in awe.

Margaery sent him a small, sad smile. “My baby, your brother’s child, is going to be the Heir, Tommen,” she said. “That is what your mother got wrong. Do you understand?”

Tommen stared at her for a brief moment, before giving up and shaking his head. He’d thought he understood the line of succession rather well, after all.

She licked her lips. “Because I was married to your brother, and the baby, it’s his child, even if it wasn’t born by the time that he died,” she said, sounding very sorrowful indeed that it hadn’t been.

Tommen squinted at her. “Mother says that’s why I should be the king,” he whispered. “But, can I tell you a secret?”

Margaery nodded eagerly, leaned forward.

She had the sort of face that he felt comfortable telling secrets to, Tommen thought, as he whispered, “I don’t want to be the King. I’m glad that your pregnant.”

Margaery stared at him for a beat longer, and then she smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

It reminded him of his mother’s smile, right before she’d decreed that he was spending too much time around Ser Pounce.

He shrank back a little, at the sight of it, because it wasn’t the sort of smile that promised to keep any secret that he told her.

“You know, Tommen,” she said, “The baby is…quite well, the maesters say, but there is something that you could do for him, as his protecting uncle, to make sure that he stays that way. Protected. Safe, as the next king.”

Tommen swallowed hard. “I…What?” He asked.

Margaery’s smile grew; it seemed a bit more genuine, now, and, without even realizing that he was doing so, Tommen relaxed a bit, at the sight of it.

“Well, you see, to keep my son safe, and to keep you safe…” she pressed her lips together, “Really, to keep all of us safe, you would just have to sign something saying that you didn’t want to be the king, like you just told me now, but in writing. Do you think…” she bit her lip, glancing down at him. “Do you think that’s something you’d be brave enough to do, for your nephew? For the realm?”

His eyes found their way back to her large stomach. “I…” He considered it, because he wanted to be brave, wanted to protect his nephew, even if Joffrey had been a beast, because it was just a baby, and it was Margaery’s baby, too, and she didn’t seem so bad.

And it was the person standing in between him and the throne, and for the couple of months that he had been king, he hadn’t liked being king.

He didn’t know if the baby would like it very much, either, but perhaps it would, and they would all leave him alone, again.

It was better, when he was alone, even if it was still lonely.

And it would mean, he thought, though he wasn’t entirely sure, that he wouldn’t have to marry his brother’s widow.

Something about her smile, a moment ago, made him realize he didn’t want to marry her, even if she seemed nice enough.

Still…

He swallowed. “I think it would make Mother very angry,” he whispered, hoarsely.

Margaery stared at him for a moment, before she leaned away from him, smile gone as quickly as it had come. “I see,” she said, getting to her feet, then. “Well then, I think I should probably go.”

“Wait,” he said, as she started towards the door.

He didn’t want her to go. She was the only person who’d come to see him since his mother had left without saying goodbye, and while he didn’t want to be the king and have to deal with so many people, he didn’t like being alone, either, even if Ser Pounce was here to keep him company.

She turned halfway to the door, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?” She asked, and there was something cool about her tone, something commanding.

She reminded him of a queen, just now. A real one, and not just the wife of a king.

He licked his lips. “I don’t want my mother to be angry with me, but I want us all to be safe, too,” he said, trying to explain it to her. “We’re all a family, and we ought to try to keep each other safe.” His eyes lowered. “Joffrey never tried to protect any of us, and I don’t want him…my nephew to think that I’m…like him.”

Margaery hummed, moving back to the bed, taking his hands in her own. He stared down at them.

Her hands were ice cold.

“I don’t think that anyone would ever think you were like Joffrey,” she said, gently, which Tommen thought was strange, because the baby was still Joffrey’s, and he would think she would want the baby to love its father.

Mother had always wanted him and Myrcella to love Joffrey, no matter what he did to them.

Margaery beamed at him. “I’m so glad, though,” she said. “That’s…” she bit her lip, looking suddenly emotional, before she whispered, “That’s a very brave, kind thing for you to do, Tommen. And I’ll make sure that your nephew, or niece, never forgets that you did it for them.”

He blinked up at her. “I…All right,” he said, and forced a smile, because she was smiling.

She gave his hand another pat.

“And if we’re going to be spending so much time together in King’s Landing, we ought to get to know one another, don’t you think?” she asked him. “As goodbrother and goodsister. I want you to have a life here, Tommen.”

She sounded so reasonable, saying it.

Tommen blinked. “I...Yes,” he said, because those sad eyes had been dangerous, in his mother. They had caused her to crown him, to raise an army that he hadn’t wanted, because he’d never really wanted to become King in the first place.

And he wondered what dangers hid in Margaery Tyrell’s sad eyes.

Ser Pounce let out a loud meow, then, distracting him as the cat leapt up onto the bed between them.

Margaery laughed, the sound oddly forced, reaching out and running a hand through his fur as the cat settled between them. “Hello, aren’t you a proper fellow?”

Tommen swallowed. “That’s Ser Pounce.”

“Very handsome,” Margaery said.

Tommen shook his head. He didn’t...He didn’t understand this. Didn’t understand Margaery’s sad smile, when her smiles had always come so quickly for his brother, despite all of her kindness in the few times she’d interacted with Tommen.

He wondered which smiles were real, and why these ones seemed so much harder for her, now.

“Joffrey didn’t like him,” he said, testing the waters. “He threatened to skin him alive. Mix his innards up in my food, so he wouldn’t know I was eating them.”

He shuddered even now, at the thought, because he’d known that Joffrey was deadly serious, the times he’d uttered those threats.

Margaery went very still, at those words. “That’s very cruel,” she said, finally. “You don’t strike me as cruel.”

The words were contemplative, as if she’d never much given thought to Tommen before this moment, and he swallowed hard, because that hurt for some reason he couldn’t identify.

“I...No,” he whispered. “I don’t think I am.”

“That’s a relief,” Margaery said, softly. He blinked at her, confused, and she clarified, in a way that didn’t really clarify anything at all, “Did you ever meet Shireen Baratheon, before...before your uncle’s treason?”

Tommen stared at her.

“Yes,” he said, slowly. “Though only a little, I think. She…” he leaned forward, lowering his voice as Ser Pounce scampered away from them once more. “My uncle didn’t bring her to court much, because of her condition.”

And his mother hadn’t been very sympathetic towards that condition, either.

But she’d seemed nice enough, when she had promised to play with him, the other day.

“Her condition,” Margaery repeated. “Tommen, what she has, her grayscale, you needn’t be afraid of it.” She paused. “She had it as a baby, and she cannot give it to others just because she bears the mark of something she couldn’t control, at the time.”

Tommen blinked at her.

He still didn’t understand why they were speaking of Shireen at all, when a moment ago they’d been speaking of the baby.

His goodsister pressed her lips together.

“You know she’s here, right?” Margaery asked, and Tommen hesitated for a moment, before nodding.

He didn’t understand why she was here, why he was here really, when they were both, from what he understood, rather threats to his nephew.

But then again, his mother had tried to name him the Heir to his brother, and now Margaery, who he had seen sitting on the Iron Throne after his brother’s funeral, said that he was not.

He wondered if that made his mother a usurper, as well. If he was going to pay for reaching for her child’s throne, even if he didn’t understand why her child should have it, if she was a girl.

But...no. Margaery had seemed nothing but sympathetic, since she had come inside his chambers tonight, kind, even, where she had never seemed quite kind before. And she had seemed to drop the matter entirely, didn’t seem to even want to speak of it, after he admitted that he had never really wanted to be king.

Perhaps she really was kind, and she was being kind to Shireen in the same way that she was being kind to him, now.

Something inside of him told him not to test the thought, all the same.

“You are of a similar age. Perhaps you ought to try to make friends.” She hesitated, and then reached out, clasping his hands in hers as something sickly twisted in Tommen’s gut, at those words. Something like disappointment. “I want you to be happy here, Tommen, as well as safe. I think that it would be good, for you, to make some friends your own age. Just something to think about. But it would make me very happy if you did befriend her. I think that she is a bit lonely, since coming here.”

That sickening feeling spread. He nodded, wordlessly, because Margaery was looking at him expectantly and something within him didn’t want to disappoint her, when she looked at him like that.

Besides, even with her grayscale, Shireen was still his cousin. Perhaps Margaery was right, and he ought to make his friends with her.

It had been incredibly boring living in King’s Landing, when he was not trying to dodge his brother by hiding in his chambers, and even then, that too was boring, unless Joffrey grew too bored and came after him.

Margaery beamed at his agreement, then, standing.

“It’s getting late,” Margaery said, smoothing down her robes. “I...I didn’t actually intend to come here at all, tonight. I...My pardon, for disrupting your sleep.”

It was the first time he had ever heard his brother’s wife seem so discomfited. It was a strange sensation, and not one he particularly enjoyed. She had always seemed so in control, around his brother, and somehow, that had brought him comfort.

But he thought she was lying, still, about not meaning to come here.

He thought everything she had done since she had walked into this room had been very deliberate, even if he couldn’t quite figure out how.

Tommen blinked at her. “It’s...no bother,” he said, because some part of him deep within, some part that was pure instinct, knew not to make her angry, as he had known not to make his brother angry, but another part of him couldn’t stop wondering about her sad smiles, couldn’t stop thinking that she wasn’t anything like his brother.

“Perhaps…” Margaery hesitated, back half turned to him. Then, she turned back, smiling. “Perhaps I might come and visit you again, sometime?”

Tommen hesitated, and then nodded. “I think...I think I’d like that,” he admitted, and Margaery’s smile felt natural for the first time, that night, in response.

* * *

Margaery took a deep breath, staring up at the Iron Throne, where it sat perched above the Great Hall, a solid shape against the blackness of the darkened hall.

Two torchlights were the only lights in the hall at all, at this hour of the night, and Margaery took a step forward, and then another, through the throne room, satisfied that there was no one else around.

She walked up to the stairs before the throne, and then hesitated, in front of them, remembering she had told Sansa, months ago.

That she had suffered all of this, clawing her way to the throne, and now that she had it, it wasn’t hers, not really.

It felt like hers, now.

Tommen had agreed to sign away his rights to it, even if she wasn’t sure he understood that, and she knew that Cersei would never accept such a document, would claim that he had been forced to write it or that it was a forgery, but that hardly mattered, because it would be signed nonetheless.

Kevan Lannister would accept it for the sake of peace, and then…and then, she could find a way to deal with Aegon and the Martells, too, if she had to.

For once, that actually felt possible.

Her men would hesitate, and Margaery…Margaery was satisfied that she wasn’t stealing the throne away from a boy who might resent her for it, in Tommen. From what he’d said tonight, she wasn’t even sure he wanted it.

Margaery took a step towards the Iron Throne, and then another, her guards waiting behind her, and she ignored them, pretended they weren’t here, watching her at all times at Sansa’s behest.

She stepped up the stairs towards the Iron Throne, pausing in front of it.

She had sat in it plenty of times since her husband’s death, even though she knew that was not tradition, that the Regent did not usually sit in this chair.

But even then, it hadn’t felt like hers. It had felt like a chair she was usurping, as indeed, she had been.

She reached out, running her hands gently along the curved arms of the Iron Throne, closing her eyes, breathing in deep.

She stepped up the last step, turned, sat down in the chair, breathing in deeply again.

For a moment, the world seemed to stand still.

Margaery opened her eyes. The Great Hall loomed out before her. For the first time, it did not seem so untouchable, so vast.

While she was married to Joffrey, she had often found herself wondering how he could stand sitting in this uncomfortable chair for hours at a time, for he sat in it longer than he sat in on the Small Council.

She had thought that the swords would be uncomfortable, that surely, it must feel strange.

The throne was not so uncomfortable, now that she was sitting in it, herself.

She had sat in the Iron Throne before, of course. Had done so, against the advice of both her brother and several grumbling members of the Small Council, as she was the Regent and not truly the Queen.

It had been a symbol of her strength, as she’d explained to Sansa. She was the Regent now, and she knew that it was against tradition, but traditions were changing, just now.

She was sitting on the throne because her son had yet to leave her stomach, she’d claimed. Had sat in it and dictated things that she could barely think to understand herself, because, she was ashamed to admit, she hadn’t wanted to. Had done as Baelish and Sansa told her to, all from this chair.

It had never felt…quite like this before, though.

Like she belonged in it.

Like it was hers.

She let out a shuddering breath, feeling strangely at home in this uncomfortable chair, as she stared out over the empty, dark hall, and realized that very little was standing in her way, now.

She had Tommen, she had Shireen.

And Stannis was…Stannis was gone, gone to the North, or to death, and Margaery didn’t think it mattered which, at this point.

There was this Targaryen pretender, of course, the one who had so easily taken Dragonstone and Storm’s End from under their noses, without their having ever head of it until after he had done so, and yes, that struck fear into her.

But one opponent was easier than three, she knew that much. And now that they knew about him, it would be easier to deal with him.

All that remained was for Sansa to wake up again, and Margaery thought that perhaps everything really could…become good, as they had once dreamed it might.

She just needed Sansa to wake up again.

She had a feeling that all of this, this feeling that swept over her as she sat on the Iron Throne, would feel far better, if only Sansa were there to see it. To see her.

When she opened her eyes, Baelish was staring up at her, right in front of the steps up to the throne.

She startled; she hadn’t heard him come in, nor had she heard him walking towards the throne, his breathing as he got so close to her.

He dipped into an exaggerated bow. “Your Grace,” he said, and Margaery felt her stomach twist, at the challenge inherent in those words.

“Lord Hand,” she said, dipping her head at him, from where she sat comfortably on the Iron Throne.

“It’s late, your Grace,” he told her. “Is everything well?”

He had to have seen the smile on her face, when she was sitting on the throne, with her eyes closed. He had to know.

She swallowed. “I am…worried,” she said. “Now that we have this new enemy, and Sansa…” her voice choked off, and she didn’t have to pretend that she wasn’t worried about Sansa.

Everything was going right, just now, well, almost everything, and Sansa needed to wake up and be with her for it, not stuck in a sleep from which the maesters claimed that she might never wake.

Baelish gave her a long look. “I’m sure that…such worries will pass, soon enough. The best maesters are looking after Sansa.”

He said it as if they didn’t both know that he was just as worried for Sansa as she was, for the same reason, even if Margaery found that reason disturbing, found the thought of them sharing such feelings for Sansa worse still.

Baelish’s eyes swept down her figure. “You look almost as if you belong in that throne, Your Grace,” he told her, and bowed deeply again, this time from the waist.

Margaery lifted her chin, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him. She knew what he was, after all.

He was next on her list.

“And you look almost as if you belong in the position I gave you, Lord Hand.” She gave him a long look. “Don’t give me a reason to change my mind about that.”

Baelish eyed her again, and then dipped his head, taking a step back from the throne, and then another.

Margaery smiled at him.

When he was gone, disappeared back into the shadows he’d come from, Margaery leaned back into the Iron Throne and felt almost…at home.


	31. The Westerlands

It had taken far more planning than she had hoped to have to put into taking back her childhood home, but finally, Genna Lannister was standing in the Great Hall of Casterly Rock, and she closed her eyes, breathing in deeply.

It finally smelt like her home again. Felt like her home, now.

A home that she had very nearly lost, at the hands of men who had once sworn fealty to Stannis Baratheon and now owed their fealty to no one.

Men like that could not be controlled. She could have told Cersei that, if the other woman had bothered to ask her, before she had offered all of them the chance to fight for her, rather than themselves.

She had cleansed it of the stink of the Baratheon soldiers, the ones whom Cersei had foolishly attempted to gain the loyalty of, only for them to fuck all of the Rock over the moment she left it alone, as she had been rather stupid to do, in Genna’s opinion, when it was already in such a precarious position.

But then, Cersei had never been one to make the right decisions, had she?

Genna sighed, staring up at the chair that had once belonged to the Lord of Casterly Rock, her brother, though he didn’t sit in it as often as Genna ought he thought to have, more concerned with the realm in the same obsessive way that Cersei was, even if he had known far better what he was doing, the one that Cersei had used to crown Tommen in.

It seemed different, now that it had been used for that purpose. Seemed wrong. A part of Genna wanted to shout for the servants to tear the entire thing down, to rebuild it as something distinctly Lannister, and belonging to no king at all, even if she was not the Lady of the Rock, and therefore had no real say to do so.

Instead, she turned to the general beside her, his face scarred from fighting off one of her prison guards, in the end of the battle against Stannis’ men, and noted the open concern on his face.

That was good, she thought. A little concern for her might prove useful, in the coming days, especially if the rumors about how disastrously things were going for Cersei were true.

“I need you to do something for me,” she informed the man, slowly, waiting for his nod before she continued. “My…nephew, Martyn,” she said, flinching little at the reminder of what Janei claimed had happened to the boy.

The girl had been in ruins, barely coherent, when Genna had found her, when eh guards had brought her back to the Rock after it had been liberated, having only gotten a small portion of the way down the road with Tommen and Martyn before they were apparently happened on by some sort of she-demon who had stolen Tommen and killed Martyn before Janei’s eyes.

Children, both of them, and she had cut through Martyn like butter, if what Janei said was to be believed, and the girl generally seemed to have a strong head on her shoulders, from what Genna knew of her.

She had remained behind, when she told Janei and Martyn to take Tommen and get him out of the Rock, and Genna regretted that now, even if she had been able to do more from the Rock than she would have been able to do from without it, especially if some she-demon had come along and stolen Tommen in the first place.

Had remained behind to ensure that at least one Lannister remained in the Rock, that at least one Lannister was there to keep these savages at bay.

They had not been kind to her, in her time as their prisoner. She may not have been Cersei, but she doubted that mattered to any of them, when they saw a Lannister woman lifting her chin up to them, telling them that she was a Lady of this House, and they had no right to try and take it from her, nor she from it.

They had not thanked her for that, though she supposed it was a good thing that she was no longer a young woman in her prime, no longer the sort of woman whom they might have tried to more fully punish for standing up to them.

Instead, she had spent her time in a cell that had once belonged to some whore Tywin had caught in the Rock with Tyrion, plotting her way out of that room with every fiber of her being.

She knew that she could not rely on Cersei to rescue her, after all. Damn woman, if she had learned of Genna’s capture at all, would no doubt have been pleased to learn of it, to learn that her most strident doubter was rid of, once and for all.

And, in the end, she had managed it, even from the inside of a cell, with the help of the Lannister soldiers who had remained behind with her, ones to whom the name Lannister meant something, ones to whom the Westerlands meant something.

It had been a bloodbath, but she was standing in her childhood home again, and it felt nice.

They had lost good men in the fight; Stannis Baratheon’s men, for all that they appeared not to have a shred of loyalty to their own lord, were fierce fighters, these ones who had remained behind to lay waste to her home.

But she had gotten it back, all the same, with the Lannister soldiers who remained in the Westerlands at her back.

But what had happened to Tommen, to Martyn…even to Janei, from how traumatized the girl seemed by the whole ordeal, that had been the price that Genna had paid for that liberation, and she would not forgive herself for it any time soon.

She had known that getting Tommen out of the Rock would be a risky business, that it might well prove impossible, but the moment she had realized that the Rock was falling to their enemies, she had known what might happen to Tommen, should they find him there.

Had known that it would mean either his death, or a lengthy experience as a hostage, and Genna would not be able to protect him from that, not after Cersei had named him a king.

So she had done what she thought she had to, and now, she was paying the price for it.

Dear gods, she had no idea what she was going to say to Dorna, or to Kevan, for that matter, the next time she saw either of them. A part of her was sickeningly relieved that neither of them was nearby, that Dorna had not mentioned anything about coming here, even though the Rock had been retaken by Lannister forces.

Of course, that could always mean she was already on her way here, Genna thought, with a small sigh.

“My niece Janei said that he was attacked, by a Dornishwoman who also took Tommen, when they were outside of the Rock,” she went on, and she could see the man’s confusion as to why she would allow either of them outside of the Rock at this point in time, but she didn’t bother to explain herself to him.

Martyn’s life might depend on this, after all.

“She…she seemed confused,” Genna went on, which was something of an understatement, after all. Incoherent, for one. Mad, for another, if the things she had been saying were true. “But she thinks that Martyn might still be alive. And if he is, I need you to swear to me that you will find my nephew.”

If Tommen was indeed dead, at the hands of some Dornishwoman who thought him a threat to Myrcella, Martyn was an heir, but more than that, he was Genna’s nephew, and if there was even the slightest chance that he was still alive, she had to find him.

And she knew that there was…that there was a horrifying reality in which the boy was really dead, and any investigation was only going to reveal that, but Genna had to know, either way.

Janei certainly seemed to think that he was dead, from the way that the poor girl was mourning, for him and for Tommen, both.

But Genna still held out some hope.

It was the only thing she’d had left, in her cell, and the only thing she could cling to for Martyn, now.

The man dipped his head. “Of course, my lady,” he told her, just as a messenger appeared, bowing to her in the way that they had always bowed to Tywin in the past, and she tried not to read that much into it as she took the letter from his hands.

“Wonderful,” Genna breathed, as she stared down at the message. Just what she needed right now, but of course, she knew that Kevan was only doing what he thought best for the good of their family, for the future of the Westerlands, something he now had to consider alone, with their brother gone.

The message itself was short, if not necessarily sweet, and Genna sighed, wishing that it shed perhaps a bit more light on what the fuck was going on in King’s Landing, but of course her brother could not answer all of her prayers, from that far away.

And then, as if the object of her worrying had known of it, Genna looked up and found Janei and the guard that Genna had ordered to be by her side constantly walking into the great hall, a frantic look on the girl’s face.

She’d ordered the maesters to drug the girl’s tea before she went to sleep, because she kept waking screaming in the night, and Genna…Genna felt sorry for the girl, of course she did, and rather guilty for the position she had been in the first place, but she didn’t have the time to deal with her poor niece’s trauma, at the moment.

Not with everything else going on.

She had hoped that the drugs in the girl’s tea would be enough to keep her sedated, if not at peace, for a few hours, but clearly, that was not to be.

And now she was going to have to tell the girl that her next worst nightmare was coming true. She flinched a little, at the tears already streaking down Janei’s face, as she drew nearer.

Janei, who didn’t believe that either Tommen or Martyn were still alive, and that it was her fault, after Genna had ordered her to get the both of them out of the Rock and to her mother. She knew even at the time that it had been too much to ask of the girl, but she had hoped that if they left alone, they would be less likely to be found by the Baratheon soldiers, especially if Genna remained behind to battle the worst of their ire.

“I lost him,” Janei whispered as she grew closer, her guard appearing uncomfortable at her crying as he walked along next to her, the tears flowing freely, now that her mother was not there to see him. “I was holding his hand, and I told him to wait in the other room because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to distract the Baratheon soldiers, and when I came back, he and…he and Martyn…”

Genna sighed, holding her arms out. Janei flew into them, sobbing against her chest.

Genna was not naturally a comforting person. It felt strange, to hold this child in her arms while the girl cried against her chest, but she didn’t dare let go of her as she cried herself out.

Genna remembered a time when Tywin had been particularly cruel to Cersei, one of the few times that he had actually paid enough attention to the girl to be so, and she had sobbed in Genna’s arms like this, for hours, because she was not her mother and did not know how to stem Tywin’s rage.

Instead, she had created it within herself. None of the comforting words Genna had uttered in her ears could do a damn thing, against that.

“Janei, dear, there’s something that I need to tell you,” Genna said, when Janei had once again cried her eyes out, taking a deep breath, because she was not certain that telling Janei this was the best idea in the first place.

The girl blinked up at her, swallowing hard when she saw the seriousness on Genna’s face. “What…what is it?” She whispered, hoarsely, and Genna steeled herself before continuing, this time.

“Cersei is…Cersei has been banished by the Tyrell girl, from King’s Landing,” she told her, gently, the words that Kevan had sent by raven reverberating in her mind as she repeated them. “She’s…coming back, especially now that we have successfully managed to retake the Rock.”

Janei stared at her for a moment longer, her lower lip quivering. “I…No,” she whispered. “No, that means I’ll have to work for her again.”

Genna reached out, cupping her cheek. “Yes,” she said, because she was not going to sugar it for the other girl, not after everything she had been put through, lately. She deserved the truth. “Yes, you will. You’ve been doing such a good job so far, and I need you to continue. Can you do that for me, Janei?”

Janei stared up at her, wide eyed. “Please,” she whispered, and Genna felt her heart clench, at the look in the other girl’s eyes. “She’s mad. Please, let me go be with my mother. I hate her. I can’t…”

“Sh,” Genna said, brushing her hair back. “It won’t be for much longer, I can promise you that. Just until I can get a handle on her.”

Which was easier said than done, with Cersei Lannister, but it was not as if Janei needed to know that. It would only make her less likely to do as she was told, after all, and right now, she seemed to be the only person that Cersei let near her, even if the other woman did seem to consider Janei more of a prisoner than a niece.

When she came back, that would be useful, for as long as Kevan allowed Cersei to remain with any shred of her power.

Even if Genna was no longer certain that Janei would be able to keep her spying on Cersei a secret, in her current state. Traumatized by her brother’s supposed death and Tommen’s kidnapping when she had been the one who was supposed to be looking out for them.

Genna sighed, brushing a hand through the girl’s hair. “You’re supposed to be resting, anyway,” she pointed out, and hated the way that the girl flinched, against her.

She hadn’t meant the words as an accusation.

“I…I can’t,” she whispered, hoarsely. “Every time I do, I see her…”

Behind her, Genna thought she heard the sound of shouting, and she tried to tune it out to listen to the girl’s words, but it only grew harder the more Janei kept talking, rambling in terror about her most recent nightmare of the Dornishwoman.

She trailed off then, and Genna did not need to ask who “she” was, in this situation. Janei had been dreaming about the Dornishwoman ever since the Lannister guards had found her on the sea road, half out of her mind and covered in dirt.

And Genna did not want to put anything more on the girl’s shoulders after what she had already asked of her, but she knew that she would have to do just that, the moment Cersei returned, if she wanted to keep an eye on what the woman was up to, at all.

If it weren’t for Janei, she would have no idea how far the madness had spread through Cersei at this point, after all.

“Oh gods, what is it now?” Genna muttered, as the sound of shouting grew louder, turning away from Janei to face the four soldiers who had just burst into the great hall. Her fierce protector moved closer, at the sight of them, before he seemed to realize that they were escorting a watchman from Lannisport, between them.

Genna grimaced, wondering what fresh hell was raining down upon them, now, for a watchman to look that nervous to be facing her now. The sound of shouting in the distance was still at the back of her mind, and she grimaced, moving closer to the watchman despite everything in her screaming at her not to.

“My lady, we have…there are ships, in the harbor,” the watchman said, and Genna reached up, running a hand through her hair.

Dear gods, she didn’t have time for this, at the moment. Cersei Lannister was returning to the Rock, at any moment, and she didn’t have time to approve every ship that came through the harbor when she needed to be building up her defenses against the other woman.

“Then tell the harbormaster…”

“My lady,” the man interrupted her, and Genna turned, squinting at the slight edge of panic in his voice, not used to being interrupted.

She felt her stomach drop.

“What is it?” She demanded.

He swallowed hard. “They are warships, my lady,” he informed her, and Genna could feel that cold nausea in her stomach lifting towards her throat.

“Warships,” she repeated, coldly, feeling her insides grow cold. Then, “The Tyrells?”

Wonderful. Of course the Tyrells would choose now to attack them, now that they had Tommen, and everything else they could want.

Perhaps Cersei had not been wrong about that one thing. Perhaps she knew the Tyrells better than Kevan feared she did.

But the watchman was already shaking his head. “I…No, my lady,” he informed her. “It’s…it’s…”

She stared at him. “What, man?” She demanded.

He gulped. “It’s Greyjoy flags, my lady.”

Genna closed her eyes. Opened them again. “What?”

The man stammered through his next sentence, and she could see the fear in his eyes, now. “A Greyjoy flag, my lady,” he repeated.

Genna’s heart skipped a beat.

The messenger didn’t appear encouraged to continue, but kept going, nonetheless. “They say that Balon Greyjoy is dead, my lady, and that the throne has finally been taken by his brother, the once exiled Euron Greyjoy. That he calls himself the uncontested King of the Iron Islands, now.”

Genna made a face. Somehow, she could not imagine that the Tyrells had been the one to send him, then, if he had indeed been plaguing their own shores, recently, from what she had heard. Though she wondered how he had gotten here so quickly, after the short work he had made of the last Reach shore he had come upon.

“The pirate,” she mused, and the lord hesitated for a moment, before he nodded.

“The pirate,” he agreed.

Genna blinked at him.

“He brought a message,” the watchman stammered on. “Gave it to the harbormaster. He claims that, apparently, the Queen Mother…the Lady Cersei…before she traveled to King’s Landing, she invited him here, to treat with her against the new throne. He says that he’s…” he grimaced. “Intrigued.”

Which meant nothing good, obviously.

Gods.

The last time there had been a Greyjoy in the Westerlands had been during the Rebellion. A rebellion that the Lannisters had been hard pressed to put down, that it had taken the help of the Baratheons and the Starks both to eventually subdue.

Genna felt her stomach drop again.

Of course she had. Of course Cersei had invited Euron Greyjoy to come to the Rock to help her plot against people who really shouldn’t have been her enemies in the first place.

Genna let out a long sigh as she tried to collect her thoughts, as she tried to come up for some rational explanation for Cersei’s actions, and still could not find one.

Not one, unless…

But, no. She could not imagine that even Cersei would do something so cold, so calculating, all for the sake of a throne she would not be able to hang onto.

When Genna had first heard that Tommen was missing, that Janei had not been able to get him out of the Rock after all, as she had ordered the girl and…Martyn to do, to take him to where Dorna and Selyse Baratheon were, a part of Genna had been afraid that this was a sign that Cersei had well and truly abandoned them.

That she’d had her son taken from the Rock and brought to King’s Landing, where she was, knowing that the Baratheon soldiers were going to take over the Rock. That she had sacrificed their ancestral home for her son’s life.

It was a plausible enough idea, these days, after all.

It had taken her a while to figure out, to her own shame. She supposed that was because of the distraction of this civil war that seemed to have overtaken the Westerlands, or because of Kevan leaving with Cersei, or Tommen’s disappearance.

Or perhaps it was because she had not imagined that even Cersei would do something this colossally stupid.

And even when she had, rotting in the room that the Baratheon soldiers had left her in, she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Had wanted to believe that there was still some shred of sanity left to her niece, if she could.

But it was the only thing that made sense. The only thing that could explain how an unknown assassin had slipped past dozens of Lannister guards to get into Tommen’s chambers. The only thing that could explain how all of this had gone so quickly downhill.

So, she had done the one thing she did not want to do, had gone to question the guard that had been stationed in front of Tommen’s chambers that day, the day that the assassin had come for him, the day that Cersei had decided to name her son the next king for the boy’s own protection.

She had done it while Cersei was still at the Rock, of course, before it had been lost to the Baratheon hordes, and had been about to confront her about it, but had wanted to be sure, of course, before she tipped Cersei off about what she knew.

That was why she had Janei spying on the other woman, for her.

And even then, when Janei had explained how strange Cersei was acting, after the near death of her son, after she had him crowned king, Genna had not wanted to believe it. Had not wanted to believe Cersei capable of it, for all that she professed to love her children so.

Frankly, she was surprised that Cersei had not killed both of those guards who had been on duty outside of Tommen’s chambers, but she supposed that would only invite more suspicion. Even if Cersei was stupid, perhaps she realized how guilty it might make her look.

No one had taken credit for Tommen’s assassination, even if the Tyrells may never have done so, if they had been responsible for it. It benefited them the most, after all, but still, Genna doubted that they would have been able to get an agent passed the front gates, much less into Tommen’s rooms so easily.

And so quickly, after Margaery Tyrell had named herself her unborn child’s regent. What they had done, claiming that Tommen was just a bastard and therefore not eligible for the throne at all, was far more their style than murder, she thought.

And it made far more sense, this way.

Cersei had known, the moment that Margaery Tyrell had named herself the Regent, that she would have a difficult time pulling even her own soldiers behind her, until the child was born. And she had always been an impatient woman.

So she had made up a reason to make Tommen king, something that would pull all of the Lannister forces behind her, even the ones who were more hesitant about the idea of facing another civil war.

She had endangered Tommen’s life just so that she could put a crown on his head and endanger it even further. Just so that she could cling to the power she had been steadily losing ever since she had named Joffrey king, as well.

And perhaps Cersei had justified it to herself by believing that the assassin would never really have put Tommen in any harm. Perhaps she had known that he would die, and that she was paying him enough money for it, either way.

She would never have hired a competent assassin to do the deed, after all. If the Lannister guard she had paid off had not been on duty for whatever reason at the right time, then she had to be sure that another guard would be able to catch the man before he ever got to her son.

And had to make sure that the assassin got himself killed, during the attempt, as well, so that no one ever questioned him and found out who had hired him.

And she had done all of it to convince the Westerlands that her son needed to become king, that it was the only way to protect him, because there was no end to the number of people who might have wanted her son dead, and somehow, the Tyrells had ended up with him as their captive, anyway, and Genna could only laugh bitterly, at the knowledge.

Frankly, she was surprised that Cersei was even bothering to come back to King’s Landing, after what had happened to her son. After he had been taken by her enemies. That she had given him up without a fight, after going so far as to hire an assassin to kill him just to make him the king, once.

And Genna…Genna was not looking forward to facing the other woman, when she did return, knowing what she had done, what she was capable of.

Cersei had never been her favorite relative. Even as a little girl, she had been rather wicked, petulant and spoiled because Tywin couldn’t be bothered with her, and she knew she could get away with abusing servants that he hardly cared about, either.

Jaime had tempered her, when they were young, sometimes, but he was not infallible in that way, either.

But even as a girl, even after she’d ordered that serving girl beaten half to death simply because she wished it, or how many times she had abused Tyrion by blaming him for the death of their mother, Genna had not thought her capable of half of the things she had done, since becoming a woman.

But this…

First, attempting to kill her own son just to use that attempt as an excuse to seize power, and now, inviting Euron Greyjoy into Lannisport…

Genna was beginning to wonder if she had ever known her niece at all.

“Close the gates and bar them,” she snapped at the guards. “If Euron Greyjoy attempts to make port in Lannisport, send what’s left of the fleet out to meet him. And send a messenger back to him. He doesn’t come to Casterly Rock. He doesn’t come into Lannisport. Understood? He’s not welcome here.”

The men didn’t move.

Genna arched a brow, and they scattered.

She breathed out, slowly, and tried to effect the look her brother had often had, when he was trying to appear less concerned than she knew he actually was.

And then the sounds of war broke out.

* * *

Martyn Lannister groaned, the last strings of the Reins of Castamere echoing in his ears as he finally opened his eyes.

He had always disliked that song. His uncle Tywin ordered it played at every feast at the Rock, and Martyn always hated it, because he thought it a rather sad tune, and because he hated what it meant, hated when it was cheered to rather than solemnly listened to.

And now…

He gasped, sitting up abruptly as the chords of the song faded away in his mind.

“Careful,” a voice he didn’t recognize said then, giving him a solid push back down onto the solid surface he was laying on. “You’ll irritate those wounds. Lay back down, please.”

He grimaced. “I…”

His eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room a little better, then, and he squinted up at the beauty in front of him, a young girl not that much older than him, he thought, who was clearly tending to him.

She looked a little like his aunt Genna, and he groaned a little, at the thought, at how furious his aunt would be with him now if she knew what had happened. What he had done.

“There,” the girl said, as he glanced around the room in lieu of her.

Whatever this place was, he realized, as he looked around, it was not the Rock, and it was certainly not where they had been going, to meet his mother. It looked like the hut of a member of the smallfolk, and rather smelled like one, too.

He glanced down at himself, then, and realized he was only wearing his trousers, and not the shirt and armor he’d been wearing when he and Janei had snuck Tommen out of the Rock, and then been set upon on the road down to Lannisport, the first step in their escape attempt which had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

There was a bandage, on his forehead, where that witch Dornishwoman had clocked him across the forehead, where he had crumpled to the ground on the road, the last image he saw before being knocked out that of the Dornishwoman wrapping her arm around Tommen’s waist and lifting him into the air as if he weighed nothing.

He reached up to pull it off, and his hand came away bloody. He grimaced, wondering if that was why every movement made him feel so dizzy.

“Are you a soldier?” The girl asked him, and Martyn grimaced again, her voice loud and grating, where a moment ago it had been soothing. She reached out, smoothing the bandage back over his forehead, and this time, he didn’t try to fight her on it.

“You must be brave, to fight like that,” the girl said, and Martyn squinted at her, as he slowly tried to sit up.

Grimaced, at the reminder of what had happened, and how very not brave he had been, when faced with an enemy he was clearly meant to protect Tommen against.

“No, you really shouldn’t…” the girl began, leaning forward again, but Martyn waved her off.

“I need to get back into the Rock,” he informed her, alarmed by how tired just those simple words made him feel. “Please, I need to get a message to them. I…”

“You’re from the Rock?” She asked, curious despite herself, and then shook her head. “No, you need to rest. Whatever they did to you, you’re terribly hurt. Your head…You won’t make it on your own…” she reached out, to push him back down, but Martyn grabbed her by the wrist, instead.

She let out a little yelp, and he grimaced, loosening his grip on her.

“I need to get a message to them, then,” he whispered. “Please, you have to help me.”

She swallowed hard, staring down at their entwined hands. “I…”

“Please,” he repeated, and she licked her lips.

“My brother can go,” she said, finally, with a little sigh, as if she thought him quite unreasonable, and he wanted to shake her, to ask her where she had been while these Baratheon soldiers were invading his home, to appear so relaxed about all of this.

But he didn’t. Instead, he licked his lips, and forced himself to thank her.

The dizziness swept over him again.

“What…what’s wrong with me?” He asked her, when she did return to his side, moments later, after leaving him alone in the room for only a few moments. He wanted to question that she had even done as she had promised, but he didn’t quite dare.

Not when he was clearly at her mercy now, even if he had no idea who he was, and he doubted she knew who he was, either, from the way she was acting around him.

“We’re not really sure, beyond that you took a nasty blow to the head,” the girl offered him, shrugging her thin shoulders. “And a few cracked ribs. You didn’t wake for several days.”

Martyn made a face. “Days?” He echoed, trying to sit up again. “No, gods, I have to get back to the Rock now. I have to…”

He didn’t finish. Not before the sounds of shouting outside the hut filled his ears. The girl swallowed hard, looking wide eyed as the sounds only grew louder, as Martyn heard the sound of scrambling footsteps.

It sounded like chaos.

“What…what’s happening out there?” Martyn demanded, sitting up abruptly.

The girl’s face was white. “I…” she shook her head. “I don’t…”

And she didn’t get the chance to finish telling him that she had no idea what was going on. Not before something like a flying, on fire rock burst through the roof of the cabin and split her head open.

She fell to the ground with a sickening squelch, body buried underneath the rubble, smashed to pieces, just like the roof above them.

Martyn jerked back on the bed at the horrifying sight, eyes gone wide, and the sounds of screams continued, filling the air as he stumbled to his feet and searched around blindly for a weapon, any sort of weapon. Dear gods, anything at all.

Through the new hole in the thatched roof, he could see Casterly Rock in the distance. Burning.

* * *

Falia, the stupid girl, had finally stopped crying somewhere around the same time that they had started sailing towards the Westerlands. Her sobs had petered off into shallow gasps, and then soft whimpers, before she stopped making sound altogether.

Aeron Greyjoy did not know if she still lived, but he prayed that she did not. She had been a cruel little bitch, wanting the humiliation of her family so much, but she had just been a child, in the end.

Barely more than a maiden, and Euron had used and abused her as if he did everyone, as he had Victarion’s salt wife, as he would any other woman he came into contact with.

And, even if she was nothing like her, Aeron hoped that she was dead for the simple reason that he kept looking over at her and seeing Yara, and hoping that Yara had found a way to escape their mad king.

He grimaced a little, at the thought. He did not know where Yara had gone, after the King’s Moot, after Euron had taken the Iron Islands for himself and promised the men of the Iron Islands their heart’s desire.

But the fact remained that, whether dead or living, Falia was still tied to the prow of the Silence, bound alongside Aeron, and he didn’t know whether he had gone mad, from being tied here for so long, or if she was no longer pregnant.

He looked over at her now, and saw only the flesh of her stomach remaining. She had to be dead, he thought.

The Drowned God was not a merciful one, however, and so he did not pray for Falia’s death.

Only for his brother’s.

His brother, who had been exiled from the Iron Islands because he was a rapist and a murderer, and who had returned a pirate, and had still somehow seemed the better option than Victarion or even Yara.

Whom the Iron Islands stood behind in a fleet, even with Euron’s own brother tied to the prow of the Silence.

Aeron hoped that the Drowned God emerged from the sea and took them all, for it. They no longer deserved his prayers.

He swallowed hard; he had not had anything to drink but the saltwater that sprayed the prow of the ship on particularly stormy days in some time, and so felt no moisture or relief, from the action.

He knew that the end was coming, soon, just as Euron had told him it would.

_“I have seen it,” Euron had told him, as he forced Aeron to drink the shade of evening with him, “The bleeding stars, and the end of all things. These are the last days, when the world shall be broken, and unmade.”_

He had smiled, after he said those words, as if he welcomed that brokenness.

Aeron knew that his brother was beyond madness, then. That whatever had taken Euron, the charming, pragmatic man Aeron had known as a child, who had been exiled from the Iron Islands for good reason, and turned him into this creature, he wasn’t human, any longer.

He was something Other, and something that Aeron feared far more than the mad boy who had abused him, as a child, for his own amusement. Who had raped Victarion’s salt wife for his own amusement.

Who only ever did anything for his own amusement.

Now, Euron did everything for the chaos that it wrought.

Perhaps Aeron should have prayed harder to stop him, before he had ever returned to the Iron Islands.

The Drowned God would not listen to Aeron’s prayers, now. For whatever reason, despite all of his prayers, prayers that were more humble and true than any of his brothers’, the Drowned God had abandoned him here.

Had abandoned him to Euron, who had Seen the end of all things, and wanted it, because he too, was mad, as Aeron would no doubt become, the longer he was tied to this ship.

He took a shuddering breath; one of his ribs had been broken, when he was tied to the prow, and it still was a struggle to breathe, but Euron had not blessed him with the mercy of death any more than the Drowned God had.

And in front of him, Lannisport burned into the sea.

Burned because they had invited Euron Greyjoy here, and then refused to allow him to sack the city peacefully when he did arrive, from what Aeron could tell.

Years ago, during the Greyjoy Rebellion, it had been Euron’s idea to attack the Lannisters, his ideas which had defeated most of their naval fleet, and would have continued, if the Baratheons and the Starks hadn’t put down their rebellion and stolen away the boy, Theon, to make sure that it did not happen again.

Victarion was too stupid, and Balon not ambitious enough, to come up with such ideas themselves. It had always been Euron, until he was sent away.

And now, Aeron realized blankly, Euron was simply finishing the job.

But…it felt like more than that, as Aeron watched with far too good of a view, as Euron laid waste to Lannisport with the ease of a child tipping over his brother’s toys, the fleet pulling up alongside him, happy to join in on the carnage their king had promised them when he took the Iron Islands for himself.

Their screams, the screams of men, women, and children, none of them warned beyond a few minutes about what was about to happen to them, filled the air, and Aeron forced his eyes open through all of it, forced himself to watch as his brother laid waste, as he heard the sound of his brother’s laughter, minutes before he jumped down from the ship and swam through the fire and the blood to reach Lannisport.

His men followed behind him, in longboats, but they would be too late, Aeron knew. By the time they reached the shores, Euron would have already started the killings. Would already be covered in blood, and reveling in it.

Drowning in the blood of his enemies.

Aeron had a perfect view of the battle…the slaughter, before him, and that was how he saw the Lannisters at the Rock, waving their white flag of surrender, off in the distance on a hill.

He saw, if he squinted hard, Euron, standing on the beaches as he cut down another fighter, throw back his head and laugh as he too, saw that flag.

He watched the fighting (the slaughter, for it could not be called anything else) continue, watched so many Lannisters die, their blood was flowing into the harbor, because it had nowhere else to go.

He watched the sea turn red.

“No,” he breathed, though he was not entirely certain if any sound came out, if he was still capable of speech, after being tied here for so long.

A blood sacrifice, Aeron realized, his eyes going wide as the realization hit him.

 _No_.

No, this couldn’t be happening, because Euron had committed blasphemy, had as much as told him that he didn’t believe in any god but himself.

That he wanted to be a god, not to worship one.

_“Godless?" His brother’s voice echoed mockingly in his ears, almost a croon. “Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man to ever raise sail. You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.”_

No, Euron could not be angling for the blood sacrifice. He was no god, and the Drowned God would not take Kindly to him wanting the role.

But they were here, and the sea outside of Lannisport was drenched in blood. Aeron could smell it, and was certain that if he had eaten anything in the last week since he had been tied once again to this mast, he would be throwing it up, now.

He had heard of such things, in his devotion to the Drowned God. That if one were cruel enough, that if one spilled enough blood, they could summon it, this creature who could forever turn the tide of any war.

But this was wrong, he thought, desperately.

They were not in the right place for it, he thought, desperately. This was not the place where Euron could summon it, and yet, what else could this be?

The waters of Lannisport’s harbor were drowned in blood; the waters beneath him were red, now, instead of blue-green, as they had been when the fleet first was let into the harbor by these unsuspecting fools, and now, their blood stained it as if it had never been blue, before.

So red, Aeron could no longer see his own reflection in the waters, only redness.

He swallowed again, the screams of war going on around him, but Aeron didn’t hear any of them as he shut his caked eyes tightly and made his final prayers to the Drowned God, that Euron’s sacrifice would mean something, something that his brother didn’t want, either.

On _the Silence_ , Aeron Greyjoy prayed to his god, the Drowned god, to leap from the sea and swallow his mad brother whole.

Beside him, Falia, the bastard daughter who had thought to humiliate the family who had always been cruel to her by sharing Euron Greyjoy’s bed, prayed for death to finally release her from her bonds.

And beneath the blood waves, the creature  _roared_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Bites nails nervously*


	32. King's Landing

_“What is this I hear about you having locked my cousin away in the Black Cells, for a while after the King died?” Nym demanded, as she burst into Sansa Stark’s chambers, in the Maidenvault._

_The other girl squinted at her, raising a hand to placate Brienne of Tarth when the other woman reached automatically for her sword._

_“It’s all right, Brienne,” she told the other woman, standing to her feet from where she sat in front of her desk, writing letters. Then, folding her hands in front of her, “Lady Nym. I’m glad that you’re up and about.”_

_She said it like she truly meant it, but Nym could see the tiredness in her eyes. No doubt, she was annoyed by the interruption._

_Well, Nym had been annoyed to learn from Megga this morning that the reason Trystane was acting so skittish was because he’d been rather traumatized by his brief time in the Black Cells._

_Second time, she remembered, her anger rising. After all, Joffrey had already had him imprisoned simply because he’d wanted to, and now it looked like Margaery had done the same thing, simply because Nym hadn’t been around to intercede on his behalf._

_But Margaery wasn’t available to speak with her, either physically or…dare she say it, mentally, and Nym had been awake for long enough, in recent weeks, to recognize that Margaery was not truly the one running things around here, anyway._

_And she hardly wanted to go complain to Baelish about this, not when Sansa Stark still had such soft skin._

_Nym lifted her chin. “You didn’t answer my question,” she spat out._

_Sansa’s head cocked. “You’ll notice he’s not exactly in a cell, now,” she pointed out, and Nym felt the anger she was feeling rise, rather than lessen, at those words._

_“He should never have been in one in the first place,” Nym snapped. “What happened to having a trial to ascertain guilt? Do you really think my cousin had Joffrey killed?”_

_Sansa swallowed hard. Brienne of Tarth’s face pinched a little more, as if she agreed with Nym but didn’t want to admit it. “He did challenge him to a duel not long before the King’s death,” Sansa said, still sounding terribly tired._

_Yes, well, Arianne had sounded tired too, from all the nights she had spent up trying to usurp her own father._

_Nym could hardly sympathize, now._

_“We imprisoned those whom we thought might have cause,” Sansa went on, “and your cousin did not spend very long within a cell, I assure you. I understand how…terrifying an experience that can be, for one so young, and I didn’t enjoy locking him away, if that’s what you’re accusing me of. But we had to do it, until we found the true culprit, and Trystane is beyond suspicion, now.”_

_Nym snorted. “Must have taken a while to look in the mirror, didn’t it?” She said, through gritted teeth, and Brienne flinched._

_Sansa, for her part, did not, much to Nym’s surprise._

_Perhaps the other girl had more flint in her spine than Nym had originally given her credit for. Something about the thought excited her._

_“Yes, it did,” she said, “And I’d thank you not to say such things. My husband, a man I respected very much, was such an unlikely candidate to kill his own nephew, even if they disliked one another.”_

_Nym blinked at her, and then laughed._

_Yes, she’d heard that too, from Megga, about how Tyrion had been accused of letting a bunch of fanatics into the Keep to kill Joffrey, an unlikely story to cover for the fact that Joffrey Baratheon’s body was beaten beyond all recognition._

_She wondered if Margaery had been the one to do that, from the way she’d been acting recently, and when they’d planned for it to just be a simple poison._

_She’d thought she saw something of that hint of fire in Margaery Tyrell’s expression, while she had spent time with her in Dorne._

_Now, she thought she saw it in Sansa Stark a bit more._

_“You’re only going to get yourselves killed if you keep going like this,” Nym said, and Brienne clearly took it as a threat._

_Sansa cocked her head at the other woman, instead, looking thoughtful. “And will you be the one holding the sword?” She asked._

_Nym pressed her lips together, not liking what she was about to suggest, even now. “No,” she said, finally. “I swore an oath to Margaery Tyrell, and I meant it. But I think I’d be of more use to you, these days.”_

_Sansa’s brows furrowed. “What did you have in mind?”_

_Nym’s gaze was hard, as it turned to Brienne. “I’ve no doubt your loyal bodyguard here can keep you safe from harm, but it hardly looks good, for you to have her by your side at all times. It makes you look…defenseless.”_

_She thought of the look of sheer hopelessness on Margaery’s face, the last time she’d seen her._

_The other girl might not be handling this transition well, but Nym knew enough about the ways of the world to recognize that look, even if others did not. She knew it for what it was._

_Knew that if the whole of King’s Landing saw both Sansa and Margaery as weak, these days, eventually, someone would pounce._

_And she had sworn an oath to keep Margaery Tyrell safe._

_Apparently, Sansa Stark had sworn a similar oath, which meant that they were not enemies, as annoyed as Nym currently was with her._

_“I think you ought to learn how to use a sword, my lady,” she said, sharply. “For the time may come, sooner than you think, that you might need it.”_

_And if it meant that for at least the first few weeks of training, she’d be able to give Sansa Stark a bit of a good thrashing for locking her cousin away like a common criminal when she’d done all of this to protect him…Well, Nym wasn’t about to admit to that._

* * *

“Have to say, didn’t think I’d find you down here any time soon,” Trystane muttered, as he stepped into her cell.

For a moment, Nym felt a spark of fear, that Margaery had for some reason gone back on the agreement they’d made with each other and decided to throw Trystane into a cell as well, but she saw that his Hans weren’t bound and he appeared distinctly uncomfortable to be down here, as well.

She had to admit that it hurt, that her cousin had come to see her and that Megga Tyrell had not, when she had thought they shared something a little more than just a bed, between the two of them.

And…it hurt for other reasons, to see her cousin standing before her, to remember the last boy she’d faced wearing a similar expression, his sword hand outstretched and shaking, as he told her to get away from Tommen Lannister.

Nym lifted her chin where she sat against the back wall of her uncomfortable cell, sending the boy something of a glare. “Well, you do know where the door is, for those of us fortunate enough to have access to it,” she pointed out, and Trystane raised an eyebrow at her tone.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally, as he leaned against the far wall of her cell, “When I was locked up down here, after the last king died, you didn’t try to visit me. Of course, you were…incapacitated at the time, I suppose, but I didn’t think we’d find our situations reversed any time soon, either way.”

Nym gritted her teeth. “Yes, well, don’t strain yourself too hard thinking about it, dear cousin,” she panted out, because the air down here was damp and she’d been breathing it far too long.

For a moment, she thought she saw something like concern flash over Trystane’s face, but it was gone in the next moment.

“She’s locked you up down here, your queen, and yet you’d still do just about anything she asked of you, wouldn’t you?” He asked, and Nym raised an eyebrow at her cousin, wondering if perhaps he knew more than he was letting on.

Of course, she’d spent the last few months trying to convince Margaery exactly the opposite of that, in order to keep the boy safe. She could only hope that she was originally right about him.

If not…

“That’s what I really don’t understand,” Trystane said, lifting his chin, a flash of defiance in his eyes that she didn’t like seeing there, not when she had exerted so much effort lately to convince Margaery Tyrell, to convince Sansa Stark, that he wasn’t a threat to either of them.

“How you could just keep going along with everything she tells you, especially when it sounds like Arianne’s forgotten she even had an alliance to begin with, with these people.”

Nym clenched her teeth. “If this is the purpose of your visit, I’m afraid you’re going to be rather disappointed,” she said, and as he gave her another annoyed look, she couldn’t help but be reminded of Martyn Lannister.

They were of similar ages, she thought, though she wasn’t certain about that.

She wondered if they shared the same foolish desire to get themselves killed for the people that they cared about, or if Martyn Lannister had only stood in for Tommen out of a sense of duty.

She wasn’t sure which outcome she thought was worse.

She’d pretended it didn’t effect her as much as it had, when Margaery had gotten angry with her for killing Martyn Lannister. That he was just a Lannister, and his death meant nothing to her.

The look of horror on Margaery’s face had been something she wanted to contemplate, after that little charade in the throne room, where she had pretended that Nym was nothing more than a traitor and a prisoner for Cersei Lannister’s sake.

Nym was tired of being cast aside for Lannisters, these days.

The truth was, the stupid boy had attempted to fight her, as if he knew a damn thing about fighting, and Nym had done her best to keep him from getting himself killed, had even tried to knock him out to keep him off of her, out of this, but the stupid boy had just kept coming.

It had been somewhat embarrassing, to nearly be taken down by a boy. A mere child, who barely had a clue what to do with a sword, even if she knew the Lannisters would have made sure he knew how to defend himself.

Well, all of the Lannisters except Cersei with her own children, that was painfully apparent. Tommen had been as meek as the kitten he had insisted on taking with them, when she came for him.

Trystane shook his head, and she forced her attention back to him. “When we were younger,” he said, and she wanted to stop him and tell him that he was still painfully young, but she held the words back, “You and Arianne always took the same side, about everything. I don’t…” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand what you even have to gain from turning against her, now.”

Nym licked her lips.

She supposed she owed her cousin some explanation, lest he keep digging where he needed to stay away.

“When my sisters were plotting your dear wife’s coronation, and the end of all things, I betrayed them to Doran,” she said, and Trystane flinched a little, at the reminder of Myrcella, as she’d known he would. She felt little guilt over it, however. “I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, and I did it because Arianne asked it of me, because she didn’t want Myrcella crowned, not when it would gain us so little. But my sisters…That is not something they would understand, if I ever told them. They would only think that I was hiding behind Arianne, using her to justify my own actions.”

Trystane nodded; he knew this about her sisters well enough, even if he’d not know the most important things that they had been up to, lately.

Nym sighed. “If I ever return to Dorne,” she said, making sure that she met his eyes as she did so, that there was no indication at all that she was lying to him, “I have no doubt that they’ll still want to punish me for that perceived betrayal.”

Trystane woudln’t look at her, now. “I’d do anything to return to Dorne,” he whispered hoarsely, hugging himself, and Nym felt a stab of pity for him, as she thought of the plans Arianne had for Myrcella, a girl she had been surprised to find that Trystane genuinely, totally, cared about.

If she could think of a way to save the both of them for one another, she would have, Nym reminded herself.

As it was, she’d been forced to choose, and Trystane was her blood.

That meant something to her, even if it had ceased to mean something to the rest of her dear family.

“I’m not working against them,” Nym continued, and Trystane scoffed at that, even as she wondered which of the two of them she was genuinely trying to convince. “Everything that I’ve done since coming here, all of it has been for Dorne.”

But perhaps not for her siblings, or Arianne, she thought idly, feeling a spike of guilt at the thought.

But then again, the things that Arianne was planning, the things that her sisters had been planning…she wasn’t sure that those things were for Dorne’s sake, either.

The longer she spent in King’s Landing, the more she thought she understood her uncle’s indecisiveness, all of these years.

Perhaps it hadn’t been indecisiveness, as Arianne and the Sand Snakes had always taken it, but merely…a lack of action.

She glanced at her cousin, and wondered if those two things were really so similar, after all.

But Trystane himself did not seem convinced by her words. “Arianne’s crowned Myrcella and reached out to this Aegon fellow at the same time,” he said, and she could hear the genuine fear in his voice, the fear of what that might mean for Myrcella, or perhaps for his relationship with her.

Nym supposed she could understand the fear. After all, if Arianne was reaching out to Aegon so soon after championing Myrcella’s cause, that did not sound good for Myrcella.

Again, she felt a stab of guilt, that she had not worked out a way to save Trystane’s little wife from all of this. She seemed a sweet enough girl, even for a Lannister, and she’d do just about anything to make sure that Trystane ended this happily enough.

She’d seen what enough miserable leaders had done for Westeros, not to mention for Dorne. She had no interest in making Trystane yet another one of those.

“Did you know about that?” He demanded, and Nym sighed, forced herself to nod.

“I…Yes,” she said, slowly. “I…heard about it, on the road.”

She did not dare elaborate on that.

Trystane squinted at her. “You know, when they first brought Myrcella to Dorne, I remember Oberyn would barely look at her. That he didn’t want to be cruel to her, but that he would barely look at her, all the same. And your sisters…” he trailed off, then. “I remember, after Father explained that I was going to marry her one day, Lannister or no, Arianne pulled me aside not long after and told me that didn’t mean I’d have to love her. That if I really loathed her for a wife, she’d make sure the engagement lasted a long time.”

He swallowed hard; Nym could imagine Arianne having this conversation with him, painful as it felt now.

She didn’t dare interrupt.

“But then…” he swallowed again. “It was because…I mean…” she had never seen her cousin quite so tongue tied, and she raised an eyebrow. “I noticed that she started being nicer to Myrcella, after that. That she started including her in things she was doing, that Myrcella seemed…nicer, after that, too. Less stuffy.” He closed his eyes. “To tell the truth, that was part of the reason I let myself…Because I thought that if Arianne could like her, then perhaps I could, too.”

Nym sighed.

And of course Arianne had only been acting nice to Myrcella in order to get her under her control, as Trystane no doubt realized now.

But he hadn’t realized it at the time, when he’d fallen for her.

Nym bit the inside of her cheek, biting back the words she wanted to say, in response to that.

Trystane looked up at her with eyes that shone in the light of the single torch in her cell. “Is…Is Arianne going to take care of her, do you think? You’re here, so I thought you’d know, but now…”

Nym closed her eyes, opened them and looked away. Then, “Trystane…” she bit her lip again. “I think that Arianne is always concerned first with the good of Dorne, but I think…I think that she does truly care about Myrcella. She wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.

Trystane squinted at her, as if he was trying to figure out if she was lying or not. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“But you said you were doing what you thought was best for Dorne, by leaving them behind,” he said, slowly, and Nym could have kicked herself. “So, which one’s true?”

Nym’s jaw ticked.

She was gratified when the door to her cell opened, keeping her from having to come up with a suitable lie in answer to that, as well.

“Lady Nym,” the guard who had let Trystane in a moment ago said as he pushed the door open the rest of the way, as Nym tried not to notice the way that Trystane flinched at the sound of the door opening, and she remembered the brief stint he had spent down here, and Nym gritted her teeth, wondering if this was it. If she was about to be forced into some sham of a trial, just because Margaery now didn’t want to make Cersei Lannister angry, when she’d had no qualms about doing that very thing, when her husband had banished his own mother from King’s Landing.

But then, Nym wasn’t Margaery’s husband, not by any stretch of the word.

She lifted her chin, ignoring the concern that flashed across Trystane’s face, and then disappeared just as quickly. “What is it?” She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, a small act of defiance, once of the few she had left.

The guard eyed her up and down, and then swung the door open wide. “The Regent has declared that you are free to go,” he told her. “That the charges against you are…dropped.”

He said it like he found such a thing distasteful, like he thought she ought to have been punished for her actions, even if the Tyrells and the Lannisters had no love for each other, and Nym forced a grin as she pushed herself to her feet.

She imagined that was because of all of the curses she’d thrown at him as he stood guard over her the night before, and Nym bit down on her smile.

“There, you see, Cousin?” She asked Trystane, as she stepped past him and into the hallway, inhaled the fresh air, though it was still damp even here in the hall. “This is why.”

Trystane blinked at her, and then at the guard. “Why is she letting her go?” He asked, sounding terribly suspicious.

Nym wished he would cut that out. It woudln’t do, if this man was some sort of spy for the Tyrells, for them to think that Trystane was against them, even in thought.

Sansa Stark had once been nothing more than a prisoner, and against the Lannisters in thought, and the Tyrells knew damn well what had come of that, after all.

She doubted that they would make the same mistake, even if Trystane was Nym’s cousin.

The guard lifted his chin. “It is not our place to question the decision of the Regent,” he informed Trystane, and Trystane raised a brow at that, but Nym was relieved when he didn’t ask any more questions.

Instead, he followed her out into the hallway, watched as the guard freed her from her chains. She glanced over at Trystane, winked at him through the small amount of guilt that she was still trying to pretend she didn’t feel.

“Cersei Lannister has left King’s Landing,” she informed him, though she thought the answer ought to be obvious enough.

* * *

“This is wrong,” Margaery murmured, her arms wrapped around herself, eying the little boy as he signed his name to the pages after pages that the Small Council had drawn up for him.

Tommen, though, seemed patient enough to sign each time he was told to, not even bothering to read most of the pages that had been shoved in front of him by men who had once served his brother and mother, after the first page was done, so eager was he to sign the damn thing and get all of this over with, no doubt.

He looked dwarfed, sitting at the head of the table surrounded by so many men who no longer had interest in his survival, all of whom were watching him like they thought he might turn and try to kill them at any moment, child though he was.

Tommen’s hand was shaking, with each new page he signed.

Nym supposed that she couldn’t even blame him for that. Surrounded by enemies who would gladly see him dead for something that he had made it clear he didn’t even want in the first place…

She supposed she would have been glad to sign whatever she was told to, in that case.

And she also didn’t quite understand why Margaery seemed so torn up about this, when it had been her idea in the first place. Her decision that this would help keep Tommen safe, from enemies and allies alike, who might try to use him against Margaery or simply kill him because they thought him in the way.

And now, while it was happening, she was wringing her hands and second guessing herself.

That wasn’t the Margaery that Nym was familiar with.

“This was your idea, Your Grace,” Nym reminded Margaery in a harsh whisper, where the other woman stood beside her at the back of the Small Council chambers, offering a smile every time Tommen glanced up hesitantly at her.

Margaery scoffed. “It was the Small Council’s idea,” she said, softly. “They are worried that my son will be a daughter, and then Tommen will truly be the heir to the throne. This way, he’ll have signed away his claim already, and my child will be safe.”

Safe from Tommen, perhaps, but Nym knew that half of Dorne still wanted to crown Myrcella. She didn’t say as much, though; Margaery already had enough to worry about.

“And this way, at least, Cersei’s men have less reason to rise up against us for stealing their king away.”

Nym scoffed. “They’d be hard pressed to go to war at all, with him a hostage here.” Margaery flinched at the reminder of what Tommen was, and Nym sighed, though she didn’t see why the title should effect Margaery so. She may not have been the one to order Nym after Tommen, but she certainly couldn’t disapprove.

“He came with me almost willingly, Your Grace,” she reminded the other woman, all the same, thinking of her own cousin who was here, and had not done so at all. “Seemed happy enough to leave the Rock.”

Margaery let out a slow breath. “After you killed his cousin in front of him,” she pointed out, and Nym flinched a little, at the vitriol in the other woman’s voice.

“After I promised that we’d take his cat,” he said, and despite herself, Margaery smiled a little, at that.

It was mostly true, after all.

Nym was glad to see her smile again. It had been some time since the last time Nym had seen the other woman smile, after everything that had happened, and it was somewhat refreshing, to still see hints of the old Margaery, underneath her dour expressions, these days.

“Anyways,” she said, “I don’t really get why he needs to do this. Haven’t we already decided he’s a bastard?”

Margaery grimaced, wrapping an arm around her middle, and Nym resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The other girl was hardly as subtle as she thought she was, sometimes. She was lucky no one around them was quite brave enough to listen in on their conversation.

She had certainly changed in recent days, perhaps before that, since Nym’s return to King’s Landing and Sansa Stark’s poisoning. Had become the harder, firmer creature that Nym had known before Joffrey’s death.

But there were somethings that remained the same from that day that she had found Margaery looking like death in her chambers, demanding to be moved into Joffrey’s chambers lest she go mad, even while Nym wondered if such a demand wasn’t a hint of said madness.

“I don’t like that for a safety net,” Margaery muttered in a softer whisper, sounding very displeased, indeed. “If it is so easy to name Tommen a bastard, how easy would it be to name my son one, on Cersei’s part, or your cousin’s part, simply because they find him a threat?”

Nym didn’t bother to point out that at least they would be correct, just as they were correct now about Tommen being a bastard.

And there was no shame in that, but she understood what Margaery meant; parading a bastard child as one who was trueborn was almost a worse sin, here in King’s Landing. While bastard were aplenty in Dorne, it was similar in that respect there, as well.

She wondered if it would be difficult for Tommen, to find himself a bastard without even an inkling towards the Iron Throne, in the coming days. She knew that here in King’s Landing, he would be treated differently than the prince he had always been known as in the past, even if his contact with others seemed rather limited, all the same.

He might not be as much of a threat now that he had done as the Tyrells wanted of him, might actually be treated rather kindly for it, but Nym doubted that his new life was one that he was quite as prepared for as Margaery seemed to think.

Baelish frowned down at the last paper that Tommen had signed, and then muttered something, and said, “It will have to be written again, my lord.”

My lord.

Because that was what he was now, as not a prince, and that was a nice enough title for a bastard outside of Dorne, in and of itself.

Baelish’s eyes were hard and unreadable as Tommen sighed and did as he was told, as the Grandmaester grunted, totally lost as an ally to the boy now that he had chosen not to fight for the throne.

Nym looked at all of these men, crowding over the boy like vultures, and wondered how many of them might try to kill him in the coming days, on the point that really, a child’s signature meant nothing, even if Margaery only intended it to be ceremonious.

Perhaps Margaery was having the same thought, with her next words.

“I want someone accompanying him at all times,” Margaery said, arms still crossed over her chest. “Cersei always neglected him, and he’s a lonely child. Shireen needs to spend some time with him, as well.”

Lady Nym slanted a glance at her. “Because you think he’s lonely, or because they’re to be wed?”

She found the idea rather repulsive, herself. Shireen may be a bit older than Tommen, both in age and in the world, but she was still a child, herself, and both of them far too young to be wed. She remembered that Myrcella had not been very old when she had first come to Dorne, but she had also not married Trystane for some time still, after that.

But she knew that part of the reason that Olenna Tyrell, and therefore the Regent, was pushing this idea of the two of them being wed so hard was because, unlike Tommen, who now half of King’s Landing considered to be a bastard, Shireen Baratheon very much was not.

Marrying her to one, however, and especially to one in such a precarious position himself, might just keep her off the Iron Throne, even if the thought of it made Nym rather sick.

Margaery sniffed. “They won’t be wed for some time. The wedding’s just a threat, to keep Cersei from doing anything stupid, or Selyse Baratheon, should she ever come out of her hole. But they ought to get to know one another if they’re to be man and wife, don’t you think?”

She sounded like she wasn’t certain of the answer, herself.

Lady Nym didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter, simply raised an eyebrow. “If you say so, Your Grace.” Then, “But I certainly hope you’re not offering me for the position. I don’t think the boy would appreciate it.”

Margaery hummed. “He got along well with Loras,” she mused, and Nym was surprised by how casually she mentioned her dead brother’s name. “I wonder if he might not benefit from spending some time with Garlan, though Garlan is terribly busy, these days. Either way, we’ll have to make sure it’s a Tyrell who doesn’t dislike him too much.”

Nym raised a brow, resisting the urge to point out that she doubted it was likely Margaery would be very successful, in such a venture.

After all, any Tyrell grunt might feel that he was merely being loyal to House Tyrell, by being cruel to Tommen if he was assigned to guard the boy for the rest of the boy’s time here.

She didn’t bother to mention this to Margaery, however, merely grunted again at the other woman’s words.

And then, Tommen was finished signing the last of the pages put before him that he wasn’t reading, and he glanced up nervously, expectantly, towards Margaery.

She stepped forward, forcing a smile. “You’ve done very well, my lord,” she told him, a hint of a smile pressing at her lips, and Nym resisted the sudden urge to roll her eyes, when Tommen smiled gratefully. “And I’m sure that we can all appreciate the sacrifice that you are making, for the good of the realm.”

“The boy,” the Grandmaester coughed out then, “Has no legal claim to the throne. Why should this,” he gestured at the pages, “be considered a sacrifice?”

Margaery’s expression was considerably cooler as she turned towards the Grandmaester. “As I said,” she muttered. Then, “I’m sure that you’re quite tired, Tommen. Nym?”

Nym blinked, surprised to be acknowledged.

“If you wouldn’t mind returning Tommen to his chambers?”

It was not lost on anyone, and perhaps not even Tommen, if the way that the boy flinched was any indication, that she was not even addressing him by a title at all, now.

Nym gritted her teeth as she stalked towards the door, and waited for Tommen to accompany her. The boy stared up at her with wide eyes, as he stepped slowly forward.

She had warned Margaery that it would not be a good idea to throw the two of them together very often, even as she recognized that there was no one else, besides Margaery’s Tyrell Kingsguard, to accompany the boy back to his chambers.

She placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and then watched him flinch, hastily pulling her hand back.

Then, she led the way out of the room, and into the hall.

Tommen squinted up at her. “Do you think…” he asked, as the door to the Small Council chambers shut behind them, “Do you think I did the right thing?”

Nym squinted down at him. She didn’t understand why he was asking her such a thing, of all people, when she had been the one to kill his cousin in front of him, to rip him from Janei Lannister’s arms as the girl begged for his life.

Had been the one to drag him across the Seven Kingdoms, back to King’s Landing.

And yet, he was staring up at her like he gave a damn about what she thought, about such things.

And she supposed she owed him at least the honest truth.

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “I think that for your own sake, you made the right choice.”

The only choice that would ensure he lived long enough to make signing the pages worth it, she didn’t say, but she thought that Tommen Lannister wasn’t quite the little fool the rest of King’s Landing seemed to think of him as.

He was young, yes, and rather naive for a boy who had grown up with Joffrey Baratheon for a brother, but she thought he was wiser than Margaery seemed to think.

Perhaps he already knew signing these pages had kept him alive. Perhaps he was smart enough to figure out what would have happened to him, had he not done so.

She gestured for him to walk in front of her, and the boy let out a little sigh before he started moving, down the corridor and back towards his own chambers.

They didn’t speak, as they walked; Nym wasn’t quite sure what she would say to him, if he started trying to talk to her, but to her relief, he seemed pensive and quiet, as well.

She dropped him off at his chambers, relieved to find Megga and Alla waiting for them when they arrived, because the thought of remaining here with Tommen, in silence, seeming rather unbearable.

Alla pulled Tommen away rather quickly, as Nym had known she would from the moment she saw Megga accompanying the other girl, and then Megga was moving forward, throwing her arms around Nym.

Nym glanced nervously behind them, saw that the door was already closed where Tommen and Alla had disappeared into his little parlor.

She relaxed, a little, into Megga’s embrace.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Megga whispered against her skin, and Nym went still, pulling back from the other girl.

“Do what?”

“Leave,” Megga said harshly, and her hands on Nym tightened. “Don’t ever leave without telling me where you’re going again.”

Nym licked her lips, staring down at the other girl in something like confusion. She hadn’t bothered to come and visit Nym while she was in the Black Cells, after all, but the way that she clung to Nym now…it felt like something stronger than she had feared they had, earlier.

“I…I was only doing as Sansa asked of me,” she pointed out, slowly, but Megga was already shaking her head.

“Yes, well, you both could have said something a little earlier,” she muttered.

Nym stared at her for a moment, still feeling rather confused.

She’d had many dalliances, during her time in Dorne. Perhaps not as many as her cousin and her sister Tyene, but even in Dorne, one had to be rather careful about who they dragged into their bed, when that person was of the same sex as them.

And some of them had clung to her more tightly than she to them, but this…whatever this was that they had, and Nym had spent a considerable time trying to figure that out since she had first awoken to find Megga in her bedchambers after the Mountain had nearly killed her, it felt…different, from those other tumbles.

Megga kept coming back to her, and each time she did, Nym found herself falling a little harder for the other girl, even if she knew that she shouldn’t, that she needed to keep her at arms’ length a little better, when she still didn’t trust the other girl’s motives.

“Megga, this,” she gestured between the two of them, “I enjoy it, very much.” She paused. “Enjoy you.”

Megga flushed, looking pleased by the admission, and Nym felt a stab of guilt for what she was about to say next.

“But I will go where I am commanded, by the Crown.”

“Sansa,” Megga said, and the words were rather harsh, surprisingly so, for Nym had thought the two girls to be friends, “Is not the Crown. Margaery did not even know where you had gone until you returned.”

Nym shrugged. “That does not mean I was not serving the Crown, anyway,” she pointed out. “If we didn’t have Tommen, we’d actually be at war, right now.”

Megga sniffed. “I know,” she said, sounding finally defeated, but certainly not pleased. “Just…You could have let me know.”

Lady Nym reached out, tilting Megga’s chin up. “I can take care of myself, Megga, just like you.”

Megga bit her lip. “I know that,” She said finally, and, for the thousandth time since she had first learned of it happening, Nym wanted to ask her what had happened to her down in the Black Cells, before the two of them had known each other, that she was so damn…attached to everyone around her.

Nym had fallen for her slowly, and then all at once, but Megga had been nearly attached to her from the beginning. Was attached to Sansa, and Margaery, in different ways. Loyal in a way that Nym could never imagine feeling for anyone, even for Margaery, because they wanted the same things, but they were two very different people.

But Nym never asked about the Black Cells; she wasn’t even certain that she was supposed to know about them, but Sansa had warned her, the first time Nym had alluded to taking Megga into her bed, claiming she wanted her to know what she was getting into.

She supposed it made sense that Megga had not wanted to come and visit her in the Black Cells because of that, but Nym was still curious.

Her time in the Black Cells, in a place that her father had spent his final moments before he had fought the Mountain who may have defeated Nym, but hadn’t killed her, had been horrible.

Mostly because she had spent the majority of it, besides her short visits from Margaery and Trystane, wondering what her father’s final thoughts had been. Wondering if he still would have fought the Mountain, knowing the insanity it would throw Dorne into, in the months after.

Wondering if he would have approved of what she was doing, now.

She shook her head, biting back a sigh.

The truth of it was, she had been relieved by Trystane’s visit, even if his current mental state was starting to worry her. It had been a welcome distraction from the morose thoughts of how her father had suffered his final moments in perhaps the same cell she was now in.

“Come on,” she said, when Megga just kept staring up at her, “I’ve missed your touch.”

And the way Megga flushed at those words made her lack of a visit in the Black Cells almost worth it.

* * *

“Now that is…over with, Your Grace,” Baelish said, clearing his throat as Nym and Tommen walked out of the room and the door shut behind them, “There is something more that we need to discuss.”

Margaery took a seat where Tommen had been sitting moments before, biting back a sigh, because she had a feeling she knew exactly what this next thing was going to be.

The moment one thing was finally taken care of, it seemed, another always took its place.

She was glad that it was over, that, even if the papers weren’t legally binding when Tommen was such a young thing, that didn’t matter so much as the fact that he had been seen to sign them, of his own free will.

It meant that the Lannisters would be hard pressed to rise against her, even if Cersei did somehow wrest control back from Kevan Lannister. It meant that her child was safe, and that Tommen himself was safe.

But she had a feeling that the headache blooming behind her eyes was only just beginning, from the dour faces of her Small Council.

“If this is about the Targaryen boy…”

“Your Grace,” Varys interrupted, and that wasn’t like him, though she supposed he was getting rather annoyed with her continued disregard of his advice, these days, “Aegon Targaryen has his eyes set on Dragonstone. He has made that clear since he took Storm’s End. They’ve sent scouts, thus far, but his army is sure to follow quickly enough.”

Margaery licked her lips. “So much for the peace he claimed to want with us,” she muttered, though she had known that terribly unlikely, despite the sincerity in the boy’s voice.

Baelish raised his eyebrows, and then drawled, “Yes. Peace that required you to bend the knee,” he said, scoffing slightly at the suggestion.

She was surprised he was so offended by it, when she knew now that he had no vested interest in her long term survival on the throne. But then, she supposed, if Sansa did die from whatever it was plaguing her, he had no vested interest in any of them, here.

She gritted her teeth. “I made my position on that front clear,” she said, remembering the return letter she had sent him, that her son would be the true King of the Seven Kingdoms, and only if the child was a girl would she consider other options.

Not quite a rejection, but a certain one, nonetheless.

“Yes,” Baelish went on, still sounding annoyed, “And apparently that note was sent without Jon Connington’s permission or even knowledge, so he was furious by the response, Your Grace.”

Margaery shrugged her shoulders. “Well, can I help it if this boy refuses to listen to his councilors?”

Varys pressed his lips together. “The fact remains, Your Grace, that we must act against them before they act against us. From what my birds have told me, the Golden Company was severely depleted, by the trip here. If we were to strike now…”

He trailed off then, and Margaery shook her head. “I suppose you’re right, Lord Varys, though I would prefer to know more about this boy’s motivations before…”

“This boy is a Targaryen pretender, intent on stealing the throne from the rightful king’s son,” the Grandmaester coughed out, once more interrupting her.

He subsided after a fierce glare from Margaery.

She knew that she had been lax, in her duties as their Regent, pretty much since her appointment, even if Sansa would say that was a fault she had not been able to fight, at the time. But she didn’t think she’d noticed, until recently, how little her own Small Council seemed to respect her.

Oh, fear her, perhaps, from time to time, but once, when she had been nothing more than the woman manipulating their king, they had respected her.

She was tired of the looks they sent her way, now. Tired of the way they constantly interrupted her, second-guessed her.

She knew that she had earned it, lately, with her antics, with the lack of regard she’d given the throne lately, but she was tired of it, all the same.

“True, true,” Mace said, then, and she struggled not to point out to her father that he had once fought on the side of the Targaryen loyalists.

“After all,” Margaery said, before he could go on some sort of tirade, wondering yet again why her grandmother had refused to come to this meeting when she had been present at almost every other since her arrival here, “We have no proof that this boy is who he claims to be, save for Jon Connington’s word. You are right, yes.”

She was just about to ask how many men they might be able to spare for such a thing, even worried as she was by how their own forces were rather depleted, when the door burst open, and one of those birds that Varys had spoken of before froze, standing in the doorway.

He was a little thing, perhaps one and ten, and reminded Margaery of the guilt she’d felt earlier, watching Tommen sign away what had never really belonged to him and certainly didn’t belong to her son, either.

She’d known even as she felt that guilt that it was the only thing keeping him alive, this charade, for even her own men, Randyl Tarly among them, seemed to think her a bleeding heart for insisting on it, but still, Margaery hated herself a little, at the fear in his eyes and his shaking hands as Tommen signed where he was told to without a single question about what it was he was signing.

She shook her head, and the image there of Tommen was gone, replaced by the little boy scurrying through the doorway and to Varys’ side.

She knew about the children, of course. The ones whose tongues he cut off so that they couldn’t spill his secrets to his enemies, to anyone else in King’s Landing who might be working against him, whether they were friends of the throne or not.

His little birds, the spies who got him the information he always had so ready at hand.

The boy held out a piece of paper, one that looked like it had already been shredded, had…

Margaery leaned forward.

The paper looked like it had been dipped in blood.

Margaery sucked in a breath, noting the look of disgust on Varys’ face as he turned it over to read the thing. She had trouble believing this was the worst condition he’d found information in, but still, the sight itself was indeed…unsettling.

A pause.

Varys swallowed.

For the first time in a good long while, Varys looked…nervous.

Margaery found the look much less comforting than she would have thought, in recent days.

“Ah, Your Grace,” he said, and Margaery raised a brow at him. “Perhaps we spoke too early, in counseling you to go after Aegon Targaryen just now.”

Margaery licked her lips; that didn’t sound promising. “What is it now?” She demanded.

Varys paused. “Ah…” his eyes read through the letter, slowly, and a part of her wanted to snatch it from him and read it herself. “It appears, Your Grace, that Euron Greyjoy has moved on to bigger fish, so to speak.”

Margaery squinted at him.

She knew that the Greyjoy pirates had been a problem, along the Reach coastline, according to Randyl Tarly, something she’d had to find out from him rather than her grandmother, much to her annoyance.

And of course she sympathized with the people who lived on those coastlines, undefended. She’d heard that he took slaves and sold them in the East, that he was a notoriously cruel man, a rapist in the worst sense of the word.

But she didn’t understand why Varys was wasting her time during this meeting over a pirate, unless he had done something unthinkable, like taking Highgarden.

The moment she had the thought, Margaery experienced something like a spike of panic, wondered if a mere pirate from the Iron Islands was even still capable of such a thing, after what had been done to them during the Greyjoy Rebellion.

Not…unless he had help.

And that thought spiked even more panic, because she could think of only one person crazy enough to approach a mad pirate for help with such a thing.

“Don’t tell me that Cersei Lannister’s cunt has somehow changed Euron Greyjoy’s famously antagonistic mind towards the Lannisters,” Margaery gritted out, and the entire Small Council went still.

She opened her eyes. “What?”

Varys cleared his throat. “Ah…Cersei Lannister, it appears, did reach out and ask for an alliance with Euron Greyjoy,” he told her. “Against the will of Kevan Lannister. Promised Greyjoy, it’s rumored, a great deal, and so she had the defenses of Lannisport down when he sailed to come see her in person.”

Margaery blinked at him, an awful suspicion suddenly filling her, at those words. “And?”

Varys swallowed. “And…” He looked uncomfortable, or one of the first times that Margaery could even remember. “Euron Greyjoy sailed into Lannisport, unopposed, and...took the Lannister fleet. And…destroyed Lannisport, Your Grace.”

Baelish leaned forward and snatched the piece of paper out of Varys’ hands, his eyes scanning the words quickly.

He looked…paler than Margaery had ever seen him.

She supposed that not even he had anticipated this.

“Destroyed,” Margaery echoed, slowly. “Destroyed Lannisport? All of it?”

Varys grimaced.

Margaery sighed, reaching up to rub at her temples. “The Greyjoys have been attacking the coast in the Reach,” she pointed out. “How the fuck did they manage to get from the Reach to the Westerlands, overnight, without any of us noticing?”

Her men were silent, and Margaery clenched her hands into fists. “What is the point of all of you,” she asked coolly, “If not one of you has a single answer for me?”

“How many ships did he take?” She asked, tiredly.

More silence.

She glared at her Small Council, annoyed that even though she was the Regent, she seemed to be the last one to know any of this. “What?”

Varys grimaced. “He…destroyed almost all of House Lannister’s fleet in the process, Your Grace.”

Margaery’s head shot up, her mouth falling open a little. “Come again?”

“He destroyed her fleet, Your Grace,” Baelish piped up then, and she knew that he was also annoyed by this, but she could have hit him.

Margaery bit her lower lip. “He...destroyed the most powerful family in Westeros’ fleet...in a single battle?”

It sounded impossible.

More than that, it sounded like something out of a nightmare, not something a real man was capable of doing, even if somehow the Greyjoys had built up a more powerful fleet, if somehow this pirate had done so, without anyone ever noticing.

And a part of her, a wicked part that she tried hard not to examine, around the fear slowly bubbling up within her, rather than getting better as she’d hoped, wanted to be pleased at the obvious, that Cersei would now be in no condition to fight her.

While normally, it would be a joyous thing indeed to learn that some of Cersei’s fleet had been destroyed by another, which meant that House Tyrell had not had to lose any men, she had heard the rumors about Euron Greyjoy, knew that besides being mad, he was only out for himself.

But if Euron Greyjoy could take out the entire Lannister fleet in one battle, had done so without anyone being able to anticipate that he would even be in Lannisport…dear gods.

Dear gods, how many people lived in Lannisport, lived at the Rock? How many other people had been destroyed while one man and his fleet, a man who up until now had been content with stealing slaves from the coast in the Reach, took them on in a day?

She knew that it had been Euron who originally devised the plan for the Greyjoys to take out the Lannisters’ naval force at the Rock, during the Greyjoy Rebellion, that he had almost gotten away with it, then.

That he must have felt capable of finishing the job, now, and sh wanted to believe that this was personal, between him and the Lannisters, but it had been the Baratheons who had fought down that Rebellion alongside the Lannisters, whatever she was calling her son, now.

Baelish grimaced, glancing down at the bloodstained note in his hands. “We’ve been…informed that he has some sort of…creature at his beck and call,” he said. “A sea monster.”

Margaery blinked at him. “A sea monster,” she repeated, hoarsely.

Baelish pressed his lips together. “That’s what it says in the note, Your Grace. That the sea monster then turned its rage on Lannisport, and hundreds are dead. Maybe more.” He shrugged, and Margaery gritted her teeth. “You know how fragile the mind can get after a battle.”

He said it almost as if he was taunting her for the way she had gotten, after Joffrey’s death, and she glowered at him. He cleared his throat, and she wondered if she had been interpreting the words wrong, actually.

“While we don’t know…what exactly that means,” Varys went on, looking a little pale himself, “We do know that no one has ever singlehandedly taken on the Lannisters and won so easily, before.”

Margaery sighed.

She didn’t need Varys to tell her that.

Which meant that it was now their problem, to decide whether to honor the alliance that they had agreed upon with Kevan Lannister, or to drop the Lannisters for good, something that she would have once been so very happy to do, but now…

The child in her stomach still wasn’t here, yet.

And Euron Greyjoy, a pirate who had declared himself King of the Iron Islands, apparently, had ruined Lannisport and the Rock, all in one day.

“And…has he declared any intentions?” She asked, licking her lips.

She was almost afraid to ask that, to wonder what Euron Greyjoy might next be deciding to do, this unpredictable man who had moved from one part of the Seven Kingdoms to the next overnight, who seemed more concerned with random attacks than a coordinated strike, and that alone made her wonder if he wasn’t up to something. Something that not even Baelish could see.

Baelish shrugged. “He didn’t wait around for a surrender,” he said, and Margaery blinked in bemusement.

That was…somehow almost worse than hearing his actual intentions, that he didn’t care enough to share them. That he was just…sewing chaos, for now.

Baelish’s jaw ticked; she knew how he hated things that he couldn’t predict.

If the news itself weren’t so horrifying, the knowledge that someone had been able to ruin the Lannister fleet in less than a day, she might have been amused by the disgust on his face.

“Genna Lannister shut herself up in Casterly Rock, and hasn’t been heard from since, but the Rock…the Rock was half ruined, by the time he was done with it. They’re saying it’s likely there were no survivors. Euron Greyjoy left Lannisport the same day he attacked it, and he hasn’t been heard from since, either.”

Margaery closed her eyes. “What are the odds that he’ll come South to King’s Landing before he goes North?” She asked, and didn’t like the looks on the faces of the men around her. “The Greyjoys tried to take Winterfell once before.”

“We fear that it would be an…easy battle, either one he chose, Your Grace,” Varys said, finally.

That it didn’t matter, in other words. That, even with the Baratheon soldiers causing so many problems in the Westerlands lately, if Euron Greyjoy had been able to wipe out half of their fleet, they’d be easily able to take on the handful of soldiers who followed Ramsay Bolton, or the group of soldiers here in King’s Landing.

Hells, Olenna had been dealing with him in the Reach for weeks now, apparently, and keeping it to herself, but clearly she had been unsuccessful in repelling him.

Margaery bit back a groan. “And who the…who sent this letter?” She demanded, nodding to the letter in Baelish’s hands, the one he was now passing to a clearly horrified Mace.

Baelish pressed his lips together; he’d had more time to read it than Varys, after all. “It says…It says that it is from Martyn Lannister, Your Grace. It was intended for Kevan Lannister, from what it says.”

Margaery swallowed hard, didn’t bother to point out how impossible that was, that Martyn Lannister was already dead long before Euron had attacked Lannisport or the Rock, because godsdamnit, if Nym had known anything about this and kept it from her…

“You’re certain?” She asked, carefully.

Baelish snatched the note from her father and handed it to her. Margaery was relieved that her hands weren’t shaking when she took it from him.

It was short enough, she supposed. Obviously meant for Kevan Lannister, even from the first few sentences, several of which had been torn off, either by the child who had brought it in, or before that.

She didn’t dare ask how this message had gotten to them when it was meant to go to Kevan. She supposed Martyn Lannister would have no way of knowing that Kevan Lannister was on his way back to…

Kevan and Cersei were on their way back to the Rock. Were no doubt still headed there, unsuspecting of what awaited them.

She closed her eyes; Varys was right. They had to make a decision now, about where to go from here.

She had wanted so badly, for so long, to be a queen.

She was beginning to think this was being a queen.

“Send a note to Jon Connington and his Targaryen king,” she said, shortly, hating the looks the men around the table were giving her.

Fine; let them think her weak. Clearly, they did, just as Arianne had, as Cersei had.

She would very much like to avoid being dead, if it was all the same to them.

And she could deal with the consequences later, so long as those consequences weren’t that a Greyjoy pirate able to move far too quickly had managed to destroy half of King’s Landing, and she no longer had an army at all to defend against Aegon Targaryen and his Golden Company, when they eventually made their move, as well.

“Tell him we would like to…meet in person, to consider his terms,” she said slowly, and her father wasn’t even looking at her, now.

That didn’t matter, she told herself.

She was only doing what she thought she had to, to keep the Seven Kingdoms safe. She could figure out the rest of it later.

And there had to be some reason that Arianne Martell had reached out to Aegon Targaryen, surely, she thought, a little desperately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, somehow I thought that last chapter would get more of a reaction ;)


	33. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a violent assault.   
> Please comment!

“Lord Hand,” Margaery said, leaning back in her chair in the Small Council chambers.

A part of her, a very, very petty part indeed, had wanted to do this in the Great Hall in front of everyone, publicly, as she had done with Cersei, but she had realized very quickly the foolishness of that.

A part of her didn’t even know if she was making the right decision now, with what she was about to do. That part sounded, strangely enough, like her grandmother, asking her why, in the name of the gods, she had bothered to keep Baelish around for as long as she had when this was the result of all of it.

All of the worries about blackmail, about betrayal, and this was how she was dealing with it.

Of course, she had always intended for things to go this way. She knew that he had been beyond helpful, when Joffrey had died and they had been desperate to cover it up, understood why Sansa had gone to him rather than any other, but they could not expect that situation to last forever.

Not when she knew how he loathed her, and her affections for Sansa, returned by the other girl.

She knew that with a man like Baelish, betrayal that he thought he could gain from was inevitable, whether he truly cared about Sansa or not, even if she thought that Sansa had been rather convinced of his help, in the beginning, because of those affections for her.

So this had always been part of the plan.

She just hadn’t realized that she was going to be dealing with so many enemies on so many sides this quickly.

And, between this new pirate threat, Aegon Targaryen, and the Martells, she could ill afford another enemy, whispering in her ear, especially if the worst should happen and Sansa never awoke again, much though she didn’t want to think about that at all, if she could no longer trust that Baelish had any interest in her continued reign.

But she thought that he at least deserved for this meeting to happen in private, because of everything that they had been through together.

He knew far too much, after all, and she couldn’t risk him saying as much in front of so many people. Dear gods, she couldn’t risk him saying as much in front of her Small Council, but it was not as if she could do this in private, either.

Baelish leaned forward in his chair. “You wished to speak with me alone, Your Grace?”

She knew that he would not be expecting this, not when her reign seemed so vulnerable, just now. That he would be expecting her to grovel before him, to ask for advice that he would pretend was genuine, but would only fuck her along the way.

He would not be expecting her to turn him loose so quickly, not with what he had over her.

So she bit back a smile, and leaned forward, as well.

He had to know that betrayal was coming eventually, after all. It was only fair, as she knew he was intending the same damn thing.

“I have a…delicate mission for you,” Margaery said, thinking about the way he had leaned over Sansa, staring down at her as if he really did love her, in some way. She still felt sickened, at the sight. “And one that, as my Hand, you have the authority to take on in my stead.”

Baelish didn’t look surprised, but then, he didn’t know what that mission was, not yet.

And he was always glad to have her indebted to him.

She thought of Olyvar, of the things Baelish must have threatened him with, in order to turn him against her so quickly, in order for him to go to Cersei about the child in her womb not belonging to Joffrey.

A man who knew he had been backed into a corner was dangerous indeed, but she could only hope that Baelish still thought he had some use to her, with what he knew about her, about what she had done.

“Of course,” he said, folding his hands together. “You know that I am always eager to be of service to the realm.”

He was all but preening, she thought, as the other members of the Small Council chamber looked disgusted with her, yet again, for relying on a man that none of them themselves trusted.

She ignored them, for the moment. Ignored the sad look on Varys’ face, as if he had sorely misjudged her.

He was about to get what he wanted, after all, though she trusted him just about as much as she did Baelish, these days.

Margaery licked her lips, wondered again, her grandmother’s scathing voice echoing in the back of her mind, if this was indeed the best choice that she could make about this.

Of course she didn’t want him as an ally, not forever, but did she want him as an open enemy so quickly?

She thought of the way he had looked, leaning over Sansa where she lay in her bed, and shook her head, mind made up.

“In my stead, I wish you to go to the North,” Margaery informed him. “Winterfell has remained in the hands of those we do not trust long enough,” she went on, as she watched Baelish blanch. It was a surprisingly gratifying sight. “I wish you to use…whatever means necessary to wrest it out of their control, and back into the hands of a Lannister lady, in Sansa Stark.”

Baelish’s eyes narrowed, instantly sensing a trap, as she had known he would. But that didn’t matter, now.

Beside him, she thought she saw Varys smile.

Margaery pretended not to notice the look, pretended not to notice how pleased the man looked, because after all, she wasn’t doing this for him.

She wasn’t doing this because he had manipulated her into it.

She thought she was making a mistake, personally, but she was doing this for herself, and for Sansa.

Because, dear gods, if this was really it, if she really was about to lose Sansa, she damned well wasn’t going to do it standing beside Petyr Baelish.

“Yes, yes,” the Grandmaester coughed, then. “This is a good idea, Your Grace. The Boltons, they are an untrustworthy people, especially led by that mad bastard of theirs, now. The Lady Sansa Stark has proven her devotion to the Crown even after her husband’s betrayal, and I think that you are right to make this decision.”

Margaery inclined her head in his direction. “You shall have whatever you need to get this done, of course,” she told Baelish, “but I would see it done before we find ourselves with another enemy on our hands.”

“Your Grace,” Baelish said, slowly, “I wonder if you are not thinking this through,” he said, and Margaery bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. “I assure that you I would be far more useful to you here, as your Hand.”

Mace cleared his throat, no doubt about to try and come to Margaery’s valiant defense.

“My lords,” Margaery said, not bothering to lose eye contact with Baelish, “I wonder if you might give Lord Baelish and I a moment alone.”

It felt a bit silly, watching all of them scurry out into the hall and shut the door behind them, knowing they were no doubt attempting to listen at the door. She could only hope that her brother, standing guard, would be enough to keep them from it.

After all, there was no telling what words might pass between her and the man who knew far too much about her, these days.

The moment the door shut behind them, Baelish got straight to the point.

“You need me here, Your Grace,” Baelish gritted out.

Margaery forced herself to smile at him. “I need you protecting the sanctity of my son’s reign, Lord Baelish, as my Hand,” she told him. “And just now, I think you might be more useful doing so in the North.”

He squinted at her. “And here I thought we understood each other so well these days, Your Grace,” he said, slowly.

Margaery scoffed, knowing what those words really meant. That he damn well intended to use whatever he could against her, if she tried to get in his way, as she was just now doing.

That he would use the identity of her child’s father against her, the way he had done when he sent Olyvar to speak with Cersei.

Well, he would find that she had a few cards left to play these days, as well.

“Lord Baelish, I have tried to be kind,” she told him, leaning forward. “Remember that. I could just as easily have you arrested for, oh, I don’t know, plotting with a woman accused of treason by her own son once already against me,” and she quite enjoyed the way his face paled, at those words, “Or convincing a married women to kill her husband, or…supplying Joffrey Baratheon with the knife he sent after Bran Stark? Being complicit in the death of Joffrey Baratheon, my dear husband? Which would you like to be tried for, first?”

Baelish had gone pale, at her words. Then, “These are all baseless accusations, Your Grace,” he gritted out. “I don’t know who has been whispering in your ear, but I would caution against…”

“Do you really think, with such accusations against you, anyone will believe what you have to say about me?” She sneered at him, folding her hands delicately against her stomach.

Baelish stared at her, for several long moments. Then, “You know, I asked Sansa, at one point, whether she thought the way you were acting was all a facade, a way of tricking us all into underestimating you,” he said, and Margaery forced herself not to react, not to flinch at those words. “She seemed convinced that you weren’t quite capable of such a thing. It is a pity to know she cares so much for someone she hardly knows.”

At those words, Margaery did flinch. “Perhaps I’ve simply finally had my eyes opened, with her poisoning,” she gritted out, but Baelish was already shaking his head.

“Don’t do this,” Baelish said, and his words were almost pleading, now. She had never heard him sound the like.

She remembered the sadness in his eyes, as he stared down at Sansa, wondering, no doubt, as she was, why Sansa had yet to wake.

He cleared his throat, looking very vulnerable indeed, and she remembered that he had once managed to convince Lysa Arryn that he loved her.

She didn’t think he was capable of a single genuine emotion, even if he seemed to think whatever it was he felt for Sansa was natural enough.

“Do not send me away while we do not even know if she will wake,” he said, no doubt in an attempt to appeal to her goodness.

Margaery bit back a smile.

She was responsible for the deaths of all of those people in the Sept, after all, was responsible for her husband’s death; why should she feel a damn thing about getting rid of her most dangerous compatriot, at the moment?

Margaery stood to her feet, pressing her fingertips against the table to keep her upright, with the way her son was sitting so heavily on her.

For a moment, he seemed to think that she had taken pity on him, and then something about his face paled, and Margaery could not help but be gratified, to see such a loss of composure from the other man, after everything that they had been through together.

“Oh, she will wake,” she informed him. “She will. And you will not be here to see it. You ought to be grateful, Lord Baelish; you can either read of it, once you’ve taken Winterfell, or I could hang your head outside of the city gates to watch it for yourself.”

But either way, she wasn’t about to countenance him being here to see it, himself.

“The people will wonder why you do not send your own brother to retake Winterfell, or to lead Reach armies. Or your father. Sending your Hand like this, when I am your Hand…looks like a sign of weakness, you know,” he pointed out, leaning forward, desperate now.

Margaery smiled to hide her uncertainty at his words, her confusion about why he would still try to be guiding her, even now.

“That is why you will go to the Vale, first, and persuade them to take Winterfell for us,” she said. “After all, at the moment, we cannot spare the men, and they have yet to prove themselves to us, these people who pledged you as that stepson of yours’ regent.”

Baelish gritted his teeth. “The Boltons believe themselves to be our allies, because they handed over Shireen Baratheon. I wonder if you are not making more enemies these days, Your Grace, than you are capable of handling.”

Margaery smiled at him. “I’m sure there’s always room for one more,” she told him, coolly. “Now, you have until the end of the day to leave King’s Landing, my lord. That’s far more time than I gave Cersei Lannister, and…” her smile was cold. “At least she has always been more than forthcoming with how she truly feels about me.”

Baelish grimaced.

For a moment, he looked truly beaten.

And she knew that it wouldn’t last, that he was a snake who always seemed to get what he wanted, but in the moment, this was damn satisfying.

Baelish stood to his feet. “Very well, Your Grace,” he told her, and it struck her that he was giving too easily, for a man like him.

That there was always something else he could bring up, and the fact that he wasn’t trying to now, with the look of desperation on his face…that disturbed her, more than anything.

“And Baelish?” She called.

He turned his head, but did not turn around.

“You chose the new High Septon,” she said. “I allowed that, at the time.” She paused. “And yet, you and the Lady Sansa have not annulled her marriage, yet. I wonder, for all that you say you…care for her, why that is.”

Baelish did turn then, his smile thin. “Your Grace, for all that I don’t believe she knows you as well as she thinks she does, I can see you know her,” he said, and nothing more, and Margaery’s brows furrowed in genuine confusion, at that.

She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking, however.

She smiled back, coldly. “If you should fail…Do not bother returning. I’m sure that Sansa will have lost all interest in you as a husband, by then, and if she has, well, I do not see what interest the Crown might have in you, either. And do send the rest of the Small Council back in, please.”

He slammed the door behind him.

Margaery sagged a little, in her chair, forcing herself to straighten once more only as the rest of all these men returned to the Small Council chambers, all of them clearly knowing what she had done, by the varying looks on their faces.

It was the first time she had ever seen Varys smirk so openly about one of his manipulations coming to pass.

And while she still didn’t know why it was he wanted Baelish out of his way, out of power, beyond his own pettiness, Margaery supposed she could allow him that small victory, just this once.

For now.

She cleared her throat. “Now,” she said, “About this Targaryen Pretender. Have we heard anything from him?”

The meeting did not last long after that. For all that the men seemed shaken up by her dismissal of Baelish, by her obvious win against a man they all knew rather well, and even if she knew it hadn’t been a real win, not by the look in his eyes before he shut that door, Margaery chose to hope that at least her Small Council might see her as an adult, now.

“Lord Varys there is…something that I would ask of you, but it is a…relatively delicate matter,” Margaery said, once the meeting was over and she could see most of the men trailing out, and her voice might have been a bit hesitant, even as she wholeheartedly believed it was not something Varys would find too morally taxing.

She smirked a little, inwardly, at the thought.

He dipped his head. “Anything, Your Grace,” and in that moment, she thought he might almost mean it.

Margaery forced a smile. “I have sent Baelish on a mission that I am uncertain he will be able to succeed at,” she said. “I understand his power in the Vale is…tenuous, at best, and the Boltons were fierce enough to fight off Stannis’ men, in Winterfell.”

Varys’ brows furrowed. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, clearly uncertain what she wanted from him.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathing in deeply.

“I wonder if you might arrange is so that…Lord Baelish does fail,” she said, slowly, wanting to make sure that he understood what she really meant, that there was no confusion about that.

And to think, not two months ago, she had been terrified at the thought of spilling blood.

But she had always known, from the moment they had let Baelish in on this little secret of theirs, that she had killed her husband, that eventually, he was going to have to die.

And he had already demonstrated how he was outliving his usefulness.

She swallowed hard, placing a hand on her stomach. “By accident, if need be.”

Varys’ eyes narrowed. “And here I thought you trusted him greatly, Your Grace,” he said, which was not exactly a refusal.

Margaery forced a smile. “You know how things are, this close to the Crown,” she said. “One can never trust anyone for long.”

He eyed her. “Very good, Your Grace.”

* * *

Margaery took a deep breath, as she dismissed her ladies and took a seat on the bed in her chambers, the door finally shutting behind them and leaving her in peace.

Gods, she was exhausted.

She didn’t think any of the men on her Small Council understood what true exhaustion was like, no matter how long and hard they’d been working for the Crown.

After all, none of them had ever been forced to carry a babe in their womb for eight months while sitting on the Iron Throne.

She felt every moment as if she needed to use a chamber pot, every moment as if she was going to give birth to this child in front of all of them.

She thought they ought to be a little more appreciative of her efforts to listen to the Grandmaester thunder on during meetings, in light of that.

Margaery sighed, laying her head back on the bed, trying not to think about how difficult it would be to pull herself back up again, later. Perhaps she could call one of her ladies for that, though she certainly didn’t relish the thought of any of them seeing her looking so vulnerable.

Laying down flat, she could barely see over the great expanse of her pregnant belly, and Margaery sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, breathing in and out, slowly.

The maesters kept warning her that if she didn’t take her time, didn’t try to rest, it could bode ill for the child. That she needed to take more moments like these, to simply do nothing, for this child.

But every spare moment she’d had lately, she’d been running to Sansa’s chambers to worry over the other girl, instead.

She supposed that Sansa would not begrudge her this small moment of peace, as she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to breathe as if a small child was not pushing on her bladder even at this moment.

She sighed, wishing sleep would come to her, but knowing even now, laying like this, that it would not. That sleep would elude her as it always seemed to, these days, until she fell into it out of sheer exhaustion, and she was sure that the maesters would have something to say about that too, if they knew.

The nightmares about the child seemed to be receding, these days. She no longer awoke in the middle of the night, sweating at the thought that the child in her womb might be just as wicked as her husband had once been, just as cruel, just as willing to see his own mother and everyone around him suffer.

Instead, she dreamt that the child was stillborn. Stillborn because she was taking on too much these days, stillborn because if Sansa did die, there would be nothing left to live for, even this child in her womb, because what would have been the point of having him in the first place, if she could not enjoy being the Queen?

She awoke from those dreams perhaps more frequently in sweats than she ever had when she had dreamt that her child was nothing more than a monster. She didn’t know which ones had been more terrifying, but at least she was still able to fall asleep after these ones, even if the bed felt far too cold, sleeping alone.

It was not as if she had ever slept much with Joffrey, after the two of them had been together, or that she’d had much opportunity to do so with Sansa, either, but Margaery found herself mourning the thought that she couldn’t at least crawl into Sansa’s bed at nights for comfort, now.

She was beginning to think it might be the last few chances that she might ever have to be with Sansa, again, and Margaery found herself mourning more and more of those opportunities these days, as they slipped through her fingers.

Gods, she needed Sansa to wake up. Needed her to wake up because while Margaery thought, even in Sansa’s absence, she was becoming more herself than she had been for some time, she still felt like she was flailing and helpless, without the other girl.

Like she was going to fall apart if Sansa didn’t wake up soon.

Cersei was gone now, thank the gods, which meant that every spare moment Margaery could find, she found herself going to Sansa’s chambers without very much guilt to sit with the other girl, to interrogate the maesters about how she was faring, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

Didn’t feel like she ought to be sitting at these Small Council meetings, making plans as if their world would go on without Sansa.

As if the child in her womb would mean anything at all to her, without Sansa.

Margaery sighed, wanting to roll on her side and realizing at the first attempt to move in that direction that it would be a mistake, and that her stomach certainly wouldn’t thank her for it.

Gods, was it selfish, she wondered, to simply want this child out of her already? It was killing her, wondering every moment if she could be more of a fraud as a Regent than she already felt, if this child was a boy or a girl, and in her less than humble opinion, it had been in her belly far too long already.

She was starting to feel like it had always been there, a growth on her stomach that was never going to leave her, that would be with her until the day she-

She sat up in bed and turned then, aware she was no longer alone.

“Olyvar,” she said, and if her voice darkened at the sight of him shutting the door behind himself, well, that was her concern.

Olyvar glanced up at her, something like a frown on his features before he saw the look on her face and frowned even deeper.

Margaery bit back a sigh; as much as she knew the two of them needed to talk, she certainly wasn’t in the mood to reassure him, tonight.

She sat up the rest of the way, however, not failing to notice the way his eyes trailed to her stomach as she placed her hand there, and forced a smile. “What is it?”

“Do you think this is the right decision?” He asked, quietly, as he moved closer to her.

Margaery felt a stab of pity for him, as she reached out and pulled his hands into hers, not liking the sensation of the two of them touching, but finding that she had little other choice in the matter, not if she wanted to keep him from panicking.

Not if she wanted to stop herself from panicking.

If he panicked, she wasn’t sure that she could ensure his life. Wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t walk out that door and do something foolish…again.

And perhaps it was the sentimental part of her, the part that had once walked in on him and Loras, had heard the way Loras talked about him like he didn’t think they would ever be happy together, but at least Olyvar had helped him forget his grief for a little while, but she didn’t want to have to deal with that.

Didn’t want to have to see him dead when he had meant something to her brother, and she was running so short on those, these days.

“Yes,” she said, and his lips parted a little.

“I felt…I could see the look in her eyes, when I told her,” Olyvar said, quietly, licking his lips. “Even she thought I was nothing more than a…than a coward who would have sacrificed my own child to save myself. Baelish, he didn’t care, but she…She…”

“I’m glad you did what you did,” she told him gently, and Olyvar just stared at her. “You only did as I told you, Olyvar.”

He sagged a little, swallowing hard. “Your Grace…”

“How many times?” She asked, forcing a smile because she knew he would assume it meant she was calmer than she was.

He grimaced. “I don’t understand why you wanted her to know,” he said, shaking his head. “How you could put our child at risk like-”

“My child,” she corrected him coldly, snatching her hands out of his. He flinched, at the loss of contact, and Margaery flinched at the feeling of cold air against her fingers, once more. “You know that as well as I.”

He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you would do it,” he said, and a part of her, the part that still wondered if he wasn’t playing a long game for Petyr Fucking Baelish, didn’t want to tell him.

But she looked into his eyes, saw the guilt there for what he had done, for the fact that he had told Cersei Lannister the truth about their child, theirs, even if she never wanted to admit it aloud, and thought he had the right to know.

“I needed to know what he would do,” Margaery said, nodding her head, trying to tell herself that she believed the words even as she attempted to convince Olyvar.

And it was true, in part.

She had known what Baelish would do with that information. Had known that eventually, he would go to Cersei with it, would tell her what she wanted to hear so that he could have his war and steal Sansa away from her in the dead of night, while Margaery was too vulnerable to do anything about it.

She had known that he would find out eventually on his own, and she had hoped that by controlling when he did find out, she would be able to control him, too, at least for long enough to get him out of the back of her ear, get him away from Sansa’s side.

Because that was what this had all been about, for so long, now. She may have been incompetent, these past few months, plagued with the trauma of what had happened to her, barely able to concentrate on keeping the kingdom together, but that didn’t mean she had missed a single moment of Baelish leaning towards Sansa, whispering something so close in her ear that it made her blush, the way he looked at Margaery like a rival and not a pawn, these days.

Hells, it had been the one thing she had been able to focus on, when even the throne itself seemed to mean nothing to her, because even if she was pushing Sansa away with every day that passed, even if she couldn't figure out how to stop doing that, she would have to be blind not to notice that the other girl was all but running into Baelish’s arms, because of it.

She had known from the moment Sansa went and fetched him, the night of Joffrey’s death, what a thorn in her side Baelish would be. Had known that it would be far more difficult to be rid of him than it might have been to flail along for a few months on their own, but at least they were alive, Sansa seemed to think.

And try as she might, Margaery couldn’t find a way to argue with that.

She knew that Sansa would disapprove, of course, if she simply tried to be rid of the man when they owed him so much, from that night. Sansa may have changed greatly from the sweet young girl that Margaery had first known, but she had not changed in the way she believed she owed some people debts.

And Baelish had known her mother, and had only ever asked one thing of Sansa, one thing that Margaery was determined he would never get, from the moment she told her father to bribe the septons with whatever it took to ensure that the choice Baelish eventually made in High Septon was the right one.

From the moment he had helped them with covering up what had happened to Joffrey, Margaery had known that he would be the next name on her list, the next dead man walking whose death she would be directly responsible for.

She just hadn’t thought he would already know, so damn far in advance. Hadn’t though he would have already figured out that Olyvar had fathered her child, long before she had hoped he would.

But Baelish, for all of his complexities, had still taken the damn bait, when she dangled it in front of him. Dangled Olyvar in front of him, suddenly working at Garlan’s side without a thing to recommend him there.

Had proven that he could not be trusted with even an iota of information, much less knowledge that could see them all killed.

And she had always known that this child in her womb would never be accepted by Cersei Lannister. That the other woman would always try to find away around honoring her child’s claim to the throne, whether it was a boy or not.

So she had done what she thought she had to, because while she always knew that Cersei would stand against her, she needed to know how far Baelish would go.

She thought that even Sansa could not forgive him for endangering the life of their child, even if she would not forgive Margaery for it either, if she ever found out about Margaery’s own role in it.

But Margaery thought Sansa might understand, if she would only wake so that Margaery could explain it to her, that Margaery felt as if she had been endangering this child’s life for months before this, from the moment they had gone to Baelish for help and the man had so easily put two and two together, had looked at Joffrey’s mutilated body on the floor and not asked a single question about why Margaery might have wanted to kill him.

She knew that he must have suspected, even then. Margaery had let Joffrey do all manner of unspeakable things to her for months before that, and had only snapped then, when she was swelling with pregnancy, enough to kill her own husband.

And he had pretended he didn’t care, but Margaery had known from the look in his eyes that he would figure it out eventually, would know that the child in her womb couldn’t belong to Joffrey, and would do something with that information the moment he decided he no longer needed to keep Margaery’s secrets.

It was why she had decided on this with Olyvar months ago, even when the other man tried so hard to convince her how insane it sounded.

Every moment that Baelish spent alive, walking around with that secret, was another moment that Margaery felt the axe moving closer to her bare neck, slicing cleanly through it, destroying the life within her womb, as well.

Every time she saw him smile at Sansa, she knew he was a step closer to being rid of Margaery, to being rid of the child in her womb.

And the moment Sansa had suggested, at the Small Council, that they try to save Tommen, that they try to treat with Cersei instead of simply going to war with her, Margaery had seen the look on Baelish’s face.

The smile in his eyes that he didn’t think anyone else would notice.

After all, what better way of getting rid of Margaery without having to claim a single fault for it before Sansa himself, than throwing her to the lions?

So Sansa would just have to understand, when she woke, if she ever woke, dear gods, why Margaery had to send Baelish away for good, why, even now, Margaery was plotting how to be rid of him for good, as well.

Perhaps she didn’t know Sansa as well as she thought she did anymore, these days, but she knew that as much about her.

Olyvar blinked at her. “I…” he stepped back from her, running a hand through his hair. “I want to be happy, that he’s finally gone, that he can’t…But if anything happens to that child because of me, because of what I told him…”

He looked genuinely disturbed by what he thought might happen to the child, and Margaery forced herself to look calm, for his sake. Forced herself to pretend she wasn’t also fearing the same thing, for all the justifications she made to get them here.

“Cersei is gone,” Margaery said, and she didn’t know if she said it to reassure him, or herself. “She’s gone, and she’s not coming back, not this time. And Baelish? Neither is he.”

Olyvar swallowed hard. “I want Baelish’s brothels,” he blurted out, and Margaery blinked at him. “He was a lord, while also owning them, and you haven’t fulfilled your promise to me quite yet. For this? I want the brothels, too.”

Margaery stared at him. Perhaps she had underestimated the other man.

She didn’t bother to tell him, again, how suspicious it might look, should he suddenly be given a title and Baelish’s position after she had sent Baelish away. How half the court already thought that she and Baelish were fucking, and this would only confirm that she had been fucking someone.

No, she didn’t say any of that, because perhaps he had spent a long enough time at Garlan’s side. Perhaps this was the only way she was going to get the brothels to her side, after all.

“Fine,” she said, not stopping to admire the surprise on his face at her easy agreement, after so long. “Now. How long before I’ll have Baelish’s brothels working for me?”

* * *

Nym hadn’t been sleeping, of late.

She didn’t know if it was because of the news that Dorne had decided to treat with Aegon Targaryen, or the knowledge that not so long ago, she’d rammed the blunt end of her sword into a child’s head to get him away from another child she was kidnapping, although it disturbed her that the second disturbed her more than the first.

But she wasn’t sleeping.

Not even Megga’s…admittedly tantalizing company, the other girl wrapping around her like a leaf and refusing to let go, every night since they had been reunited, had been enough, of late, to help her fall into sleep.

Or, if it did, she simply woke hours later, wondering what had awoken her and finding it far too difficult to fall into sleep again.

Tonight, though, she didn’t need to wonder what had awoken her. Tonight, her eyes flew open to the sounds of war, and Nym sat up sharply in her bed, dislodging Megga without another thought.

The other groaned, turning onto her side without waking, something that never ceased to amaze Nym. It was like the girl could sleep through anything.

Instead of waking her, Nym reached for her shirt and pulled it on over her head as she stood to her feet, walking over to the balcony and glancing down at the city below, at this place that smelled of shit and that she still loathed, after spending how many months here.

Even if she knew she was doing the right thing, coming here, which, sometimes, she wasn’t certain of, Nym hated this place, this horrible, stinking place that represented everything she had always hated; it was the place her aunt had been killed, the place her father had been killed, the place that all of Dorne loathed.

King’s Landing wasn’t any better than she had always imagined it, as a child, while her father told her of what had happened to her aunt there, told her that the Martells did not forgive or forget things like that.

It was exactly as he had described it, and some part of her found that more disturbing than if it had been a totally different place than the one her uncle had described.

Nym sucked in a breath, though, at the sight that greeted her as she glanced down over the balcony.

She knew that the people still were not fond of the Regent, though she was trying her best to appeal to them, now that she no longer had to pretend to love the things that her husband did. In that respect, they were at least no longer attempting to siege the Keep…until tonight, of course.

Because the moment things started going wrong, of course the smallfolk decided to throw their feelings into the mess, yet again.

And, judging by the sight below her, she had a feeling that Margaery wasn’t going to be able to be rid of this one as easily as she had the last, by promising to be rid of some of the worst punishments the people had faced.

In Dorne, there had been a few times when the people had risen up against their lord. When Elia Martell had died, they had been furious to learn that the army marching to King’s Landing under Oberyn’s command was giving up and coming home without shedding a drop of Targaryen blood.

Once, there had been a famine, when Nym was young and didn’t have a good memory of it, but old enough to be living with her father, and the people had rioted over that, too, until Dorne had managed to make a treaty with House Tyrell for the food they needed.

But Nym had never seen anything quite like this in her life. There must have been thousands of them, smallfolk filling the roads outside of the Keep, carrying torches and screaming as they fought with nothing but their fists against gold cloaks and green cloaks that had been sent out among them.

She wondered if it had been this bad before the High Sparrow had been murdered.

“We want the Regent!” She could hear them shouting, even from here. “Give us the Whore!”

She wondered if this was Baelish’s last gift to them, now that he had left the city at Margaery’s command. Wondered if he had riled them up, or if this was just bad timing.

She supposed it could easily be a bit of both, she thought, as she stepped back from the balcony and tried to tell herself that she wasn’t frightened, that this didn’t remind her of the bloodbath she had entered in the Westerlands.

“Nym?” Megga’s voice called out to her then, where the other girl was sitting up in their bed. “What’s going on?”

There was a knock at the door.

Nym grimaced, moving back towards the bed to grab up the blade she kept handy beneath her pillow in one hand before moving to the door and throwing it open.

Two guards stood outside. “Lady Nym,” they said. “The Small Council has been summoned. You, as well.”

She swallowed hard, glancing back at Megga’s nervous face, before sheathing her blade and glancing around desperately for her trousers. Only when she found them and slipped them on did the guards seem to realize they had caught her in a state of undress, the both of them flushing furiously.

Nym ignored them, stepping past them into the hall, and leaving Megga alone. “What the fuck is going on?”

The guards exchanged glances. “They’ve been at it the past hour, my lady,” one of them said, despite the frequent reminders she gave to people not to call her that. “Garlan Tyrell was out investigating something in Flea Bottom when they started; they still don’t know where he is. Randyl Tarly went out to calm them down and came back claiming it couldn’t be done.”

Nym made a face. “Wonderful. Any idea what they want?”

The last time they had rioted, she understood, had something to do with the Faith. She couldn’t imagine that the smallfolk had that good of a memory, especially here.

The guards simply shrugged, and soon enough, she was entering the Small Council chambers, pleasantly surprised, when she realized that Margaery herself was not yet present, that they had bothered to send for her at all.

“For fuck’s sake, not again,” Mace said, where he stood in front of the table with the others, the sounds of rioting penetrating even here, sounding almost defeated, and Randyl Tarly grunted.

“I’m afraid that your son’s forces have been unable to repel them, my lord,” he said. “They started in the harbor and by the time they were through to Flea Bottom…” he trailed off, and Mace’s eyes widened, at the words.

“My son,” Mace breathed, with all of the horror of a loving father. “Garlan? Where is he?”

Randyl, Nym noticed only then, was covered in blood that was clearly not his own, as he bent over the Small Council table, staring at the little figurines set up there, as if they had the time for that, just now.

Randyl made a face. “He’s still out there,” he said, and Mace shook his head, already walking towards the door.

“No,” he breathed. “No, we have to find him.”

“No one can get through that crowd,” Randyl thundered, when Mace was already halfway to the door. “He’s on his own until he can find his way back, or we can appease them.”

“What is it they want?” Nym demanded, and she knew that the men even more than the women here didn’t seem to take her seriously, saw her as nothing more than a bastard Dornishwoman with designs above her station, no doubt, with the way she stuck so close to Margaery these days, and Sansa before that.

But she was still annoyed by the way all of them ignored her.

“I will not leave my son out there!” Mace thundered.

The Grandmaester blustered some sort of response about how it would do him no good to go out there and get himself killed before they had a plan, but at this point, the door flew open, and Garlan himself appeared in the doorway, much the worse for wear for what he must have gone through, to get in here.

At his side was his squire, who looked far more traumatized by what he had gone through, Nym had to admit.

She wondered how they had made it into the Keep so quickly, but did not have long to wonder even about that.

“Garlan,” Mace breathed, rushing to his son across the room and reaching up to check him over like a bitch with her pups for scratches or pain.

Garlan grimaced a little, and that was when Nym noticed how red his sword was. It practically glistened, in the dim light.

“Its fine,” he said, motioning to his arm, and then to the young man beside him, who still looked rather awed and horrified by what he had just witnessed. “Olyvar here saved me from the worst of them. He’s a good squire.”

Mace glanced over at Olyvar, and then grunted. “I thank you,” he said, through gritted teeth, as if this were one of the last things he wanted to say, “For saving my son.”

Olyvar stared, looking surprised to have been acknowledged at all, before dipping his head into something resembling a smile. “It was my pleasure, my lord,” he said, and Garlan rolled his eyes, reaching out to thump Olyvar on the back of the head.

The younger man grimaced, and Lady Nym eyed the two of them.

She knew who Olyvar was by name, of course, because his reputation rather preceded him. He worked for Baelish, worked rather…intimately for Baelish, from what she understood, doing his dirty work for him by seeking secrets from those whose beds he shared.

And now, he was here, saving the life of the Regent’s brother.

She supposed it looked almost as suspicious as she did, serving the Regent whom her own people had disavowed, and that in that case, she hardly had the right to cast stones.

After all, at this point, they were all only doing what they had to in order to survive.

“It’s Dorne,” Garlan grunted, as he sank down against the far wall, Olyvar moving to stand beside him. “Dorne fucked us. This boy just agreed to treat with King’s Landing, and Dorne turned around and declared war. Apparently,’ he said, and his eyes met Nym’s as he said it, “Their ships, the ones they just removed from our harbors, now have it totally surrounded.”

Randyl Tarly scoffed. “There weren’t enough ships left in the harbor by the time they left to hold it,” he said, “let alone really defend it.”

Garlan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter; the smallfolk certainly believe the threat, if the rabble outside is anything to go by. They…have informed us that they want the Witch Queen who cursed them with an incurable sickness that she herself survived,” his lips quirked downwards as he said those words, “brought out to them, so they can hand her over to the Dornish and ‘pledge themselves to a King who cares about the Seven, and the people.’”

Nym couldn’t help but mutter, under her breath, “And we know this Targaryen cares so much about the Seven because he’s spent so long in Westeros already. And his grandfather certainly seemed to give a shit about the smallfolk.”

Garlan grunted, as the noises of displeased surprise rushed through the room. “Fuckers were clear enough to the smallfolk about what they wanted. The smallfolk seem to think if they smoke us out first, they’ll avoid a slaughter.”

All eyes turned to Nym, then.

She lifted her chin. “I knew nothing about this,” she said, and wished that whoever had gone to find Margaery would wake her up and get her here, already. She didn’t like the looks these men were sending her, as if they’d like very much to lock her up for the color of her skin and the name she bore, as if she hadn’t proven herself by bringing Tommen to them in the first place.

Varys stepped forward then, looking rather disturbed by this turn of events, and shook his head. “The ambassador. The Dornish one; he’s gone. My little birds informed me of it just before we were all called here.”

Mace Tyrell went pale, at those words.

“Find my daughter. She was summoned, and hasn’t come yet,” Mace hissed out to the guards, as his hands reached out blindly to check over his son, and Nym was reminded of when she and Obara used to get into fights, and her father would break them apart and check them over for injuries.

Garlan, for his part, didn’t pull away from his father, as Nym always used to do whenever her father did the same.

“Find her, and make sure she has at least two guards with her,” he went on, and Garlan finally pulled away from his father, then.

Garlan and Nym exchanged a look, then, and she thought they finally understood each other, as they both turned and ran from the room.

* * *

Margaery didn’t know what awoke her, in the dead of night, with nothing but the darkness and her own sweat to accompany her.

She supposed it might have been another nightmare, this one merely one she did not remember, this time, but she thought that strange, for all of her nightmares these days seemed to haunt her even while she woke.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, doubting that she was going to be able to fall back asleep any time soon, and wondered how suspicious it might be if she informed the guard that she was going to spend time by Sansa’s bedside, until morning.

She doubted that he would be appreciative, and while she knew that her family had handpicked the new Kingsguard who accompanied her at all times, she doubted that she could trust them not to whisper of her actions, anyway.

There were not many Houses in the Reach who truly loved House Tyrell, after all.

She sighed, flopping back down onto the bed, the child in her womb stabbing against her bladder at the quick movement, and Margaery bit back a grimaced, sighing as she reached down to massage at her belly, hoping it might alleviate some of the pain.

And that was when she heard the clatter of something outside of her door.

Margaery started, then, sitting up in her bed, the sound putting all of her nerves on edge, reminding her of what that gold lion had sounded like, when she threw it to the floor after she had murdered her husband, even though she knew she could not truly be in danger.

Perhaps Alla was merely preparing things for the morning outside of her bedchambers, and had let something fall.

And then, there was no shallow cursing from Alla, no sound at all.

That made Margaery all the more worried.

“Guard?” She called, and when no response was forthcoming, beyond the sound of crashing metal, Margaery swallowed hard and got up from her bed.

She didn’t reach for her shawl, the night feeling strangely hot, for King’s Landing’s nights these days, but instead walked towards the door, something like fear crawling its way up her spine.

Something was wrong.

She knew it, even if she didn’t know what it was, even if a part of her was telling her that she was simply imagining things, that she was safer in King’s Landing these days than she had seen in some time-

She opened the door.

Opened the door, and let out a cry of shock before she managed to cover her mouth with her hand, remembering only at the last moment that she should be quiet, if this had happened right outside her door, if it was likely that whoever the assailant was, was still out there somewhere.

Her Kingsguard, the two of them who watched out for her every night, lay on the floor in her parlor, in Joffrey’s parlor, their heads bashed in, helmets twisted at horrible, misshapen angles, eyes wide and unseeing.

One of them had his sword out, laying on the ground beside him.

It looked as if the other one had not even managed that, his sword still in its sheath.

Margaery swallowed hard, shoving down the nausea she felt at the sight of their heads in such a position, at how…unnatural they looked.

At how much they looked like Joffrey had, after she had done with him.

She stumbled back, slamming the door to her bedchambers shut without a second thought, her hand reaching down to brush against her pregnant belly, and Margaery felt the fear spiking up her spine again.

No, she thought. No, this couldn’t be happening.

The door to her bedchambers flung open, then, nearly falling off of its latches as Ser Robert Strong burst through her chambers, covered in that awful golden armor that he always wore, that always covered the majority of her skin, and Margaery scrambled back, felt her back falling against the bedpost as she lifted a hand, not sure if it was meant to ward him off or plea for her life.

She doubted there was a single shred of mercy in this man, if, indeed, he was still even that.

She swallowed hard, felt the panic welling up, as her back pressed further into the bedpost, as she felt herself grow limp at the realization that if the Mountain had been able to kill two of her men before the first could even draw his own blade, she, a pregnant woman, was hardly going to be able to fend him off.

She screamed.

Long and hard and desperate, in the barest hope that someone was out there, someone was still away and could, at the very least, send for help.

The ragged scream tore its way through her throat as the Mountain reached out for her, ripping her from the bedpost like she was a limp doll, and not clinging to the bedpost with all of her might.

She didn’t have the time to wonder if the Mountain had come for her or her child, if she had miscalculated this poorly in forgetting the fucking Mountain when she had decided to see how Baelish might use her sin.

Fuck.

Cersei may want her dead for everything she had done against Cersei, but she thought the woman would not hurt her child, not while Tommen was here, and not after what had happened to Lannisport.

But Margaery...Margaery was nothing more than a thorn in Cersei’s side, had always been.

She supposed the other woman reveled in this, now. She supposed Cersei probably didn’t think Tommen was going to live very long here, either way, to do something like this.

That bitch.

And this was clear in the orders the Mountain must have been given, she thought, as he stood over her, not even panting after the way he had ripped her from her bedpost and thrown her across the room.

She cried out in pain, twisting at the last moment to land on her back out of sheer desperation.

Now, he drew his sword, the one that Margaery had been a fool to let him keep, but then, she had thought…

Well, she hadn’t really been thinking, when she banished him from the Kingsguard, save for the worry that if she kept him on, he’d kill her before she could even declare herself Joffrey’s child’s Regent.

And how well that was turning out for her, she thought, grimacing in pain at the thought that she might have just broken a rib, or felt her baby die in her belly.

Margaery let out a ragged laugh, and that was when the Mountain moved, faster than a creature of his size should have been able to. He had never been fast, when he was the Mountain, only far too strong.

Ser Robert Strong.

Cersei did have a sense of humor, Margaery supposed.

And then she wasn’t supposing anything, as the Mountain raised the sword he yanked from its sheath, still bloody with the remains of her guards, to bring it down on her neck, and she acted.

Acted, because she remembered the way that Oberyn had fought him, and she wasn’t a fighter, like Oberyn Martell had been, but he had also been fast.

And if he hadn’t stopped to gloat, he could have survived.

Lady Nym had survived.

She had been fast, when she escaped Joffrey’s clutches.

She had to be faster, now, even if a part of her knew that it was a fool’s hope, that there was no way in the Seven Hells that she was going to manage to outrun the Mountain for good, that he would get her, in the end.

Lady Nym might have survived him, but Lady Nym was strong, and she wasn’t eight months pregnant with a child who could leave her at any moment.

The Mountain bore down on her, the dark shadows of the room making him look like a monster in the night, and Margaery screamed again, knowing it was just as unlikely as before that someone might hear, letting out a whimper as his hands reached for the silk skirt of her slip.

Margaery flailed, clawing at the ground, at the table legs near her balcony, desperate for any leverage she could find, even as a part of her knew it was useless.

But…no.

This wasn’t how it was going to end, clawing for her life in her final moments, while Sansa lay dying on the other side of the Keep.

This couldn’t be how it ended.

Her hands closed around the vase that clattered to the ground as she upended the table, before it could break into pieces.

The Mountain seemed startled by the noise, but only just, as he gave her legs a vicious twist and forced her onto her side.

Margaery was sure that the only reason she was able to do what she did next was sheer adrenaline.

She lashed out, throwing the vase at his head, and she honestly didn’t expect that to do much, so she was pleasantly surprised when it seemed to knock him slightly off balance, the sword lowering for the barest of moments as he tried to regain his footing.

Margaery rolled out of the way of the man, crawling forward because that was all she could manage, at the moment, with the way that the Mountain had thrown her against the wall.

Her back was not broken, that was clear from the way she was still able to move, but gods, did it hurt.

She felt blood on her forehead, from when he had thrown her, and she wondered if this fight was even worth it at all, despite everything in her screaming at her to keep going.

Wondered if she had already lost the child in her womb, from this. She couldn’t think that it would survive something like this, something this violent, when it had already survived her husband raping her, and she had been surprised enough about that.

A child that, if Cersei had her way, Margaery would now never be able to see grow up.

No, Margaery thought, desperation fueling her as she crawled forward across the ground, as she heard the loud thuds of the Mountain’s footsteps, behind her.

No, Cersei was not going to steal this from her, as she had stolen Loras. Cersei was not going to steal from her the chance to see her child grow, to see her child become a better King than Joffrey could ever have dreamed of.

She had survived Joffrey.

She could survive his pet, too.

The Mountain reached down then, grabbing Margaery by the hair that she had foolishly allowed to start growing back out, after the pirate captain had cut it, and ripping her head backwards, pulling her halfway off the ground and very clearly off balance.

She cried out, as his blade pressed against her neck, digging into it.

She thought the most disturbing thing about all of this was that she could not hear the sound of his breathing, not at all.

The blade started to cut into her throat, as his other hand, as big as her head, reached around to grip her neck, holding her still.

Margaery let out a scream while she still had the chance to make noise, for surely the Kingsguard were nearby and would have to hear her, the likes of which she had never uttered before, ripping at the muscles of her throat, desperate and terrified, a plea for help, for something, at the very least. And then the fingers around her throat tightened, cutting her off, and the Mountain lifted her from the ground like a rag doll, slamming her head so hard against the wall that she could instantly feel the blood seeping from the back of it, that a part of her was surprised that she was not already dead, or at the very least, no longer capable of coherent thought.

She wondered if this was how Elia Martell had felt, in the last moments of her life, as this man had squeezed the life from her. She wondered if Elia Martell had screamed. If anyone could hear those screams, but hadn’t cared enough to come.

She wondered if it was poetic, now, that she was dying in the same way, when she was giving birth to a child she couldn’t even claim was her husband’s.

Her hands clawed raggedly against the creature, who was far stronger than a man, far stronger than Joffrey had been, when he had attacked her, holding her, legs kicking out desperately against him, but she could barely breathe, and she didn’t know if it was because of the lack of air or the way he had slammed her against the wall, but her vision was turning fuzzy, black.

She dragged in one desperate breathe, and then another.

And she only had one thought, in that moment.

The baby.

She was going to lose the baby because of this. Even if someone did come, even if she somehow did survive this long enough that someone might wonder why there were two dead guards outside of her room, she was going to lose the baby.

This sort of thing…pregnancies didn’t survive it.

And she didn’t have the good fortune to have suffered a violent rape and a violent assault. The gods did not care so much about her, after all.

They didn’t care enough about the bastard child of a noblewoman and a whore.

And then, suddenly…the pressure around her throat was gone.

Margaery sagged against the wall, spots in her vision still, panting hard, every breath hurting, reminding her of the time in Dorne where Arianne had sent a false assassin after her, to convince her to go to the Water Gardens.

And when she opened her eyes, Lady Nym was staring at her.

For a moment, Margaery allowed herself to wonder if this was all just an elaborate dream, every horrible thing that had happened to her since she had left Dorne, every inconvenience, every bit of suffering.

And for a moment, she wanted to believe that. Because if it was true, it meant that Sansa was still all right, that she would wake up and find that the other girl was fine, that she herself was fine, that she wasn’t pregnant with a child who could become every bit as horrible as her husband had been-

“Margaery!” Garlan shouted, and then she could see him, swimming before her vision, Lady Nym suddenly gone. “Margaery, it’s alright,” he told her. “He’s gone.”

She glanced around the room, panting, trying to come back to herself.

The room was full of her Queensguard, too damn late for their jobs, and Lady Nym, who stood panting there. There was blood all over the floor, streaks of it staining all into one big pool.

But the Mountain wasn’t gone, dead on the floor beside her.

He was gone. Damn him, he’d gotten away.

And she didn’t know how she had managed to survive that, how Nym and Garlan and these members of the Queensguard had managed to survive it when her guards outside had not, but Margaery felt herself slumping against the wall, vision swimming, each breath she drew in hurting.

And while she was not surprised to see that there were in fact two dead Kingsguard on the ground in place of the Mountain, Margaery reached up and pressed her fingers to her bruised throat.

He was still out there.

“My…the baby,” she whispered, and winced at how hard it was to speak, at the rasp in her voice.

Dear gods, she thought, her hand going to her stomach.

She felt nothing. No kick, no reassuring push against her bladder. Nothing.

Margaery felt the blood rush from her face.

Garlan nodded. “We have sent for the maesters, Margaery. Are you all right?”

He said it like he didn’t give a damn if the baby was or not, and Margaery loathed him for it, for a moment, before she put forth the effort to actually answer his question.

She nodded, closing her eyes. “Then find him, godsdamnit,” Margaery rasped out, and then she knew no more, beyond the realization, horror-filled, at the back of her mind, that this was all her fault.

That she had done this, she had all but courted Cersei’s vengeance, in her attempt to weed out Baelish. That, if she had known he would betray her, she should have just turned against him rather than attempt to prove it.

Sansa woudln’t care, just as she hadn’t cared that Margaery wanted to kill Joffrey. She had stood by her then, she would have stood by her now.

Gods, this was her fault.

She had all but invited the Mountain to come and kill her, and her son, just as it was her fault that Joffrey had attacked her that night, because she’d forgotten how to control him, because she hadn’t held him back, at the Sept.

And then she saw black, for a few moments.

When she awoke again, there was a maester leaning over her, the man pressing smelling salts to her nose and looking terribly concerned, and Margaery flinched away from the other man’s touch, the feel of the Mountain’s hands still on her, even if he was gone, now.

“Margaery,” she heard her brother say, and then his hand was reaching out to clutch at hers, and Margaery wanted to jerk away from the touch, wanted to tell him to get away, wanted to tell them all to get away, but she fired herself to breathe in, instead.

The Mountain. The baby.

Her eyes flew to the Grandmaester. “The baby,” she said, and tried not to think about how he wasn’t one of the Tyrell maesters she’d ordered be the ones to actually look over her pregnancy.

The Grandmaester grimaced. “You gave us all quite a scare, Your Grace,” he informed her, though the words were surprisingly gentle, from him. She supposed that was merely because she was the Regent. “But, it appears that the child still moves within you. I have prescribed a poultice for you to drink, to begin the quickening soon, but the rest is in the hands of the gods. Until then, I’m afraid that the precedent we had set in place, where Your Grace should remain abed for the remainder of her pregnancy, must again go into effect, or I cannot guarantee the health of the child.”

Margaery licked her lips. “The gods,” she murmured, trying not to let on how she really felt about that, about the fact that her pregnancy now very much depended on the gods, even if she was relieved that she had not at least lost the babe after all of that.

Her hand went to her womb, unbidden.

She remembered the feeling when the Mountain had thrown her across the room, when she had felt one of her ribs snap, had known that it was very likely she had just lost her child.

“You’re sure?” She asked the maester, a little more desperately, then. “You felt him move?”

The Grandmaester dipped his head, getting to his feet. “Your Grace,” he told her, and got to his feet, then.

It was only then that Margaery realized she had been moved from the floor to her bed, and she flinched a little, the bed being the very same one that Joffrey had raped her in, the same one that the Mountain had just thrown her away from.

Perhaps Nym was right, and there was something quite mad about her, that she should want to sleep in these particular chambers.

She glanced around, found that, besides the Grandmaester and Garlan, Lady Nym was still leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed, and her father was hovering at the end of the bed, looking terribly concerned.

She swallowed hard, feeling something like tears pricking at her eyes. “Did you find him?” She demanded of Garlan, because she couldn’t look at her father just now, not with that look he was currently sending her way.

Garlan shook his head. “We have the guards scouring the Keep for him,” he promised her, and Margaery felt her mouth grow dry, tried once more to sit up before Garlan gently pushed her back down. “We’ll find him, Marg, I promise you that. He’ll pay for this.”

“Sansa,” she breathed, and from the corner of the room, Nym scoffed.

“I’d be more worried about yourself, Your Grace,” she said. “Lady Sansa has been checked on, though,” she went on, and only then did Margaery find herself laying back in relief.

Sansa was fine.

The babe was fine.

And then the Grandmaester was walking out of the room, leaving them all alone.

Mace glanced at Nym; the other woman let out a sigh, and then nodded to Margaery and departed as well, and it was just Garlan and Mace, now.

Margaery found herself almost wishing that Nym hadn’t left.

“We’ve put too much responsibility on you of late, my dear,” Mace said, from where he still stood at the end of her bed, hanging onto one of the bedposts that she had been clinging to earlier, that the Mountain had pulled her off of so easily.

She grimaced, glancing down at her bruised fingers.

“I…I’m glad that the baby is all right,” she whispered, hoarsely, and now, she could feel a tear escaping down her cheek.

Mace scoffed. “It could have just as easily gone the other way. This was…this was too far. That…creature belongs to Cersei; she is responsible for this, and against her own grandson, as well.”

Margaery flinched; out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the knowing look that Garlan sent her way, but chose not to acknowledge it, not with their father still in the room.

“I just…” Margaery glanced down at her stomach again. “I didn’t realize that this would be so difficult. That she would be so difficult.”

But she had, hadn’t she? She’d known exactly what Cersei was going to do, when she had told Olyvar to tell Baelish the truth about their relationship if he ever asked about it, but to at least warn her, so that she could prepare for it.

She’d known, and she just hadn’t wanted to believe it, and she had nearly gotten her child killed for it, all so that she could prove to Sansa that she knew better about Baelish, about whether or not they should trust him.

She swallowed hard, looking away.

Silence filled the room.

Her father moved forward then, taking her hands into his, staring down at the bruises as if he was committing each and every one to memory.

“You can’t be surprised,” Mace said, and while his voice was gentle, the words were not.

Margaery flinched back, at the sound of them.

He sighed. “You need to be more careful, my dear,” he reminded her, the words sounding soothing by cadence, even if they made Margaery want to cry.

She didn’t think she had cried in front of her father in a very long time.

“You’re not just the wife of the king, now,” he reminded her, and Margaery stared at him, her brows furrowing at the words, not understanding why he thought she didn’t realize that. “You’re a mother, too. That means that you must slow down, and keep better protection around you at all times.”

She jerked back, then, out of his touch, and her father looked confused, and even hurt, for a moment, at the action, and Margaery didn’t have the patience to tell him why his words hurt her even more.

She just nodded, and forced a smile.

Garlan grimaced. “Father…” he began, and for a moment she thought he was going to defend her, lifted her hand to tell him not to bother.

But instead, Mace interrupted. “The Dornish. Those traitors, they’ve declared war on us,” he informed Margaery, and Margaery felt her back stiffen, as she stared up at her father in horror.

“I thought…but we sent a letter to the Targaryen boy, told him that we would be willing to meet with him, did we not?” She asked, carefully.

Her father didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Apparently, Dorne is acting on their own accord, with only the ships that they recently removed from our harbors, when they sided with Aegon Targaryen. But if they are here, more will come.”

He looked at her, a long, knowing look, and Margaery swallowed hard, feeling much like a child brought to task for having imperfect letters.

She took a deep breath. “Surely we can recall a few ships from the Reach then, if that is all, and Euron Greyjoy is in the Westerlands, now.”

She still shivered, at the reminder of what he had supposedly done there. They were still getting reports, of what had happened to Casterly Rock, of the death toll in Lannisport.

So far, there was not a single sign of Euron Greyjoy. Not in the Westerlands, and, hells, not anywhere.

She swallowed hard. She didn’t like the thought that he could materialize from one place to another so easily, and then disappear from that place just as easily, as if he were nothing more than a nightmare with the ability to do so.

Her father did not meet her eyes, and Margaery understood, then.

The gods may have spared her child, tonight, but they would always find a new way to punish her.

Margaery reached up to scrub at her face, realized only then that a large bruise covered her cheek, where she touched it, and flinched back.

“There’s more,” she breathed, and this time, her father did not quite meet her eyes.

It was only then that she noticed that the amount of blood that Garlan was covered in could not possibly have matched the Mountain’s, if the creature had gotten away from them so easily, and he did not hold himself as if it were his own.

Garlan grimaced, reaching out to take her other hand, then, the one that she had yanked free of her father’s.

“They’ve…the Plague, the one that the maesters can’t make heads or tails of,” he told her, and the words were almost gentle, but not quite. “It’s moved beyond Flea Bottom. Despite our attempts to evacuate those who were not affected outside of the city, it moved too quickly. The Smallfolk…Someone informed the smallfolk that the Regent had been ill with the same sickness when you were first pregnant with Joffrey’s child, and that somehow, you survived.”

Margaery flinched.

“And that…” Garlan winced a little, before continuing, “That you frequently made use of a Red Woman who cast spells on you, so that you would survive the Plague she knew was coming to the city. That this plague was meant to be a punishment to you for your part in the death of the…High Sparrow, but because of this foreigner’s spells, it has been cast on the people, instead.”

Mace scoffed. “That is the most ridiculous thing that I’ve ever…”

“It’s true,” Margaery blurted out, and they both turned to stare at her. She felt herself blushing, and wasn’t entirely sure why. She supposed it was because this was the first time, since she had become Queen, that she found her father and her brother both demanding an explanation for her actions. “Not…not about the curse,” she went on. “But I did…I did consult a Red Woman. About whether or not I would be able to have a child. I…” she reached up to brush at her forehead. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it would be a good idea at the time.”

Mace stared at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Garlan looked like he was struggling not to laugh at her expense, given how serious the situation was.

“Why in the seven hells would you do that?” Mace gritted out. “Margaery, Stannis Baratheon’s whore is a Red Woman. He follows the ways of a false god who claims the Seven are nothing more than a way to control the people. Half the reason the people are against him is because of this. He…”

“I know,” she whispered, hoarsely.

“Then why would you do it?” He demanded, and Garlan cut in, then.

“Father, don’t you think she’s been through enough tonight?” He asked, and Margaery felt suddenly, absurdly grateful to her brother.

Mace shook his head. “Is there anything else we need to know?” He asked.

Silence was his answer.

He stared between the two of them.

Without thinking, Margaery placed a hand on her stomach.

Her father’s eyes tracked the movement, and she knew the moment he realized, the moment he realized exactly what it was she had done to get this far.

Her father reached up, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Turned away from the two of them when he saw the lack of surprise on Garlan’s face.

Swore under his breath.

When he turned back to them, he looked almost composed. “Whose is it?” He demanded, and Margaery flinched.

Garlan glanced away.

“Damnit, girl, who is the father?” He asked, and Margaery flinched, at how loud the demand was, glancing nervously towards the door.

Mace crossed his arms over his chest.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, hugging herself now, extracting her hands from Garlan’s. Mace scoffed.

“Doesn’t matter?” He asked, and stabbed his fingers in the direction of the window. “Your people are outside baying for your blood, and the Dornish have turned against us, apparently on their own because they’re too impatient to wait for an assault on two fronts, and this Targaryen has more of a right to the throne, whether he’s a pretender or not, than the bastard in your womb, but all you seem to care about is your sleeping lover. Don’t tell me what you think matters, now.”

Margaery flinched.

Garlan rose to her defense, as he always had. “Father, that’s unfair. Of course Margaery cares-“

“I’ve been watching her from the moment she took the throne and declared herself Regent,” he gritted out. “I can’t even say I recognize who you’ve become since then.”

Those last words were directed at her again, and Margaery hung her head.

She couldn’t say that she could, either.

And she couldn’t say that she had an explanation for those actions, either. This was all her fault.

And she knew what she could say, that he had thrown her at Joffrey because he wanted a queen for a daughter, that her husband had been a monster from their very last moment together, that she had made the best of the situation her father had wanted of her from the beginning, but she knew none of that mattered.

None of that mattered, because she could see by the horror in his eyes, by the way he’d been watching her, for months, unable to reach her anymore than Sansa or Garlan had been, confused about her every action, that he wouldn’t understand.

That he’d had enough, and no amount of explaining herself was going to fix that.

Yes, her husband had raped her. Yes, she still flinched every damn time a man touched her, or a woman, for that matter. Yes, she hadn’t cared as much about the throne as she ought to have.

And she would like to make up for all of that, she would.

But forgiveness didn’t matter in this world, only actions, and hers had been woefully slim, of late.

She swallowed hard, for the moment that thought hit her, another took its place.

She knew what she had to do.

“That’s not her fault, Father. None of this is her fault. All of this, it’s because-” Garlan was saying, and Margaery, distantly, felt the blood drain from her face as she realized he was about to tell their father her secret, the one that she’d never wanted her father to know, because he may have been the one to throw her into the Lannisters’ arms in the first place, may blame her for fucking it up so badly since then, but he was still her father.

She didn’t want him carrying that burden, as well.

But the rest of her was barely thinking about that, at all, because another thought had hit her.

The world seemed to slow down, her brother’s words no longer holding any meaning as he yelled at their father now, the words draining out of him like the blood on his hands, because she wasn’t hearing him, was seeing only her place in that Sept, silent while her husband killed all of those people with a few angry words.

Joffrey had wronged her, but he had wronged so many others, too, and she couldn’t atone for all of them with words.

Forgiveness didn’t matter, in this world. Only action.

Her father would never forgive her, she knew, for the way she had royally fucked things up, after he had done what he considered a great boon, in handing the Queenship to her.

The people would never forgive her for standing by and watching Joffrey spiral into further madness, at their expense.

The people wanted Joffrey’s blood, and they couldn’t have that, because Margaery had stolen it from them, when she’d killed those men for supposedly murdering their king, as well.

All of this time, she had been praying for the forgiveness she sought from the gods, had been hoping at the very least, she could forgive herself, but it was not her own forgiveness that she needed, not truly.

She had killed her husband.

She did not feel guilty for that. She felt guilty for the ease with which she had become a murderer.

She still felt blood between her toes while she dreamt. Still heard the screams from the people who had come to watch the spectacle of her funeral.

It was to them she owed her guilt.

She remembered, once, a long time ago, she had thought she knew what was wrong with Cersei’s reign of terror, why her people hated her no matter what she did.

She made the people fear her, seemed to revel in it, while Margaery always sought to make them love her.

Well, she had lost their love, and with it, she knew, she would lose the throne.

And there was only one thing she had left to give.

Margaery sat up, ignored Garlan’s startled noise when she did so, ignored the pain in her limbs as she struggled to her feet, ignoring her brother as he reached out to her, told her that she was supposed to be resting, that she couldn’t get up, just now.

She got to her feet, stumbled a little under the weight of her legs, wheezed when she found it suddenly so difficult to breathe because of her broken rib.

Her father had turned away from them; his shoulders shaking, his hands lifted to cover his face.

She doubted he would ever meet her eyes again.

Margaery made a dash for the door, barely noticed the way Garlan hesitated, glancing nervously at their father, at the thought of leaving their father alone in these rooms, before chasing after her.

“Margaery!”

She knew what she had to do.

This had been a message, from the gods, from…whatever was out there, a warning. She had survived this, but there was still such a chance that her child would not, that Sansa would not.

Not if she didn’t fix this.

And she knew what she had to do, even if her heart beat wildly in her chest at the thought of how she must go about it, just now.

She had held off too long on this; she was not Cersei Lannister.

She did not want her people to fear her, but to love her.

* * *

Lady Nym had gone to stand in the Great Hall, after Mace Tyrell had dismissed her from Margaery’s chambers.

She hated the thought that she had been dismissed, like nothing more than a servant, when her bond with Margaery ran so deeply, at this point, despite the woman’s past few months of being…not herself.

But she knew that it wasn’t her place to stay, either.

So she wandered down to the Great Hall, where Randyl Tarly was already preparing to wait out a siege, it looked like, and soldiers had lined up to take care of things, should the mob outside somehow find their way past the doors.

He looked like he was ready to send his soldiers out there to slaughter them all, and Nym remembered that it was rumored, after Baelish had left the city, that someone else would soon be named the Hand of the King.

She wondered if he was vying for the position, if he was stupid enough to think that Margaery would not give it to her father, who so clearly wanted it.

“Do we know who even leads these people?” She heard Randyl Tarly asking one of the soldiers, and Nym could hear the disdain in his voice from her.

The soldier shook his head. “They…do not appear to be organized in any clear way, my lord,” he said, and Nym scoffed, keeping her feelings to herself, however.

Of course they were organized. Someone would have had to wrangle all of these people together, someone who had heard the Dornish ships’ ultimatum, before anyone else, or had been one of the few to do so.

A part of her suspected Baelish, or maybe even Cersei, for riling up the people now that they were safe from the city, but the clearer part of her mind wondered if this wasn’t just the final straw for the people of King’s Landing.

They had endured much, these past few years, after all, and while Margaery had promised them better lives than the ones they had suffered under Joffrey, she had not yet delivered on that, either.

They would not be calling Margaery a witch and calling for her head, otherwise.

But the soldiers didn’t seem to know more about the situation than the lords themselves did, from what Nym could tell.

She sighed, going to lean against one of the pillars as she listened to the mob riot outside the doors of the Great Hall, heard them scream for the Queen’s head, over and over again.

Nym wondered if it mattered to any of them that she was pregnant, or if they considered Joffrey’s child the spawn of evil, as well. She supposed it would not surprise her, if they did.

After all, it was not in her to feel much sympathy for a child who might belong to Joffrey Baratheon, either.

She saw Lord Varys then, standing across the hall, staring at her with a rather intense expression, and she took a deep breath.

Something about the man made her hair stand on end, and she didn’t like the thought of how long he might have been staring at her before she’d noticed.

He moved forward then, arms folded delicately in front of him, and she cast about desperately for some way to avoid him, and found none.

After all, she had few friends, here in King’s Landing.

“Lady Nym,” he said, and Nym bit back a sigh as she found herself turning to face Lord Varys.

She didn’t know what to make of this man. She knew that her uncle and he were not unfriendly; occasionally, they received letters from the Spider, even in Dorne, and her uncle hoarded those.

Whatever they schemed together, though, he could not be a friend of Arianne, she didn’t think, what with the way that her cousin had imprisoned her own father.

She did not know what it was that he was up to, what his plots were, as everyone in King’s Landing seemed to have them, but she did know his approaching her at all made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

After all, she didn’t even know what her uncle was capable of, in all of this. The longer she thought about it, the more she thought it strange, that her uncle should do nothing while their people suffered the deaths of Elia, of Oberyn, when he had lost both a sister and a brother, because of these people.

Arianne believed it to be pure cowardice, that he was sitting back and doing nothing because he didn’t want to expose their own people to war, but Nym didn’t think that was correct, either.

And the fact that he spent so much time passing letters back and forth with this man, who clearly had his own agenda, even if she couldn’t figure out what it was…

She sighed, reaching up to brush back her hair. “Lord Varys,” she greeted him. “It’s lucky that your…children were able to warn you about what it is the people want.”

Varys grunted; she knew that he didn’t like the nobles to know where he got his secrets, that Margaery didn’t approve of the children whose tongues he cut out so that he alone could use them as his little whisperers, and he was already walking on thin ice, around here.

If she didn’t know that Varys and Baelish hated one another, she would have thought he ought to be worried, by how easily she had gotten rid of one advisor who had been around for so long, and could so easily be rid of another.

But then, perhaps he thought himself untouchable, as Baelish certainly had.

“Not quickly enough, unfortunately,” he murmured, and looked…strangely sad, as he said those words.

Nym squinted at him. “Surely you cannot fault them for that,” she murmured. “They must have a time of it, writing down what they see because they cannot say it.”

Varys straightened a little, at the outright accusation in her tone. “You do not have to approve of my methods, my lady,” he told her. “Only their results. At least we know what the people want, now.”

“Not a lady,” she corrected him, coolly.

“I would have thought that your father would see fit to look out for your future, before he came to King’s Landing,” Varys said, the words more thoughtful than accusatory, and then, “But perhaps that is the reason you’ve remained here in King’s Landing for so long, when your own family has been more than antagonistic towards the throne.”

Nym’s brows shot up.

She was not a skilled politician; Arianne enjoyed that sort of thing, enjoyed bandying words with those who did not mean what they said and smiled through it all, but Nym preferred a much more straightforward way of going about things.

It meant that she was not often comfortable, around the lords and nobles of King’s Landing, but that suited her just fine.

She much preferred facing someone down at the end of a sword, anyway, and she thought she would be much more useful to Margaery in that regard, anyway.

But that didn’t mean she forced herself to try very hard at politics, anyway.

“I see,” Nym said, and she did, she supposed. She forced a shark’s smile at him. “You’ve gotten rid of one rival to the Queen’s ear, and now, you would be rid of another.”

His smile was equally thin. “I merely find it interesting, as I said, my lady, that you should be so…loyal to the Regent, when your own family clearly stands so strongly against her.”

Nym lifted her chin. “My uncle stood with the Crown, when he took Myrcella under his protection,” she informed him, primly. “He sent Trystane here to be a voice for Dorne in King’s Landing. He sent Oberyn here for the same. Dorne stood by the Mad King once, as well,” she said, and noticed something behind Varys’ eyes shift, at those words. She lifted a brow. “I do not understand what the…shortsighted actions of my cousin might have to do with me.”

He blinked at her for a moment, and then dipped his head, at those words. “I see,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive me; I have often thought that your cousin and you…Sand Snakes? Were all at one another’s ears.”

Nym lifted her chin. “Well, if that were the case I would not be here, would I?” She asked. “After all, I followed the Regent here for my own protection, after my sisters turned their backs on me.”

Varys’ brows furrowed; he looked genuinely surprised by her words. “I see,” he said, though she was quite sure that he did not. “Yes, you do have a…peculiar loyalty to her. I wonder what causes it, this faith that goes beyond simple loyalty in itself?”

Nym lifted her chin. “You are the Master of Whispers, are you not?” She asked, coolly. “I look forward to the day you figure it out.”

He was saved from responding by the murmurs behind them; Nym turned just in time to see Margaery marching into the Great Hall, pale and bruised, but at least she was walking on her own.

Not that Nym ought to be glad about that; after all, the maester had told her she would need to start staying in bed again, and here she was, barely a few minutes later, striding forward with purpose as if she had chosen rather negligently to refuse those orders.

Nym bit back a sigh.

“Your Grace,” Nym said, as Margaery walked into the Great Hall, a prominent bruise glinting in the torchlight, wrapped in a white shawl that cascaded around her bare feet.

She looked…terrible, Nym didn’t mind admitting, even if she was walking.

Margaery ignored her, and kept walking.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nym thought she saw Varys raise an eyebrow, and valiantly ignored the other man.

Margaery came to a pause before the great gates of the hall, and Nym flinched a little as she realized what the other woman was planning to do, reaching unconsciously for the sword tied at her waist.

“Open the doors,” Margaery commanded, a second time, and Randyl Tarly moved forward, pursed his lips.

“Your Grace, I fear that would be most unwise…”

“Open them,” she repeated, and Randyl Tarly, who was after all being ordered by the Regent, let out a sigh before nodding to the guards to open the door.

It wasn’t as if Baelish was around to claim that as the Hand of the King, he could stop her from doing so.

And by the look in Margaery’s eyes, Nym wasn’t certain anyone might have been able to stop her, either.

It was a rather disturbing thought.

The great gates were pulled open, none of the guards who had done so able to meet their Queen’s eyes as she stepped past them, out into the screaming crowd that only seemed to grow louder, as the doors opened.

Nym glanced at Garlan Tyrell, where he appeared out of the shadows behind his sister, and a simple understanding rolled through them. They followed after the Regent, out the doors, without another word.

Margaery Tyrell walked out onto the dais before the Keep, where hundreds of the smallfolk had already gathered, her guards fanning out behind her, looking just as confused as Nym felt, as Garlan seemed, by the look in his eyes as he followed behind Nym.

At least that confirmed that whatever the fuck she was doing now, she hadn’t planned it ahead of time with her brother. If she had, and Garlan Tyrell hadn’t managed to tell her to stand the fuck down, Nym would be rather disappointed in him, as far as brothers went.

Not that she knew anything about what it meant to have a brother.

The people did not stop screaming for her head; if anything, the sight of her, dressed only in her nightgown, hugging her pregnant belly, seemed to make them all the more furious.

Nym stared at Margaery, wondering if she was expecting their sympathy, after the way, moments ago, they had been calling for her death, as well.

She doubted she would be successful, if that was her intent.

But Margaery looked strangely in her element just now; despite the bruises, the exhaustion clearly seeping at her bones, there was a manic gleam in her eyes, a gleam that made Nym uneasy, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

She said nothing, as she stood before them, obviously waiting to be sure that she had their attention, before whatever it was she was about to do.

Nym squinted at her; she remembered a time, not so long ago, when she had found Margaery staring down out the balcony of her chambers, and for one heart-stopping moment, had believed that the other woman was going to throw herself to her death.

And then she had insisted on sleeping in Joffrey’s chambers.

Because Nym was a guard, a glorified guard at that, as Brienne of Tarth was for Sansa, neither of them respected for their positions despite their best attempts, she heard things. Heard the way the guards, even those chosen from among the most loyal Houses of the Reach, as they all had been after the King’s death, whispered about her.

They would die for their Regent, of course, but they all thought her mad. Some of them actually called her the Mad Queen, when they thought no one was listening.

As if she were any worse than Joffrey had been. At least she did not seem to enjoy torturing cats.

In this moment, Nym thought she might finally agree with them.

And then, Margaery Tyrell dropped down to her knees before the crowd.

The crowd went silent.

Nym sucked in a breath, saw Garlan already reaching for his sword, across the dais from her, looking terribly alarmed. She reached for her own knife, the one she kept inside of her shirt where it would be less noticeable to her opponents.

“Margaery,” Garlan then hissed, but Nym moved towards him, reached out a hand, placing it on his arm.

He glanced down at the hand, and then at her.

“I’m not just going to let her…” he started, but Nym shook her head at him.

“Let her do whatever the fuck she’s doing,” she whispered. “Or we’re all going to end up dead when they attack.”

“Oh, so instead I just let them kill her?” He snapped.

Nym forced a smile. “Your sister isn’t as foolish as you all seem to think her,” she pointed out, and Garlan flinched off her grip.

“I know that. It just would have been nice if she had consulted one of us before pulling a stunt like this,” he muttered, and went back to staring in horror at his sister yet again. Nym sighed.

Margaery leaned her head forward, as if she thought she had not made it obvious enough that she was now at the crowd’s mercy.

“She’s fucking crazy,” Nym whispered appreciatively, a small smile curving at her lips as for once, she recognized the woman who had stood in the Water Gardens and pledged to murder her own husband the moment she got with child.

The woman that a part of Nym had fallen a bit in love with, because for all of Arianne’s words, she could not imagine her cousin marching into the enemy’s kingdom and promising vengeance.

Garlan looked like he agreed with her, but he was hardly as admiring of Margaery as Nym felt, in this moment.

The motion did what words could not; even Nym, who had not been here for much of the drama with the smallfolk, thought she understood what was happening.

This was the Queen’s trial.

The trial that she had not allowed to happen, the last time the people had called for it, because she had allowed her husband to rescue her from what might have been a death sentence at the hands of a dangerous fanatic.

The trial they all still loathed her for avoiding, all still blamed her for everything that had happened since.

This was their chance to get the justice they had not been able to, against Joffrey, against the Queen who had stood by his side and smiled through everything he had done to them, the Queen who had allowed them to hope, for a few simple moments, that she might be different from any of the kings and queens they had known in the past.

Gods, they were willing to let Dorne invade them if it meant tearing their Regent apart; Nym thought that said enough about what they really thought about her.

Nym supposed none of them had ever dreamt that she would do something like this of her own accord, however. Would never offer herself willingly to them.

Of course, no one else standing on the dais, from the horrified Garlan to the disturbed looking Randyl Tarly, seemed to have expected it, either.

Margaery’s frame was shadowed in the torches the people held, all of them staring at her like they were expecting this to be some sort of jape, were expecting Margaery’s Kingsguard to come running out of the Keep and butcher them all, as if there were not far too many of them for that.

Nym licked her lips, reaching for her own sword.

She thought she knew what Margaery was doing here, mad or not, but she wasn’t necessarily any more reassured than Garlan that the other woman was going to succeed in it.

The people, however, seemed just as gobsmacked as Margaery seemed to have been counting on, if the way she glanced up under her hair was any indication, moments later.

Gods, this woman was crazy.

But Nym understood their confusion, their unease.

It was a strange sight indeed; Nym had never seen a queen bow before her people before, and she doubted it was the sort of thing that the smallfolk had ever imagined, either.

This was the lowest they had ever seen a queen, she thought, as she watched Margaery bend her head towards them.

The lowest they would ever see a queen, she had no doubt.

And then, as if in a slower time than the one she was used to, Nym watched one of the smallfolk bend down and reach for a rock, pick it up and straighten slowly.

“Fuck,” Garlan breathed, hand going to his sword; clearly, he had seen it, too. The word sounded unnecessarily loud in the silence, however. “Fuck, they’re going to fucking kill her, and the child.”

But Nym placed her hand over his.

Because she had seen Margaery, in recent weeks. Had seen how she had looked so close to throwing herself off of that balcony, before demanding to be moved into Joffrey’s rooms, had felt how easily it would be for the other woman to do so before any of her guards could stop her.

Had seen how she acted, in the weeks after her husband’s death. The shell of a woman that she had become, terrified by her own shadow, looking close to going mad even more now that her husband was no longer around to induce it.

But she had also seen how Margaery had come back to herself, in recent days, without Sansa there to hold her hand, to shield her from the worst of what the people thought of her.

And she did not think that Margaery intended to sacrifice her own life now, reckless though this seemed.

“She won’t thank you if you get us all killed by doing something, now,” Nym warned Garlan. “You should trust her.”

Garlan just stared at her in horror. Then, “Oh, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He demanded. “Finally be rid of your kingdom’s enemy, once and for all.”

Nym rolled her eyes, lowering her hand. “I think you have enough enemies just now without looking for more, don’t you?”

The rock went sailing through the air, and Nym winced as it hit Margaery in the arm; it wouldn’t hurt her too badly, where it had hit, of course, but it certainly didn’t help, after the beating she had just taken.

“No,” Margaery cried out, when the soldiers moved forward as if to intervene. “No,” she said again, throwing up her arm.

And then one of the smallfolk stepped forward, a short, thin little woman whom Nym thought she remembered; it took more than a moment, for her to figure out where she recognized her.

She had been the mother, the one who had accused Margaery of killing her son when he had been innocent.

The crowd moved like water, before her.

She paused before the man who had thrown the rock, looked at him with something like disappointment in his eyes. The man looked strangely…sad, for a moment, and then lowered his arm.

Nym sucked in air through her teeth.

Garlan looked like his eyes might bug out of his head.

The woman, the mother, stepped up onto the dais so that she was standing directly in front of Margaery. Margaery finally lifted her head, then, meeting the other woman’s eyes.

Whatever she saw there, Nym heard her gasp even from where she was standing.

“We do not have the luxury of seeking justice against you or any king, Your Grace,” the mother said, and despite her slight frame, her voice carried through the crowd. “In the end, your promises to us mean less than the dust I used to bury what remained of my son, weeks ago. And there is a son in your belly.”

Margaery flinched.

Then, stood to her feet.

She lifted her chin, and Nym thought she recognized the woman who had so recklessly offered to kill her husband for the Martells.

“I see,” she said, wrapping an arm around her belly; Nym thought she had been betting on that the entire time, but she looked strangely…touched. Then, “The sickness in Flea Bottom will be contained. The fleet in the harbor will be dealt with. And the money that my husband’s family forced out of you when they had no need of it will be returned.”

The people began to murmur amongst one another.

“My husband is dead,” Margaery went on. “And I cannot atone for the things that he did while he was your king. But I can give you what he would not; House Lannister, save for my goodbrother, has left King’s Landing.”

Murmurs spread through the crowd.

“The remains of the men accused of killing the King,” and Nym’s brows shot up at that, for it was as close to an admission that they had not actually done the deed as she thought the Crown would give, “Will be returned.”

The people seemed shocked to silence, once more.

“It cannot atone for the deaths of your sons, your brothers-”

“And should we merely take your word for it, Your Grace?” The woman from before, the mother, demanded then.

Margaery lifted her chin, meeting the other woman’s gaze. “For tonight, yes. Tomorrow, when we have dealt with Dorne, have delivered you from them and the vengeance they would heap upon King’s Landing for what was done to their princess, you will have your money.”

Silence.

And Nym; Nym wasn’t sure that was enough, after she had promised them her blood, had promised them justice, and then given them money, instead.

But perhaps she underestimated how much they had suffered, of late.

But they seemed to have calmed down enough about Margaery’s life, for now.

Margaery moved back from them. The people watched her in silence.

She walked back into the Keep with her head held high, her soldiers falling after her, every one of them looking as confused as the smallfolk appeared.

The moment the great doors shut behind them, Garlan moved forward and grabbed Margaery’s arm in a vice like grip. Randyl Tarly moved forward like he was about to interrogate her, but Garlan seemed to manage it first.

Nym had rather the same question; it sounded as if she had just promised to bankrupt the royal treasury, and while Nym couldn’t say she thought the Crown needed more money, there was a war on.

She didn’t understand how Margaery thought she could do both; get back the people’s love, and feed the army she would need to fight these new threats, this Euron Greyjoy and Aegon Targaryen.

Her cousin, Arianne.

Margaery smiled at him, even as she felt the earlier weakness spreading over her, the one the masers said was on account of her concussion.

For a moment, Nym though her eyes might roll back into her head and she might faint in front of all of these people.

Nym was pretty sure that after what she had just been through, she shouldn’t be standing, after all.

“I gave them what they needed,” she said, and collapsed in Garlan’s arms in an embarrassing swoon.

Nym pressed her lips together, for, while most of the Kingsguard and the nobles were staring at the Regent, she found herself looking out among the people once more.

And what she saw made her eyes widen in surprise.

They no longer looked like they were baying for the Queen’s blood; hells, many of them looked more confused than anything.

She supposed that could be viewed as an improvement, for now.


	34. King's Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively titled, "The one you've been waiting for. I think."

_Sansa heard the scream at the same time that the boy before her did, and she watched his eyes widen as the flask of poison still balanced between their hands hit the ground, hard, shattering on the marble floor._

_Sansa winced at the sound, for, though it was not nearly as loud as that pained scream, it certainly felt that way, in this moment._

_Her eyes met the boy’s, and he took one step back, and then another, his own eyes widening as he realized he had just destroyed their one way of killing Joffrey._

_Sansa couldn’t even bring herself to be angry with him, because she recognized that scream, and from that moment forward, only one thing seemed to matter._

_She had to get to Margaery. She had to figure out why she was screaming like that, when their plan required that Margaery be safe._

_All she had been meant to do was distract Joffrey for long enough that the serving boy bringing his evening nightcap a bit late would not be noticed, and now, she was screaming, and Sansa felt panic building up in her own chest, at the sound._

_“My lady?” the boy asked, looking terrified, now that he had destroyed the flask, but a sinking feeling within Sansa had her thinking, for some reason that she had yet to explain, that it didn’t matter that the flask had been destroyed._

_They weren’t going to need it._

_She hated the thought as soon as she had it, because she wasn’t certain where it came from, why she felt so certain at the thought._

_And then she was running, because it was not as if she could sit idly by and do nothing, at the sound of that scream, from the woman she loved. She had to go to her, and damn whatever plans they had made before this moment, something had clearly gone wrong._

_“Margaery!” she cried, an animal instinct rising within her, even a part of her knew that it was foolish to shout aloud the other woman’s name, to give any witnesses tonight more ammunition against them._

_But that scream...that scream had been filled with pain, and fear, and anger, and Sansa knew nothing but that she had to go to her, she had to find Margaery before she was forced to hear that scream again._

_The thought buoyed her into action, even as the boy behind her called after her, asking what it was that she wanted him to do._

_Sansa ignored him, kept running, and it didn’t matter, in this moment, how many people might end up seeing her running in the middle of the night towards the King’s chambers, not when Margaery was screaming like that, not when she had to do something to stop that awful noise._

_She didn’t know what it was that made her cautious, as she finally came to a stop outside of Joffrey’s chambers. Didn’t know what made her go still and quiet, gently pushing the door open and stepping silently inside._

_But she was glad that she had, by the sight that greeted her._

_Margaery stood in the middle of the King’s bedchambers, her skirts torn, her face covered in small cuts and deep purple bruises that were rapidly turning blue. Her eyes were wild as they looked up at Sansa and, in front of her, Ser Meryn, where he stood staring in something like disbelief at the sight of the room._

_Her legs were dripping blood, drop after drop crystallizing on the floor at her bare feet in a small pool, and at the sight of it, Sansa’s stomach churned._

_Because at Margaery’s feet, beside the small pool of blood, lay her husband._

_Or rather, what Sansa would have to assume was her husband, because Joffrey was all but unrecognizable, now. His blond hair matted by blood to the point where it looked almost brown, his eyes gone, buried in the head that had been split open and caved in._

_His clothes, too, were so heavily stained with blood that they might have belonged to a pauper as well as a prince, his body twisted at an unnatural angle._

_Sansa stared at the corpse, for a moment wondering if she ought to move forward and check that he was still alive, even as she found it suddenly difficult to breathe as the weight of this whole situation, of the fuck up they had just found themselves in, hit her._

_Joffrey had survived sweetsleep, and a great deal of it, enough that it should have killed him, and he had lived._

_Perhaps he could have somehow survived this. Perhaps the Stranger refused to take him in death, because he knew the abomination that Joffrey was._

_But...Sansa glanced up at Margaery again, saw the way the other woman was shaking, her knees threatening to give out beneath her, and Sansa knew that she couldn’t frighten the other woman with such worries._

_She didn’t know why this had happened, why Margaery hadn’t stuck to the plan that she had helped to create and waited for the serving boy to bring Joffrey his poison, even if that would have meant the death of the boy, as well, but they were here already, and Margaery had to have had a reason for it._

_Her thighs were dripping blood, still._

_Joffrey was very, very dead._

_But Sansa, for all that she thought she might be going into shock, found that she couldn’t help but take in every detail of the situation before her._

_Couldn’t help but notice the little golden lion, its head drenched in dark blood that matched the stains on Joffrey’s scalp, or what remained of it, that had been hastily kicked under the bed._

_Sansa couldn’t blame Margaery for that. Whatever had just happened, and that twisted feeling in Sansa’s gut wouldn’t leave her, she had at least tried to hide the weapon she must have used to bash in Joffrey’s brains._

_It wasn’t her fault that Joffrey’s bed was so high up off the ground, the weapon, along with the bloodied crossbow Joffrey had once made Margaery use to beat Sansa with, were clearly visible beneath it._

_Ser Meryn sucked in a breath; he had thrived, as many of the most sadistic had, underneath Joffrey’s rule. Sansa imagined those were the only types of people who might be at all moved by the little monster’s death._

_Sansa glanced over at him, suddenly nervous._

_It was difficult to tell the loyalties of a member of the Kingsguard, when the King was dead, after all._

_But it was very clear what had just happened here._

_“You…” Ser Meryn began, staring between what remained of Joffrey’s body and Margaery, reaching suddenly for his sword, and Sansa knew what she had to do._

_Knew that he had realized what had happened here, and he didn’t see her, not where she was, sneaking up on him, not in his shock at his king’s death, she supposed._

_Sansa knew that if Ser Meryn acted, neither of them would be able to take him on. Even if he was scum, as Tyrion used to say, he was still a member of the Kingsguard, which meant that he would be able to defeat both of them easily, in a fair fight._

_And, Sansa thought, glancing over at Margaery, she didn’t think the other woman was capable of fighting anymore, tonight. She looked like she was about to pass out._

_But Ser Meryn knew Sansa. He had interacted with her all of these years, the one Kingsguard amongst all of them on Joffrey’s command to enjoy hurting her, when he was told to. Tyrion had told her, once, that he enjoyed hurting little girls, and that she should try to avoid him at all costs, if she had the chance to._

_But he thought of her as nothing but the weak little dove that Joffrey saw her as, that Cersei saw her as. The victim, the plaything of a king, whom he would happily beat in that King’s name._

_Never a fighter. Never had she fought back against him, and Ser Meryn knew her well._

_Sansa knew that if she didn’t act fast, she would lose the element of surprise, and it was that which had her acting almost without thinking, moving while she still had the advantage._

_She swept the knife that Margaery had given her, for her own protection a lifetime ago, before Margaery had ever left for Highgarden, out of her pockets, and rushed at Ser Meryn, turning on him._

_She was not a fighter. Hells, Sansa barely knew how to use a weapon, for all that her brothers had been skilled at the sword, back in Winterfell. She had a basic idea of what to do with it, of where to hit the hardest._

_And Ser Meryn never knew what was coming, for all that he was a trained soldier, before she plunged Margaery’s small dagger into his ribs without thinking, afraid that if she did think, he would see that on her face._

_He stared at her, ripping his sword free of its scabbard with a loud ring that hurt Sansa’s ears, and she pulled the dagger out again, plunged it in a different spot, because she didn’t know what she was doing, not truly, and then again, as his own sword fell limply to the floor, as he grunted in pain and fell to his knees._

_And Sansa stabbed him again, this time higher up where she met the resistance of his chest plate, the sound of the knife skidding against metal even more horrible than that of his sword leaving its scabbard._

_He reached up, then, trying to fight her off, but he was already on his knees before her, and Sansa knew that if he somehow survived this, both she and Margaery would die for it._

_It didn’t matter that the Tyrells mostly owned King’s Landing, and would never let Cersei have their daughter if they could help it. Everyone always underestimated Cersei, and they were wrong to. Sansa knew that._

_She could feel the splatter of his blood against her skin, just as it must have splattered against Margaery when she killed her husband, to look as she did now, when she drove the dagger into his throat._

_She had wanted to slit it the way Tywin Lannister had ordered her mother’s to be slit, because at least he would die more quickly, but found that she didn’t quite have the strength to slide the knife like that against such thick skin._

_More blood, and Sansa was panting now, as Ser Meryn gurgled, falling forward on his hands, trying to cry out but finding that he no longer possessed the strength._

_It was ironic, she thought, wondering how many times she had found herself on her knees before him, waiting for him to beat her at Joffrey’s orders._

_And then he slumped forward, blood pouring out in a pool around his body, but otherwise totally gone._

_Sansa blinked down at him, forced her breathing to become a little less erratic._

_She tried not to think about what she had just done, about how instinctual it had felt, to kill this man like that._

_How easy, after all that time she had spent angsting over whether or not she could become a murderer, and just now, Sansa had done it without a second thought._

_She looked up to find that Margaery was staring at her with wide, startled eyes, before the woman fell back onto the bed in something of a heap, tripping over her own two feet as she came to a sudden stop._

_Sansa grimaced, walking nervously around Ser Meryn’s body, and then Joffrey’s, to stand before Margaery. She felt uncomfortable standing there, standing over the other girl, and so she knelt down beside her._

_“Margaery?” she asked, because with the look in Margaery’s eyes, Sansa wasn’t entirely certain that she knew where she was, much less what she had just done._

_Margaery blinked rapidly, several times, before she turned and gave Sansa a look. “I…” she licked her lips. “Why did you do that?”_

_Sansa’s brows furrowed. She tried studiously not to look in Ser Meryn’s direction, as she had noticed that Margaery was not looking in Joffrey’s, but found that she could not take her eyes off the man’s body._

_She had just killed him._

_She had just killed a man, and she had done it after angsting for so long over whether or not she would even be able to kill Joffrey, despite all of the horrible things that he had done to her, to her family._

_Oberyn’s death had haunted her for months, afterwards, and she had thought herself a killer merely for speaking against him, when she had never even raised a weapon against him, had once thought of him as her friend._

_But this…_

_Sansa had expected to feel guilt, to feel horror, with her first kill. Even Olenna had told her that was what she might feel, the first time, and it was obvious by the way Margaery looked when Sansa first walked in and found her standing over Joffrey that that was how she felt. But Sansa felt nothing but a hollow sensation, falling over her, at the sight of Ser Meryn’s body before them._

_She shivered._

_“He would have told Cersei, or Kevan Lannister, eventually,” Sansa said, and her voice sounded dead and as hollow as the inside of her felt._

_She wondered what that said about her._

_She had always wondered what she would become, the first time she killed a man._

_She wanted to be sick._

_Margaery shook her head. “I…”_

_“Are you alright?” Sansa demanded, moving her eyes back over to the other woman._

_Margaery opened and closed her mouth, swallowing hard. “I…”_

_“Margaery.”_

_Margaery’s eyes cut to Sansa, and a part of Sansa hoped that she had gotten through to the other woman, that she could see her again, through the wild haze that seemed to have fallen over her._

_“Did he...hurt you?”_

_Sansa tried her best not to look at the bed Margaery was currently sitting in, marveling in the fact that the other woman could manage it at all, when it was covered in blood, and Sansa could so easily guess what had happened there._

_Margaery swallowed, looking away. “Yes,” she whispered, and her voice was hoarse._

_From screaming, Sansa realized, dully._

_“Do I need to call for a maester?” Sansa asked, and her mind was already racing at the thought of how she would cover this up, after she had done so. If she would have to kill yet another, even if Ser Meryn Trant was hardly an innocent._

_Margaery licked her lips. “I...No. I...I will feel pain, for a little, but I don’t need a maester urgently,” she said, and her answers came so slowly, Sansa felt as if she were pulling teeth._

_Sansa swallowed hard. She didn’t want to ask for the details, and yet had a terrible feeling that she needed to, that Margaery might be underscoring the amount of pain that she was actually in, given the way she had limped to the bed, the blood Sansa had seen pooling on the floor below her thighs, earlier, as she stood over her husband’s dead body._

_She...she didn’t know what to do._

_Yes, she had gotten rid of Ser Meryn, who had witnessed all of this, who had walked in on Margaery and surely deduced everything that Sansa had, in those first few moments, but she had no idea what to do next._

_No idea how to cover this up, when their original plan had been to simply poison the King, a far more elegant solution._

_Yes, Garlan had the troops standing by, but would even Tyrell bannermen follow a Kingslayer wife?_

_Sansa gritted her teeth, forcing back frustrated tears._

_Gods, she didn’t know what to do. Joffrey lay in a pool of blood at her feet, beside a man that she herself had just killed, and Margaery was covered in her husband’s blood._

_She didn’t know what to do._

_Sansa shut her eyes hard, squeezing them, trying hard to think, but it was difficult with the sound of blood pounding in her ears._

_“Is he really dead?” Margaery asked, dumbly, into the silence. Sansa wasn’t certain whether she was speaking about Ser Meryn or Joffrey, but she answered all the same, quite sure._

_“Yes.”_

_Margaery didn’t respond for several moments, and Sansa forced herself to focus on nothing but breathing, because that was all that was important, just now._

_“I’m going to die for this,” Margaery whispered, and that was what finally broke Sansa of the panic filling her._

_Her eyes flew open, and she reached out, snatching Margaery’s hands in her own, trying not to react to the way that Margaery flinched at the slightest touch._

_“No,” Sansa hissed, and she felt a bit guilty for the hostility in her tone when Margaery flinched at that, as well. “No, I won’t allow it. Do you hear me? You’re not going to die for this.”_

_Margaery was already shaking her head, her whole body shaking along with it, and she wouldn’t meet Sansa’s eyes when Sansa tried to make her do so._

_“I’m going to die,” Margaery repeated. “I’m going to...dear gods, Sansa, I just killed the King of the Seven Kingdoms. My husband. I…” her words came tumbling out of her mouth, tripping over each other, and then Margaery leaned over the bed and threw up all over the floor beside her husband’s brains._

_Sansa watched in silence, aware that if she let go of Margaery’s hands, she might make this a little less awkward for the other girl, but finding that she was afraid to let go of her._

_Afraid that if she did so, she would lose Margaery forever._

_“Margaery, listen to me,” she said finally, as Margaery lifted her head and met Sansa’s gaze once more, reaching up with an already bloodied hand to wipe at her mouth._

_A part of Sansa wanted to be sick, as well, at how bad Margaery looked just now, pale and shaking and covered in blood that was both hers and her husband’s, but she didn’t quite dare._

_This Margaery, whom she barely recognized from the woman she had first met, reminded her of the mad glint in Margaery’s eyes as she went to face her grandmother, and Sansa knew that she couldn’t put the further burden of Sansa’s own feelings about this situation on her just now._

_She was afraid that it would break her, to know that her fears, her terror, was warranted._

_Sansa had to be the calm, had to convince her that they would be alright, even if she herself didn’t believe it._

_“Listen to me,” she repeated, voice calmer, tone slower, now. Margaery blinked for the first time since Sansa had entered the room. “I’m not going to let that happen. It won’t happen, do you understand?”_

_Margaery’s lips trembled. “He...he, I didn’t have a choice, Sansa, I had to. I had to kill him. He was...he hurt me, tonight. He’s never hurt me like that before.”_

_She still wouldn’t look at him._

_“The King, he...he raped me,” Margaery whispered, and Sansa closed her eyes, breathed in deeply. “And then he mentioned you, and I snapped.”_

_Sansa’s eyes flew open, then, and if she hadn’t felt guilty before, even in the knowledge that there likely would have been little she could have done, if she had only came earlier…_

_That clinched it._

_Margaery swallowed hard. “I didn’t think. I just did. I didn't think about our plans. Sansa, I don’t know how...I don’t think this is something that we can cover up.”_

_Sansa’s brows knitted together. “What are you saying?” she whispered, and tried to ignore the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one saying that Margaery might be right._

_Margaery shook her head, looking like she was going to get to her feet. Sansa held fast to her hands. “Cersei will never stop searching for whoever did this. She will never accept anything we say to her again. She’ll...she’ll find out, someday. We can’t hide this from her.”_

_Sansa swallowed. “Margaery, what are you saying?”_

_Margaery’s wild eyes turned to her. “I don’t know,” she whispered, hoarsely. “Only, I’d rather die when they chop my head off for killing my husband than…” her breaths were coming harder now, faster. “Than when she...Oh gods, Sansa. I…”_

_Sansa wanted to pull her in for an embrace, but wasn’t sure the other girl would want it, wasn’t sure that Margaery wouldn’t flinch away at the touch, as she had when Sansa had taken her hands._

_“Margaery,” she repeated, slowly, a vow before Margaery and the gods themselves, “I won’t let that happen to you, do you hear me? I won’t allow it.”_

_Margaery licked her lips, and Sansa hated the doubt she saw in the other woman’s gaze._

_And then there was a strangled gasp, a sound that didn’t come from Margaery at all, and Sansa’s eyes widened as she found herself looking up into the wide eyes of the serving boy who had nearly died to kill Joffrey, standing in the open doorway, and dear gods, if Sansa had had the presence of mind to kill Ser Meryn, she damn well should have had the presence of mind to shut that door, surely._

_The boy sucked in a breath, and then another, his gaze flying from Sansa to Margaery, and then back again._

_Sansa’s heart fell into her chest._

_No, dear gods, no. She had just killed Ser Meryn, and she felt nothing because of it, because she had done it without thinking._

_Perhaps that had been the problem, all of the times she had contemplated killing, before. She simply had put too much thought into it._

_But she didn’t want to kill this child, this boy, too._

_She squeezed her eyes shut, half hoping that when she opened them, he would be gone._

_He was not._

_Something cold settled inside of Sansa. She glanced over at Margaery, and found that the other girl was staring at the boy as if she didn’t see him at all, but someone else entirely._

_Someone who was lying at their feet._

_Sansa sniffed, hard._

_Inspiration hit her like a brick._

_A deal with the Stranger himself, but the last thing that she could think of to do, the only thing she could think of to do, just now, after what had just happened._

_And perhaps she would regret it in the morning, but just now, it was the only choice available to them, besides the chopping block, or Cersei’s revenge._

_And Sansa had just sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to lose Margaery to either._

_Gods, she’d come back to this awful place for Margaery. Everything else was circumstance._

_“Boy,” Sansa said, coolly, as the boy took a shuddering breath, staring at Joffrey’s corpse with wide eyes, “I need you to do something for me, if you value your life.”_

_The boy’s eyes flew over to hers._

_She wondered how long he’d been waiting, to hear of Joffrey’s death, to see his cruel master brought down with his own eyes._

_She wondered if it was worth it, to confront death so closely, in order to do so, but she could well imagine what serving Joffrey must have been like._

_“I need you to go down into the city,” Sansa said, and the boy was already shaking his head, but she didn’t allow herself to be concerned with that. He was lucky that he still lived. “I need you to go to the brothels, and find Lord Baelish.”_

_The boy opened and closed his mouth, eyes wide._

_Sansa ignored the sharp intake of breath from Margaery, where she sat beside her._

_Sansa wanted to close her eyes, herself, to open them and realize that all of this had just been some horrible nightmare, that she was back in Winterfell, safe and free._

_But Margaery wouldn’t be in Winterfell._

_And Sansa didn’t know how the fuck they were going to get out of this situation, because poisoning the King would have been clean, they would have been able to survive that, because poison was so difficult to trace back to an owner, when one’s name was not Oberyn Martell._

_But this…_

_Sansa didn’t know how to save Margaery from this, when the King was mutilated and Margaery was covered in his blood._

_Margaery was a mess. Margaery looked like she had gone into shock the very moment she had bashed her husband’s brains in._

_And Sansa...Sansa might be in shock herself, but someone needed to take control of this situation before they all found their own heads on the chopping block for kingslaying._

_So she had to send for the one person still left in King’s Landing who might be able to construct a lie clean enough to save them from this._

_She had just sent Tyrion away._

_The irony of the situation that, for all that he was Joffrey’s uncle, she might have trusted him better in this than Baelish, was not lost on her._

_Baelish was very clear about working only for his own ends, but she knew he was the only one who would be able to help them left in King’s Landing, now if they did not all want to wake in the morning and find a Lannister army on their doorstep._

_And after all, he was rather invested in Sansa. At the very least, she knew he would not want to see her Tully’s head on the chopping block._

_And...she was panicking, even if she was trying valiantly to hide it before Margaery and this boy. She didn’t know who else to turn to, and Baelish was the last person she had plotted with. He had known that they were going to kill Joffrey._

_“Tell Lord Baelish that Sansa Stark needs him to come to the Keep,” Sansa breathed out, and tried not to concern herself with petty things such as how difficult it felt to breathe, just now. “That the time has come for him to honor all of his promises to me.”_

_Let Baelish think of that what he would._

_The boy nodded, faintly. “I…”_

_“If you fail me,” Sansa continued, still finding it hard to pull in those rasping breaths, as Margaery sat panting beside her, “Serving Joffrey will seem like a mercy.”_

_The boy shut his eyes tightly, and Sansa regretted being cruel to him._

_But Olenna would have killed him, she told herself._

_At least she would not do that._

_Then the boy opened his eyes, giving her a little bow. “Yes, my lady,” he whispered, and started towards the door._

_“Wait,” she called after him, and the boy turned back around then, staring at her with wide eyes, looking like he thought he was about to die, in that moment._

_He should have thought of that when he was first approached about killing the King, Sansa thought, sourly._

_They all should have._

_“Give me the potion Lady Olenna gave you,” Sansa ordered, standing to her feet, leaving Margaery for all that it felt like everything within her was fighting the sensation, and holding her hand out expectantly._

_Margaery’s brows furrowed in confusion, but she said nothing as the boy fished in his pocket, and then handed it over, eyes very wide._

_Sansa held it tightly in her hand, and then nodded for the boy to go, shutting the door behind him and leaning hard against it._

_When she turned back around, Margaery had gone white._

_“Margaery?” she asked, gently, suddenly afraid of spooking the other girl._

_Margaery licked her lips. “I…” she reached up, touching her throat. “I…” she shook her head, as Sansa took a step towards her. “Why did you send for Baelish?”_

_Sansa pressed her lips together tightly. “He can help us.”_

_Margaery snorted. “He’s a snake,” she whispered, and Sansa swallowed hard._

_“Yes,” she agreed, “he is. But he’ll help, if I ask it of him.”_

_Margaery’s eyes flew to her. And then, she sagged a little further on the bed. “Will he?” She sounded tired._

_Sansa swallowed. “I’m sure he’ll have his price, of course, but yes.”_

_They sat in silence, after that. Margaery was shaking so hard that several times, Sansa was afraid she might fall off the bed._

_She wanted to say something, anything, to comfort the other girl, but wasn’t certain what might do it, after what she had just been through._

_And then there came a knock at the door._

_Margaery stiffened._

_Sansa glanced over at her, and then got to her feet, moving forward. She pressed her ear against the doorframe, and, when she was satisfied she didn’t hear the sound of armor out in the corridor, opened it._

_Wilted in a relief that she didn’t want to feel, when she saw Baelish, and realized that he had come alone._

_Baelish paused in the open doorway, his sharp eyes taking in the scene before him. A dead king, corpse mutilated, a dead Kingsguard, blood drenching the floor so deeply Sansa still didn’t know, even if she had sent for him, how they would cover it up._

_And...dear gods, the smell._

_And then Baelish was moving further inside, shutting the door behind him._

_Margaery jumped, at the slight sound._

_“Your Grace,” Baelish said finally, licking his lips. “Lady Sansa.”_

_Sansa got to her feet, wiping off the blood staining her fingers from where her hands had been touching Margaery’s. Margaery didn’t respond, either to Baelish or to Sansa’s hands leaving hers, and Sansa swallowed hard, tried not to show how worried she felt about the other woman, just now._

_About whether or not she would be able to survive what had just happened to her, because despite her panicked explanations, Sansa had been able to put enough together by now to parse out what must have happened._

_Her heart was breaking for the other woman._

_“Petyr,” she said, a desperate attempt to connect with him._

_His eyes lifted to meet hers. For the first time since she had known him, Baelish looked surprised, before he buried it deeply._

_Sansa licked her lips, knew what she had to offer, to gain his trust, something she would not have had to offer Tyrion, but she had been the one to send him away._

_Oh, dear gods, she had been the one to send him away when she thought that Joffrey was merely going to be poisoned, but this...Cersei would never stop hunting him, for this, if she even did believe the ruse that he had done it._

_“My husband is gone,” Sansa said, softly, willing him to understand what she was offering, because she wasn’t quite certain she wanted to spell it out in front of Margaery, in her current state. “He was my husband, and the Hand of the King, at one point, and now he is gone.”_

_Baelish raised a single eyebrow. “Am I to take it that both of those positions are being offered to me in exchange for my help?” he asked, and Margaery stiffened, on the bed, but did not object._

_Shocked as she looked, at the moment, surely she knew how fucked they were. How in need of a single ally who might be able to sweep this under the rug in a way that neither of them could do._

_But still, her eyes were wide where they focused on Sansa, now._

_Sansa dipped her head, swallowing hard. “I will be your wife, and you will be Hand of the Next King, should you help us tonight. We shall be indebted to you, Lord Baelish.”_

_It was the one thing she knew he could not refuse, the one thing he truly wanted no matter what his machinations were from one moment to the next._

_And she knew the moment she had him._

_She saw his eyes light with that particular fire that she had seen in them before, in Highgarden. And then, he smiled, grimly._

_“Provided I keep all of our heads off the chopping block,” he finished, for her._

_Sansa took a deep breath, nodding. “Yes, provided that.”_

_Baelish stood still for a moment, and Sansa held her breath as she watched him, as she watched a dozen emotions play across his face and wondered if it was because he was letting her, and had already made his choice, or because she had gotten that much better at reading her, after she had figured out what it was that he wanted from her._

_“It was good thinking, killing the Kingsguard,” Baelish said finally, pressing his lips together, and Sansa sagged in relief. “Of course, the serving boy will have to die, too.”_

_Sansa closed her eyes, wanting to tell him that no, she would not allow the boy’s death. She had all but caused this situation because she had waited too long, after all, hesitating when she realized that Olenna had always meant to kill the boy standing before her._

_If she had just moved, just gone more quickly, just taken the poison to the King herself, she might have spared Margaery some pain._

_But, she stayed silent._

_She had asked for Baelish’s help, after all, had specifically sent for him, and this was the price. A life for a life. In this case, the life of a boy she did not know in exchange for Margaery’s life, Margaery, who may not be butchered by the Lannisters when she had House Tyrell backing her up, but Kingslaying was a serious accusation, all the same, and if Cersei ever found out about it…If she found out about it because Sansa had insisted on saving the life of a boy with a loose tongue, Sansa would never forgive herself, and she already had enough weight on her conscience, tonight._

_She had asked for Baelish’s help._

_She could not reject it, now._

_Sansa could feel her heartbeat thumping in her ears. She wondered for how much longer that serving boy’s would thrum at all, or if Baelish had already killed him when the boy first came to him, and was only pretending otherwise for Sansa’s sake, just now._

_“Your Grace,” Baelish said, when Sansa was silent, merely nodded at his words, “You and the King were...alone, tonight.”_

_Margaery was suddenly shaking her head, the most cognizant Sansa had seen her since she had stepped into the room._

_“The maesters know that I have been told not to be with the King for the duration of my pregnancy, after the last scare,” she said, and dear gods, those words sounded like Margaery, but the wild eyes accompanying them did not belong to the woman Sansa knew so well._

_Baelish’s eyes narrowed, calculating. “And I suppose that if we say the King merely had his way with you anyway,” he said, and Sansa swallowed hard while Margaery flinched, her whole body going into shudders, “That will only cast suspicion.” A pause. “Very well. The King summoned you to speak about...something.”_

_He waited, patiently._

_Sansa wracked her brain for an answer, but again, it was Margaery who offered one._

_“He wanted to find some...inventive way to get back at the Leffords, for letting Stannis into the West,” she said, softly, and her eyes were somewhere far away, now. Sansa stepped forward, towards her, and hesitated when Margaery flinched at the sudden movement._

_Sansa felt Baelish’s eyes on the two of them_

_“We had been discussing it,” Margaery continued. “There are witnesses to those discussions, amongst the servants. It will not go amiss.”_

_Baelish nodded, silently. Then, “Yes. So you had an excuse to be with the King, late at night, and two of you fell asleep here. It doesn’t matter how.”_

_Margaery flinched again, and Sansa privately thought that it mattered to her._

_“And then,” Baelish continued, far too calmly, “Remnants of the fanatics, the Sparrows, snuck into the Keep to murder the King for their High Sparrow.”_

_Sansa scoffed, despite her earlier resolve to trust this man, wanting to laugh but worrying that it would border on hysteria, and though she could still feel the panic bubbling up within her, she had promised herself that she would try to be calm, for Margaery. At least for the night. But this...this was only a confirmation, that, for all that Baelish was a good liar, there would be no saving them from what had happened tonight, not truly._

_“No one will ever believe that.”_

_“No one is going to wholly believe anything we tell them, with the Queen looking like that and the sole Kingsguard meant to guard the King tonight dead,” Baelish told her, bluntly, and Sansa winced. “We just have to convince them enough that they don’t go digging for answers.”_

_Sansa licked her lips, feeling uncertain._

_“The King…” Margaery hesitated when both of their eyes flew to hers, looking uncomfortable under their gazes in a way Sansa had never seen her look, with others watching her. “He all but destroyed the Sparrows, in the Sept. And they were fanatics; they loved their martyr. People will believe it.”_

_Sansa tried not to be concerned with the way that Margaery kept referring to her husband as the King, rather than by his name. With the way that her eyes kept flitting over to his broken, mutilated body, as she spoke._

_Sansa wanted to reach out to her again, wanted to take Margaery’s hands in hers, but she didn’t quite dare, and she didn’t know if it was because Baelish was watching, or because she didn’t want to see Margaery flinching away from her, again._

_Baelish nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “It will be a poor story, but a decent enough one. The Queen Mother allowed the world to think Robert Baratheon had been speared by a boar because he drank too much. It will work better than that one.”_

_Sansa pursed her lips. “But he was,” she said. “That’s the difference.”_

_Baelish shrugged. “Lady Sansa, the truth is what we make of it,” he told her, calmly, eyes calculating, as if he had weighed her in that moment and been disappointed. Sansa looked away._

_“The fanatics snuck in through the tunnels. They were let in, by a noble with a grudge against the King, because that will be the easiest story to believe, rather than that they made it in here without being noticed themselves,” he continued, and Margaery looked rapt, by his tale, even though she had lived through the truth._

_A part of Sansa wondered if she was trying to commit this new truth to memory, so that she did not have to remember the old one at all. Sansa could not say that she blamed her._

_“They came into the room where the King and Queen slept, after their talk, because the Queen was too tired in her pregnancy to return to her own chambers.”_

_“Her chambers are right next door,” Sansa said, dryly._

_Baelish shrugged. “I’m afraid that will be the most believable part of this story, Lady Sansa, for the men in this Keep.”_

_Margaery licked her lips. “Go on,” she ordered, intently, and the words almost sounded like the Queen Sansa knew, but not quite._

_Baelish dipped his head to her, his mind obviously racing as he continued. “They snuck in through,” and Baelish moved through the room then, was gentleman enough, for all that Sansa would never associate such a word with him, to not react at the way Margaery flinched as he moved past her. He stopped in front of a spare expanse of the wall, and then paused, reaching out and laying his head against it._

_Sansa saw his smile, before he knocked once on the bit of wall, and pulled it free, and Sansa sucked in a breath as it came loose, a secret door leading to dark tunnels, beyond._

_She thought of the way Lord Varys had came into her rooms that night, to take her away to Oberyn in the harbor, and shivered, wondering if these tunnels truly did run through the whole damn Keep._

_“This is how they got in,” Baelish said, leaving the door open wide as he stepped back from it, turning to face Sansa and Margaery once more. “They snuck into the King’s chambers in the dead of night, and butchered him where he slept.”_

_He gestured to the bed, the blood staining it, the other sign of what had happened tonight, and Margaery flinched._

_Sansa looked away._

_“He awoke, and tried to fight them off,” Baelish continued, reaching under the bed then, ignoring the way Margaery flinched again at the proximity. Sansa did reach out and take her hand then, squeezing it gently, and tried not to flinch when Margaery grabbed it up in a vice like grip. “And awoke the Queen, who screamed for help. Joffrey valiantly took on more attacks to spare his beloved wife.”_

_Sansa raised a brow, wondering if the boy had told him about the scream he’d heard, or if it was merely a coincidence._

_He had gotten here rather quickly, after all._

_“Ser Meryn of the Kingsguard burst into the room then, and he hadn’t before because…” Baelish’s lips spread into a thin smile, “Well, we all know about the King’s more violent appetites.”_

_Margaery pursed her lips. Sansa sent him a rather harsh glare, but Baelish was not a man of much conscience, and he continued on in spite of the look._

_“He valiantly gave his life, defending the Queen, but by then, it was too late to save the King, and Joffrey the Illborn succumbed to his wounds alongside his own Kingsguard,” Baelish continued. “The fanatics who survived left the way they came. We will need a body or two from the fanatics, to make the story plausible, so the discovery of the King’s death must wait until morning.”_

_Sansa hesitated. “But others will have heard the screams earlier than we’ll say they happened,” she pointed out._

_Baelish shrugged. “That can’t be helped. If there are no bodies, we have no story.”_

_Sansa nodded, still feeling wary._

_Baelish paused then, looking hesitant, though she knew that to be a show. “We...will need a noble to pin this on, someone who hated Joffrey enough to let the Sparrows into the Keep.”_

_Sansa nodded. They already had one, after all. “Lord Tyrion fled the city, tonight,” she said, in a falsely ignorant voice. “My husband is known not to be a friend to the King.”_

_Baelish’s lips quirked into a small smirk. “I hope you do not turn on me as easy as you might him, my lady,” he said, and Sansa looked away, the joke falling rather flat._

_Baelish sniffed when he seemed to realize as much. ‘Very well. Lord Tyrion let them into the Keep.” His eyes turned to Margaery. “Can you remember all of that, Your Grace? They will expect you to give a speech, and at the very least, you must recognize your child’s claim first thing in the morning, before Cersei can claim that without the child being born yet, Tommen is heir to the throne.”_

_Sansa flinched. “But will it matter?” she asked, quietly. “If the child is born a girl, or if Cersei says that a babe in the womb can’t rule, surely it won’t matter that Margaery has already staked a claim.”_

_“As the wife of the King, Margaery has the right to call herself Regent for his child, or for Tommen, so long as the Small Council agrees to it,” Baelish told her, more for her benefit than for Margaery’s, for the other girl didn’t appear to hear either of them at all. “They are more likely to agree to this if she acts quickly, and because Cersei has been banished by the previous king anyway. When the time is right, the Queen might also consider creating a more...sympathetic Small Council.”_

_One not filled with Lannisters, he meant._

_Sansa swallowed hard, nodding, trying not to show how uncomfortable she was with all of this._

_“And,” Baelish continued, pensively, “if they remember the many troops that House Tyrell has in King’s Landing, just now, they will do as they are told.”_

_Sansa licked her lips._

_Baelish moved forward then, gripping Sansa by the arm, and it was all she could do not to flinch away from him, the way Margaery had flinched away from her, not too long ago._

_After all, she had just promised him her hand, and he would become suspicious, if she couldn’t even let him touch her._

_“Take her somewhere else, somewhere she can rest, somewhere she won’t be found until morning,” Baelish instructed her in a whisper, his words breathy against her ear. “I will deal with the bodies. She will need to be prepared, in the morning, to speak to them all. We cannot appear weak, now.”_

_Sansa nodded, trying not to dwell too much on his words, on the doubt in his voice which she shared, about whether or not Margaery would actually be able to speak in front of people, with the way she looked just now._

_We._

_Perhaps she truly had made a deal with the Stranger._

_Sansa swallowed hard, and then nodded. “Petyr,” she said, reaching out then and taking his hands in hers, in much the same way as she had grabbed Margaery’s. “Thank you.”_

_She glanced up, meeting his eyes._

_He stared at her for several moments, before his head dipped down into a nod, and then he was gone._

* * *

She had been avoiding this room for a little while now, perhaps not consciously, perhaps so, but because a part of her was afraid that if she saw Sansa lying there, on her bed, her body too still and her face too pale after so long asleep, she would never wake. That it would be real, and Margaery would lose her for good, after they had fought so damn hard to be together, and then Margaery had done nothing with that victory but push her away.

And she wasn’t totally sorry that she had done so. Sorry, yes, that they were here now, without the happy memories that they might have had if Margaery had only pulled her closer, with Joffrey’s death, but a part of her knew that it would have been even more unfair, to show her the inner workings of Margaery’s shattered mind, in the days after Joffrey’s death.

But she regretted not coming sooner lately, the moment she stepped into Sansa’s chambers.

Margaery took a deep breath as she walked into the room, wrapping her arms around her expanded belly, telling herself that it wasn’t strange that she was coming here to visit Sansa.

The air felt heavier here, the moment she walked through the door. Margaery took a deep breath, and then another, and closed the door after her.

There was a reason she had been avoiding this room, after all.

Every time she came here, it reminded her that Sansa was still not awake. That, despite all of the shit that they’d been through lately, Sansa might never wake again.

It was an unacceptable future, one that almost made her wish she’d let the Mountain have his wicked way with her, if that was how things were going to be.

There was only one maester in the room with Sansa, leaning over her to check her forehead with one hand as the other stirred whatever new, increasingly more frantic antidote he was working on at the moment, and Margaery swallowed hard, at the look on his face.

He knew, she could tell, since he hadn’t yet looked up and noticed her. He knew that whatever he did, it wouldn't be enough.

That whatever was wrong with Sansa, he couldn’t fix her.

A part of Margaery knew that, as well. She may not know much about potions and poisons, but she knew that Sansa had been asleep for far too long, considering.

She closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

No.

No, she couldn’t believe that, not until the maesters told her, as they were far too terrified of her to do, that they had no other choices, no other ways of reviving Sansa.

And perhaps not even then.

She’d ordered the arrest of that maester, the man who did whatever Cersei’s bidding was, the one who had tortured Rosamund Tyrell and even Megga, but they said they had yet to find him, even if the Mountain had been sighted trying to leave the city and had slaughtered five guards, when they attempted to apprehend him.

Margaery shivered a little, at the reminder of what had gone on, not hours earlier.

Gods, it felt like ages since the Mountain had crept into her room and attempted to slaughter her in her sleep, the way he once had Elia Martell. Like ages since she had gone before the people and knelt before them, let them put her on trial as they clearly so desperately wanted to do.

The maester tending to Sansa at the moment, a Tyrell man through and through, stepped forward, looking more than a nervous when he noticed that the Regent had come, yet again, to visit Sansa.

She swallowed hard, forced herself to appear calmer than she certainly felt. “How is she?” She asked, and if her voice was a little desperate…well, no one needed to know that but the two of them.

And Rosamund Tyrell, slinking around by Sansa’s bed, fluffing her pillows and generally being too close to the other girl than Margaery was entirely comfortable with.

The maester cleared his throat. If he thought anything strange about the fact that not two hours ago, their Keep had been under siege, and that the Dornish ships were still outside in their harbor, threatening war and Margaery ought to be dealing with that, and instead Margaery was now here, visiting Sansa, he didn’t say a word about it.

Good man.

She had a feeling that the Grandmaester would have done so, after all.

He swallowed hard. “She’s very feverish, Your Grace. This poison, what we believe it to be…it shouldn’t have had this effect on her, we don’t think. It should have only caused her to sleep for a few days. We…I’m afraid we don’t know entirely what is wrong with her, but I fear that…” he trailed off again, no longer meeting Margaery’s eyes as he said the words she knew were coming, the words she wanted to scream at him not to say. “It should not be long now, Your Grace.”

Margaery closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Breathed in slowly, and out perhaps even more slowly. Opened her eyes.

“What do you need?” She demanded, and if her voice was shaking, she supposed that was only their business, after all.

The maester looked uncomfortable, but perhaps he had spent enough time around stubborn nobles to realize that they didn’t accept the deaths of their loved ones easily.

“Your Grace, we believe we have isolated the type of poison itself, but the problem is…” the maester sighed. “We do not know the antidote for it, if there is one.”

Margaery felt her heart beat faster, in her chest.

No, she thought.

No, she hadn’t just offered herself to the smallfolk and survived that experience, hadn’t just survived the Mountain, only to hear that Sansa might never wake again.

She might as well have laid down and not fought the Mountain, if that was to be her reward for all of this.

“Then find one!” She snapped at him, and the man backed up a little, looking surprised by the fury in her tone. “Or find this maester of Cersei’s,” because she was certain now, especially after the Mountain had been the one to attack her, that all of this had to have been the fault of Cersei’s creatures, “and interrogate him until he tells you what he used!”

The man dipped his head. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

He turned and stepped out of the room, and Margaery didn’t comment on the fact that he clearly knew without being told that she wanted some time alone with Sansa.

She supposed they were being too obvious these days for her to even try to pretend, and she didn’t know whether she should find that concerning at the moment, or not.

They had enough other problems to deal with, after all.

She took a step closer, into Sansa’s bedchambers, where the other girl still lay pale and still on the bed, far too pale, far too still, far too thin now, as well, given how long she’d been asleep.

She looked already dead, and the sight of it caused a lump in Margaery’s throat, as she reached out and took Sansa’s hand in her own.

Even the knowledge that Rosamund, who had stepped back the moment that Margaery had stepped into the room, was watching this interaction didn’t give her pause.

Let the other girl stare. If she was truly Cersei’s creature after all of this time, if Cersei had done this, if Cersei had ordered the Mountain to attack Margaery, then she already knew all of Margaery’s secrets. Pretending wasn’t going to change anything.

Sansa’s hand was far too cold, in her own. Margaery squeezed it in the vain hope that she could squeeze some life back into it, and felt nothing.

Felt that lump in her throat growing thicker.

Rosamund cleared her throat, then, and Margaery forced herself to glance up, to acknowledge the other girl when everything within her did not want to.

“What is it?” She asked, and the other girl, this girl who had once been one of her ladies, whom she had once trusted as she had trusted Megga and Alla, even Elinor, quickly looked away, avoided meeting her eyes.

Gods, she had loved all of her girls, all of her ladies whom she had brought to King’s Landing with her, even if she knew some of them better than others.

She had loved them, and Rosamund had become Cersei’s creature, and Margaery still didn’t understand why.

Didn’t understand how she had lost her, when Reanna had died for her. When she had thought that she would die for any of her ladies, as well.

“What are you still doing here?” Margaery demanded, and if she sounded far too angry for what the situation warranted, that was her own concern, of the girl.

Rosamund blinked at her. “I…I was ordered to watch over her…”

“No, no that,” Margaery interrupted, coldly, waving the hand that wasn’t still clutching Sansa’s. “I mean, what the fuck are you still doing in King’s Landing at all? What the fuck are you still doing, serving her?”

Rosamund flinched at the fury in Margaery’s tone, and Margaery thought perhaps she could have been a little kinder in asking it, when they had once been friends, but Margaery was done with pretending things, these days.

Pretending hadn’t convinced Cersei for more than a scant few days that the child was actually Joffrey’s, pretending had never helped the smallfolk when she had pretended to love Joffrey, pretending had never convinced Cersei that Margaery and Sansa weren’t…

She was tired of pretending.

“I…” Rosamund stared at her, as if she were genuinely surprised at the question. But then, Margaery supposed, perhaps Sansa had gotten the truth out of her at some point, for the other girl to keep Rosamund by her side when they both knew that she had been spying on them for Cersei at least at one point. Perhaps she was surprised, then, that Sansa hadn’t told her.

The thought elicited a dry laugh from Margaery.

The two of them kept far too much from one another, after all.

They always had.

Then, Rosamund lifted her chin. “I thought…” she took a deep breath. “The things that Cersei had her man do to me, down in the Cells…” she shivered, and Margaery looked away, suddenly finding that she was the one who couldn’t meet the other girl’s eyes. “They were horrible, but at least I knew that she did not care enough to leave me alive, once I outlived my use for her.” She let out a slow breath. “But then she found another use for me. And I know that Lady Sansa, at least, will make it quick, when she takes me from this world.”

Margaery lifted a brow. “She’s told you this?” She asked, because she knew a great deal about how Sansa had changed lately - if the way she had gotten rid of the septa was any indication - but that didn’t sound like the girl she knew.

And it didn’t sound like the girl who had originally accepted Rosamund as her lady, either, no matter how much the two of them might have changed by now.

Rosamund chewed on her lower lip. “I…” she said, and Margaery’s brow lifted a little further. Rosamund sagged, just a little bit. “I knew that even if she didn’t, you would. And you were a better mistress than Cersei, anyways.”

Margaery jerked back at those words, at the ease with which Rosamund admitted that she knew one day, Margaery might kill her if Sansa did not.

She swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you just kill yourself, if you want death so bad?” She asked, and perhaps the words were a little too blunt, but Margaery thought she already knew the answer to them, anyway.

And she was right, judging by the way that Rosamund looked down and away, something like shame in her features.

Margaery nodded, tightly. “Right,” she said, and Rosamund’s head jerked up again. She looked nervous, and Margaery wondered whether the other girl really prayed for death at all. Margaery swallowed hard, giving Rosamund a searching look. Then, “I don’t want you treating her alone, ever again.”

Rosamund blinked at her. “I...She is my lady, Your Grace,” she said, something like a bite in her tone, and Margaery snorted.

“I am your Regent,” she said, giving Sansa’s hand yet another squeeze. “And, more than that, I was your lady first.”

Rosamund flinched.

“Get out,” Margaery said, when the other girl didn’t move.

Rosamund blinked at her.

Margaery swallowed hard. “I said…”

“Cersei did this,” Rosamund breathed, and Margaery’s head jerked up to her. “You have to know, she did this.”

But there was something far too knowing in Rosamund’s eyes, as she said it, and Margaery’s own narrowed.

Rosamund flinched, under that gaze. “She…she told me that it wouldn’t kill her,” she whispered, and Margaery felt her heart sink. “She told me that it would just make her sleep for a little while, that she just wanted to know how you would react, that was it, so I…” she took a careful breath. “I didn’t know how to get out of it without letting her know that I was really spying for Sansa, Your Grace, I swear.”

But she was already backing up, towards the far wall, as she whispered the words, and Margaery was only then aware that she was getting to her feet, advancing on the other woman.

“You did this,” she said the words, slowly, and Rosamund flinched.

“I…” she swallowed hard. “Please, Your Grace, I only did what I thought I had to. I…I care for the Lady Sansa. I would never have poisoned her if I thought for a moment that there was a chance she wouldn’t…”

And Margaery…Margaery had not grown up alongside Lady Rosamund, as she had Megga and Elinor. She did not know her as well as she had the others, as well as she had known even Reanna.

But she knew when Rosamund was lying, she liked to think, especially now.

So when she reached out, when Rosamund flinched as Margaery grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look down at the girl in the bed, Rosamund didn’t try to fight her.

“Look at her,” Margaery whispered. “You did this, you realize?”

Rosamund let out a noise that might have been a dry sob; Margaery couldn’t say for certain if the noise had even come from the other girl at all, or from herself.

She took a deep breath, lifted Rosamund’s chin, forced their eyes to meet. “I know what it is to long for death, sometimes,” she whispered, and was gratified by the way that Rosamund flinched. “And if that is what you want, don’t ask it of Sansa, do you understand?”

Rosamund swallowed hard.

“I am sorry that I didn’t protect you,” Margaery continued, when Rosamund just kept staring at her, a single tear tracking down her cheek. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you from her. But Sansa…Sansa is who I can still protect, and you just took her from me. Do you understand?”

Rosamund flinched.

“Get out,” Margaery whispered, again, and this time, Rosamund all but scrambled towards the door.

The moment she was gone, Margaery sagged against the wall where she had been, forced her breathing to go back to normal, because dear gods, the panic welling up inside of her felt harsh enough to consume her.

It was if she had been living in denial the entire time that Sansa had been ill, and now that Rosamund had finally admitted what she had done…

“Sansa,” Margaery whispered desperately, a tear slipping down her cheek as she moved back to sit on the bed, as she clung to the other girl’s hand like a lifeline, now, “Sansa, please don’t leave me. Come back to me. Please.”

Gods, she had been so stupid, letting this happen to Sansa. Because of course she should have known that Cersei would try to do something like this, of course they should never have trusted Rosamund near Sansa, the moment they realized Cersei had appointed her.

Margaery regretted ever agreeing to allow Cersei Lannister to come back here, regretted not locking her in the deepest parts of the dungeon the moment that she arrived, if they had to bring her here at all.

If Cersei Lannister had just been left at the Rock to rot, Sansa would be standing before her, alive and well, and not looking so pale and near death, below Margaery.

Margaery sucked in a breath, and then another.

She knew...she knew that it wouldn’t look it, from the way she had been acting lately, pushing Sansa away at every opportunity, ignoring every attempt that Sansa made to reach out to her, despite how much she knew it hurt the other girl, but Sansa had been her rock, throughout all of this.

So fucking strong, standing before all of the fucking men in this city and telling them to wait their fucking turn, calm and cold like a queen, and Margaery had loved her for it. Had loved her for the way she hadn’t panicked, after she walked in on Margaery and Joffrey, that horrible night when Margaery had bashed his brains. Had loved her for the way she’d taken control when she realized that Margaery was incapable of doing so herself, for the way she all but pulled Margaery back from the brink.

Margaery hadn’t thought it was possible, to adore her more than she had, in those first few months when they had finally understood what they meant to each other, when they finally took each other to bed for the first time, but now, she thought that she did.

She thought that there it was hard to stop adoring Sansa, every time she looked at her.

And she’d pushed her away anyway, because Margaery hadn’t felt like herself since that night, cliche as it might sound. Had felt like a part of her had died with Joffrey, when she came up from the blinding rage and fear filling her, to find that she had bashed his skull in and didn’t feel a damn ounce of guilt over it.

Instead, she’d become something Other, something capable of killing without a second thought, someone who butchered her husband, beyond just killing him, but who had been too weak to keep him from raping her, beforehand.

These weren’t the sorts of things that she could share with Sansa, either, not when Sansa had wasted no time that night, nor any tears since, in killing Ser Meryn in order to protect their secret, to protect what Margaery had just done. Margaery had felt the burden of what she had done, of what she had become, that night, every day since, but Sansa looked as though she had not given it a second thought.

Had not looked back, and that only made the pit within Margaery’s stomach seem to grow with each day. Grow with something like guilt, at the thought that Sansa could so easily put all of this aside and focus on what mattered, while Margaery could not. Wasn’t capable of it.

Just as she hadn’t been capable of murdering Joffrey before he harmed her.

And she’d only been able to ignore that sensation when she was watching what Sansa had become because of it. This strong, capable woman, a woman whom the Lannisters would never have been able to imagine emerging, in those first days when she had been their little prisoner, their plaything.

Margaery swallowed hard, looking down at her now.

Because just now, Sansa didn’t look like this strong, powerful woman that she was becoming. She looked pale, and entirely like she had been in an induced sleep for too long, and Margaery needed her to wake up, now.

Needed her to wake, so that Margaery could lean on her again, but this time, letting her know exactly how much Sansa meant to her, exactly how much her strength had meant to Margaery, in these past months.

“I’ve felt guilty for so many things, the things that I’ve done without even thinking about them, the past years,” Margaery whispered, feeling another tear track down her cheek. “The things that I’ve done to these people, whom I’m supposed to protect. The things I’ve done to innocents, just to keep Joffrey as a husband when he hardly pleased me. The things that…the things that made Joffrey happy.”

She took a shuddering breath, felt one of her tears slip down her cheek and onto the bedsheets, against her hand where it clutched Sansa’s.

“I’ve done things that I could hardly imagine myself doing, just to keep a throne that I’m no longer even sure that I…” her voice broke off then into a choked cry, and Margaery squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then another.

Gods.

Why was this so hard, when Sansa was laying prostrate beneath her, and may never even wake again? It wasn’t as if she could hear Margaery’s words, much as Margaery wished more than anything that she could.

Margaery took a deep breath. “But I feel guilty for nothing so much as I do the things I’ve done to you,” she whispered, and her words choked off into a bitter laugh. “Everything that I’ve done to you. Beating you for Joffrey’s amusement, pursuing you when I saw that you were some broken thing, when I knew what losing anyone else might do to you…” she breathed again, out and slow.

“Not telling you when I couldn’t control Joffrey anymore, because I thought you’d see me as weak, when you let me see you that way so many times.” She sniffed. “Ignoring you because I thought you didn’t understand how I felt, when you probably understood it better than I did myself,” she continued, and now that the words were coming, they were flowing out of her, she thought, with almost too much ease.

She was all but tripping over them.

Her greatest sins, the ones that weighed the heaviest on her, much though she hated finally admitting that. Admitting that for all of the things she had done since becoming Joffrey’s wife, these were the sins she felt the guiltiest about.

Not that Sept full of people, not the horrid things that Joffrey had done and she had clapped at, not the men who had died in a war she didn’t believe in, because she knew Joffrey was a bastard from the moment she first met him and before that, but the things she had done to Sansa.

To this girl, whom she had seen at first as a distraction from her wicked husband, a companion that was hurting and whom she thought she could help, and enjoy, at the same time.

This girl, whom she sometimes wondered if she loved more than was healthy.

This girl, whom she loved more than the damned throne her family had raised her to want so desperately.

Margaery’s eyes were shining, as she stared down at Sansa’s unmoved body, on the bed.

“Not telling you the things that I should have, because I thought I was protecting you, when nothing could ever protect you, not me, not anyone in King’s Landing,” she swallowed hard, “and you’ve survived, anyway. Proved time and time again that you don’t need that protection, when it’s offered.”

She hiccuped, felt another tear slip down her cheek, hit her hand as she leaned forward, leaned desperately over Sansa, as if she thought the other girl could hear her, anyway.

“And Sansa, dear gods,” she whispered, “if you’d just, please, wake up, I’ll prove it to you. I’ll make it all up to you, I swear it, by the old gods and the new.”

Sansa lay still, skin like porcelain, eyes stubbornly closed.

Margaery choked on her next words, reached up to wipe at her nose in a rather unladylike fashion, took a shuddering breath because even if she didn’t have anyone watching her, she couldn’t afford to burst into tears, just now.

She thought if she started, she might never stop.

“Sansa, please, I need you to wake up, now,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely, as she leaned so close against the other girl that she could feel Sansa’s ragged breaths against her skin. “Come back to me, my love. Please come back.”

She swallowed hard, bent down then, to kiss Sansa lightly on the lips, because there was a horrible fear rising up inside of her, that fear that had not left her since the night Joffrey had died,that was welling up within her, whispering that this would be the last time she might get the chance.

Sansa’s lips were soft and wet, against her own, and Margaery didn’t know if that was normal for a girl who had slept from unnatural causes for so long, or because of her own tears.

And then she heard the sound of the other girl gasping for air, and when Margaery pulled back, bright, confused blue eyes met hers.

* * *

_She was a wolf, her paws pounding against the snow as she ran, ran through woods that seemed very familiar._

_She didn't know how long she was running, only knew that her Lady was gone, and this was the result. That she had been running, a wild thing in the forest, for far too long, when she had someone she was supposed to stand beside, someone who was supposed to be her Lady, and she her Lady's keeper._

_She hadn't seen her Lady in such a long time. Scrounging for food in the forest beyond Winterfell, sometimes she wondered if she never would again. If her Lady had died with the other Starks, the Lady's Mother whom she had pulled from the river, dead and naked, the Lady's brother, wearing her brother's head._

_And so, she ran._

_Sometimes, she smelled her Lady's brother, not the dead one, but a living one, one who shouldn't still be alive because so many people thought he was dead, a Shadow in Crypts that she couldn't get into, because her Lady was no longer in Winterfell._

_Then, one day, the air smelled of fire._

_The sound of swords clashing filled the air, and Sansa saw blood on the snow, heard a child crying for their father, the same desperate cry she had uttered as she watched her own father’s head get cut off, but Sansa ignored all of that, as much as she wanted to stop, to turn back and comfort the child, to rip the head off one of those soldiers wearing the Bolton crest, wanted to run all of the way back to Winterfell, but she couldn’t._

_She couldn’t, because Winterfell was burning, and she had to keep moving._

_The North Remembers, the wind seemed to whisper in tune to her feet pounding in the snow, as she ran, goading her on, and it only strengthened Sansa’s resolve to keep moving, because there was somewhere important that she had to be, somewhere she had to be, now._

_She had to get there, had to be faster, and the wind whipped through her fur as she ran, but Sansa ignored the small feeling of pain, for it was a very windy day and there was a blizzard going on, but WInterfell was burning, and she had to keep moving._

_Those who didn’t understand what Winterfell was had stolen it from those it belonged to, but the North remembered, and there was still a chance that they might salvage this, she had to believe that._

_She had to._

_So she ran._

_She was a wolf, her paws pounding against the snow as she ran, ran through woods that seemed familiar, ran until she came to an abrupt stop, at the feet of a girl who had once been her mistress, who had then become No One, and who was now…Someone else._

_She didn’t think that her mistress knew the answer to who that person was anymore than she did, but she let out a short howl, at the sight of the girl, all the same._

_Arya Stark swallowed hard, and got to her knees._

_Arya Stark, who looked so very different from the little girl that she remembered, from a lifetime ago, the one who had turned her back on her and told her to flee into the woods._

_Wait._

_That wasn’t right, surely._

_“Nymeria,” Arya whispered, and her voice was broken and desperate, and yet so full of relief, as she knelt and clung to Sansa’s fur, and Sansa wanted to tell her who she really was, that she wasn’t Nymeria at all and that none of this made sense, but she didn’t._

_Just leaned into the touch of a sister she had long ago given up for dead, only to learn had killed a woman she cared very much about._

_Instead, she nuzzled into Arya’s touch and told herself that for just this moment, while Winterfell burned around them, everything was going to be all right._

_“I’m so happy you’re here with me, girl,” Arya whispered against her fur, “Here, at the end of all things.”_

* * *

_Sansa sat up in her own bed, feeling oddly bereft of Arya’s touch before she remembered that she had just been dreaming about the girl, had been dreaming that Arya was still alive, that she had ran her fingers through Sansa’s fur, because Sansa had been a wolf, not a human girl, and in some ways, that had been better than being a girl, at all._

_But she had been a wolf, and Winterfell had been burning behind her, when she had gone to find her sister in the woods, and that was wrong._

_She found her breath quickening, and Sansa forced herself to breathe naturally, to remember that it had just been a dream._

_“Sansa?” A very familiar voice said, sounding concerned but not urgently so, and Sansa froze, before she slowly turned in her bed to face the other woman, because suddenly, something like fear spiked inside of her._

_She had thought she had awoken from the nightmare._

_But Shae stood in front of her, carrying a pile of new sheets, and smiling gently at her. “Another nightmare?” She asked, and her skin was so pale, so pale despite how hot Sansa suddenly felt, at the sight of the other woman, fear lancing through her._

_This was wrong, she thought. This was wrong because if she had awoken from the nightmare, Shae would not be here, no matter how much Sansa wanted her to be, because Shae was dead, she was dead…_

_Shae’s skin looked like porcelain, like the tea cups that Sansa used to drink out of with Margaery, back when their only excuse to spend time together had been to drink tea. It looked strange, Sansa thought, because Shae’s skin had always been a darker, olive color._

_It looked like there was no blood left in her body._

_Shae’s eyes, though, were soft and warm, as she walked closer to Sansa and placed her hand over Sansa’s forehead, checking for a fever._

_Despite herself, because she knew that this had to be a dream now, that Shae couldn’t really be here, Sansa leaned into the touch._

_Leaned into it, because dear gods, it had been so long since someone fretted over her the way that Shae was suddenly doing, murmuring something about a fever and pulling the blankets up to her chin, despite how hot that made Sansa feel, and setting down the new blankets as she said something about going to get Sansa some chilled wine, to make her feel better._

_Sansa blinked, and Shae was gone, and for a moment, Sansa was able to convince herself that it must have been some horrible hallucination, that Shae wasn’t coming back, and that seemed like a horrible thing to come to terms with, suddenly._

_But then, to her shock, the door opened again, and Shae stepped back inside, had her take several sips of what Sansa recognized to be Tyrion’s wine, before Shae set it aside on the bedside table._

_“Feel better?” Shae asked, but Sansa shook her head, because no, she didn’t. She didn’t feel better, because Shae was standing in front of her, and she shouldn’t be here, shouldn't still be here…_

_Sansa sniffed. “I…I wish that you were really here,” she whispered, and it had been such a long time since she had allowed herself to make such an admission, since she had allowed herself to feel weak, after what had happened to Margaery._

_She had been trying so hard to be strong, for Margaery. To not break down over the things that had happened to them in recent months, because Margaery was already on the verge of breaking down herself, and Sansa needed to always be there for her, in case she did._

_But Shae was here, now, and Sansa leaned into the other woman’s cold touch as she held Sansa, as she wrapped her arms around her like a mother might, and whispered into her ear._

_“I’ve never really been gone, you know. I’m still here, Sansa,” Shae said, reaching out then with a bloodless white hand to press it against Sansa’s chest. “Right here.”_

_Sansa swallowed hard. She wished that it felt like that when she was awake, but more often than not, Sansa found herself pretending that she didn’t remember Shae at all, because it was easier than thinking about how the other woman had died a thousand leagues away from Sansa, and it had something horribly to do with her sister, and that Tyrion hated her for it, now._

_She wished that she could remember Shae as she was, but every time she tried, she saw only the pity in the other girl’s eyes, as she looked at Sansa and asked her if surely, there was another way. Asked her to confide in a man that Shae loved, but whom Sansa never could. As Shae saw her as the same child that Tyrion once had._

_Sansa closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, and letting the air out slowly through her lungs._

_Shae was smiling at her, when she opened her eyes again, but this wasn’t quite Shae, either. This was a woman with bloodless white skin, who reached out with a touch so cold it instantly sent Sansa into shivers._

_Her eyes were not the same, either, Sansa thought, as she leaned into that touch, all the same._

_“Besides,” Shae said, and she said it in that same mothering tone she had always used with Sansa after the younger girl had puked her guts out into her chamber pot, sobbing because she didn’t know what was wrong with her, to make her feel this sick over something she’d had to do, “We’re all doomed anyway, Sansa. All doomed to die, and come back as something Other. When the Darkness comes, when it covers the land, you’ll be glad that I died as I did; without real pain.”_

_Sansa blinked up at her, thrown by her words, but not the ones she would later realize she should have been surprised by. “You…You felt no pain, when you died?” She asked, hoarsely._

_Shae’s smile was sad, as she reached up to cup Sansa’s cheek, and it felt like Sansa was being caressed by ice._

_“If that’s what you want to believe,” Shae told her, and Sansa shook her head._

_“No,” she whispered. “No, please. I just…I just want…”_

_But she didn’t finish, couldn’t finish, because she didn’t know what she wanted, and they both knew it._

_Shae’s smile was still sad. “Don’t think about it, Sansa,” she said. “The longer you don’t think about it, the better you’ll feel when you see her again.”_

_And Sansa didn’t know if the other woman was talking about herself, in death, or about Arya._

_“Did she kill you?” The words were on her lips, finally pushing their way past them._

_Shae flinched._

_Sansa awoke with a scream._

* * *

_Margaery was sobbing in her arms._

_She was leaning against her, hard, and the sound of sobbing was ugly and fierce, as it filled the room, as Margaery’s snot and tears stained Sansa’s clothes, but Sansa didn’t pull away from her, clung to Margaery as fiercely as Margaery was clinging to her, tried to offer up some comfort that she didn’t feel, not at all._

_“Where is he?” Margaery sobbed against her chest, but Sansa knew that she already knew the answer to that, even as she asked it._

_Still, she said nothing, and Margaery clung to her, half sitting up in bed, the blankets tangling around her as the servants tried to clean her up a little bit and Margaery let out a scream that all but split the air._

_The servants backed up then, all looking frightened, wearing identical frowns. None of them would meet Margaery’s eyes, and Sansa didn’t know what was happening, even if a part of her, deep inside, did, but the way those girls were refusing to look at them told Sansa more than she wanted to admit._

_She pulled Margaery a little closer, felt the other girl’s tears on her bare skin now, seeping through her clothes, loud, angry sobs the only sound besides Margaery’s panicked demands to know where ‘he’ was._

_“Where is my baby?” Margaery demanded, and the words came out hoarse and the softer side of a scream, and Sansa could only hold onto her, as tightly as she could, and wish that she could offer up an answer that Margaery wanted to hear._

_“Where is he?” She demanded, again and again and again, and Sansa was the one holding her, offering up paltry comfort in that way, but she wished that someone else would step up, would answer Margaery’s questions so she didn’t have to keep repeating them._

_But no one did._

_No one did, and Margaery sobbed into her arms until finally, after what felt like hours, and Sansa felt drained to the point of exhaustion, Alla, looking pale and sad, stepped forward._

_“He’s gone, Your Grace,” Alla said, finally, and Margaery stared at her. Sansa didn’t think the other woman understood her words, but Sansa did, with a sudden, sickening clarity._

_She felt suddenly sick. Felt suddenly as if she was going to sob as badly as Margaery still was, the tears leaking hot and wet down her cheeks._

_Margaery blinked, stupidly, whispered soundlessly, “Gone?”_

_Sansa looked away, wincing, unable to meet that gaze any more than Margaery’s ladies seemed capable of doing._

_“Margaery,” she whispered, taking Margaery into her arms again and holding her tightly, pressing Margaery up against her, and for a moment, she thought that Margaery might try to pull away again, before she all but collapsed into Sansa’s touch._

_“Sansa, where is my baby?” She asked, and the words were more like a plea, and only just barely managed to choke the words out, because she was crying so hard and the tears were wetting Sansa’s shirt, as Sansa pulled back for long enough to meet her eyes._

_“Margaery…” Sansa took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, knowing even when she didn’t know, what must have happened for everyone around them to look so sad, for Margaery to be so distressed without anyone trying to make her feel less so._

_Sansa bit her lip, but she didn’t look away from Margaery’s gaze. “Margaery,” she said, “Margaery, something’s…something’s happened.”_

_Margaery swallowed hard, her heart skipping a beat. Sansa saw the exact moment realization spread over her, watched the blood drain from her face. “No,” she whispered, hoarsely. “No, he was…he was healthy, in my arms. He was fine. He…”_

_The words trailed off into frantic sobs, and all Sansa could do was hold on._

* * *

_She could hear the sound of sobs, still on the wind._

_Sometimes, between sleep and waking, she thought she felt Margaery's freezing hand clutching hers, heard the sound of the other girl's whispers, though that couldn't be right. Margaery had been sobbing, a moment ago._

_And then Olenna, Olenna, who wasn't in King's Landing, was she? Whispering to her that she needed to wake up, and soon, because Margaery needed her to._

_For a moment, that had almost done it._

_Then, the Red Woman had laughed._

_Sansa forced herself to spin around and face the other woman, and she didn't have to try hard to summon up the fury she felt. "Why are you here? You're supposed to be dead?"_

_And, like Shae, the Red Woman smiled. "We're never really gone forever, my dear," she said, and when she reached out to brush back Sansa's hair, Sansa flinched back. "You should know that, best of all. Your own damn family won't stay in the ground."_

_Sansa did flinch back from the other woman's touch, at those words. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Really?"_

_The Red Woman smiled. "I told you," she said. "A Red Woman. A priestess. A prophet. You don't care; you only want to know why my prophecy to you has not come true yet, while all of the rest of them have."_

_Sansa swallowed hard, lifting her chin. "I thought you were just being cruel," she whispered, and her words were carried away by the wind, the wind that was suddenly too cold, that turned her air to frost, "with those things you said to Margaery. But they've come true, haven't they?"_

_The Red Woman smiled at her. "You should never play with fire, Child. Should never ask for a future you don't want to see. Of course, I wouldn't expect a Stark to understand that."_

* * *

_Sansa took a hesitant step forward, and then another, the smell of burnt flesh filling her nostrils, and she wanted to lean over and be sick onto the floor of the Great Hall of the Keep, but her stomach wouldn’t let her, somehow she knew that._

_And so Sansa kept walking, across a hall of the dead, of bodies twisted and charred, and her heart leapt up into her throat as she walked, as she stepped over those bodies and pretended that she did not recognize them._

_Did not recognize so damn many of them._

_She shivered, though it was uncomfortably warm here, and she suspected that had something to do with the burning smell still filling the air, Sansa thought, as she walked along._

_The hall was dark; Shae had been right. Darkness spread over the land like a blanket when They came, and if she did not know these halls far too damn well, she wouldn’t have been able to navigate her way to where she was going, in any case._

_Still, she thought, she should not be so warm, because the high ceiling of the throne room was gone, and she could see snow falling from the sky, could see it lightly covering the bodies of the dead as she stumbled along, barely able to breathe, barely able to comprehend what she was seeing._

_She stood alone, amongst a hall of the dead, and Sansa wanted to scream, but the sound was locked at the back of her throat, as the snow lightly fell on her shoulders and in her hair without melting._

_She didn’t know where she was going, with such purpose, what right she had to be crawling over the bodies of the dead, some of those dead her friends, not until she came to a stop at the three steps leading up to the Iron Throne._

_Or, what had once been the Iron Throne._

_And she supposed there was still enough of it left to be recognizable, as she walked forward, saw that more than half of the swords that had once made up Aegon the Conqueror’s throne were melted down to their hilts, that the seat of the throne was no longer a seat but something like a hole, going straight down to the floor._

_Sansa swallowed hard, staring at it, as something like despair welled up within her._

_All of their hard work, she thought, and somehow, she knew the thought belonged to her, even if it didn’t quite make sense, not even with the scene before her now. All of their hard work to get to this place, to this throne, and it amounted to nothing more than a melted chair._

_The Iron Throne, a twisted, half-melted thing, stood alone on the pavilion above the throne room, the wall behind it almost totally gone, a burnt husk, burnt away by fire._

_Sansa reached up, covering her nose with her sleeve, as she stared at the empty, melted throne._

_And then she reached out, to brush away the light covering of snow that had fallen on the Iron Throne in the minutes since she had reached it, and her hand came away black._

_Sansa’s brows furrowed, as she stared down at her hand, and then reached out almost desperately, to wipe away the rest of the snow, consumed with the sudden thought that people should be able to see the Iron Throne for what it was now, should be able to recognize it as best as they were able, but the snow wasn’t melting, under her hands._

_Instead, it was coming away black, and black bile rose in Sansa’s throat as she slowly realized why._

_As she realized that it was not snow, covering the throne in a light layer, nor covering her hair, falling down onto her nose._

_She sniffed, reaching up frantically to get it off her, the snow that had fallen on her in the minutes since she had entered the throne room, the moment she realized what it was, but the ash only stained into her skin, rather than falling away, and this time, Sansa did scream._

_But there was no one left in these great halls to hear._

* * *

_Sansa dreamed._

_She dreamed of snow, and blood staining the snow in a beautiful pattern of red and then black, and Sansa took a step forward, and then another, and her feet made no imprints in the snow whatsoever._

_She wasn’t cold, either, which was strange, Sansa thought, as she glanced down at herself and realized she was only wearing her sleeveless nightgown._

_But she wasn’t cold, and her arms didn’t look red at all from the snow, and Sansa forced herself to keep walking forward, because she had already been walking when she had opened her eyes, and she thought it must be important, this place she was walking towards._

_She walked, and walked in the snow with her feet leaving no prints, and she didn’t know where she was going, not until she stopped in front of a large cave, stared up at it in something like confusion._

_Her mind told her that she should turn around, the longer she stared at the cave, bu her feet were already moving, forcing her to walk inside the cave, and suddenly, now, the air felt cold around her._

_She reached up, rubbing awkwardly at her arms and wanting nothing more than to turn around and go back the way she had come, but her feet didn’t seem to want to hear her._

_Instead, they did not stop until she was standing before a large, gnarly tree, and Sansa’s breath caught, at the sight of the figure sitting at the base of that tree._

_Because this…this was impossible, she thought. She shouldn’t be this cold when she hadn’t been cold at all, a moment ago, and she shouldn’t be able to see Bran sitting in front of this tree, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes, unblinking._

_She swallowed hard, hugging herself._

_“Bran?” Sansa whispered, confusion filing her at the sight of her brother, sitting at the base of the great tree, his clothes twisted around its branches as if he were cocooned in them._

_He looked…odd, Sansa thought. Older, yes, but also pale in a way that was not quite human, and there was something about his eyes, something terrifying…_

_And then, Bran blinked, and seemed to see her for the first time. His breath caught in his throat; he looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him, and Sansa felt tears springing into her eyes at the sight of him, and took another step forward, before she hesitated._

_She wasn’t sure that she would be able to bear it, if this was all just a dream and she would wake in a few moments to Shae, leaning over her, chamber pot in hand._

_She squeezed her arms, and whispered again, “Bran?”_

_Bran, or this being who was wearing Bran’s face and looking at her with such dispassion, snapped, looking more than a little confused, because she knew, even with the anger in her voice, her brother’s expressions far too well, “You…shouldn’t be here.”_

_He sounded both annoyed and confused, by her presence, which was not the reaction that Sansa wanted from her brother after so many years apart from him, and her heart twisted, in her chest._

_Sansa swallowed hard. “I…” she looked over her shoulder, and saw nothing but a wall of snow._

_She choked._

_“Where am I?” She whispered, but Bran was struggling forward, and it was only then that she realized he wasn’t using his legs, that they trailed behind him in the snow, broken, twisted things._

_Her heart clawed its way up to her throat. “Bran…” she whispered, and her brother came to a halt, halfway the distance between them. “Bran, what…”_

_She wanted to move forward, to help him, because he so clearly needed it, but her legs wouldn’t let her move, and so she could only watch as he dragged himself across the snow until he was almost right in front of her._

_She wanted to kneel down so that she could look into his eyes, then, but her legs woudln’t let her to do that, either._

_“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated, and he sounded angry now, the way that Joffrey did every time Sansa forgot to curb her tongue around the man that was to be her husband._

_She flinched. “What…what do you mean?” She asked, because even as she wished it wasn’t, she knew that this was nothing more than a dream, that Bran wasn’t really in front of her because Bran was dead, he had to be dead._

_Theon had killed him._

_She licked her lips. “Bran, where are we?”_

_“It’s not supposed to be you!” Bran screamed at her, and his face didn’t seem to match the sound, which only made Sansa flinch again. “Why are you here?”_

_She reached up, holding her hands out in front of her, a shield, though she did not know why she felt the need to shield herself from her brother. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words forcing their way past her lips, words she didn’t understand and certainly didn’t mean._

_Because he was her brother, and she would never be sorry for finding her way back to him again._

_Bran gazed at her, unblinking._

_Sansa took a small step back, and then another, something twisting in her stomach at that look in his eyes, a look like he knew who she was, as clearly he did, but he didn’t recognize her at all._

_For the first time since she had seen him at the base of the tree, Sansa found herself wondering if perhaps this wasn’t her brother, after all._

_From somewhere very far away and yet not so far at all, she heard a voice, crying out her name, carrying on the wind beyond the cave._

_“Sansa, I need you to wake up, now,” the voice said, and it sounded so familiar, and Sansa wanted to follow it, because it promised sweetness where her brother was now only looking at her with anger, but her legs still wouldn’t move._

_Unbidden, her eyes traveled back to Bran’s legs, where they lay twisted sideways in the snow._

_She sniffed, ignoring the voice on the wind as she whispered, “Bran, please…”_

_Suddenly, her brother had moved back to the tree, but it was as if she had blinked, and he had moved in that time. The branches twisted sharply around his chest, around his legs, and Sansa thought that should have hurt, but Bran didn’t even finch._

_She opened and closed her mouth, suddenly terrified that the tree was going to consume him, but it didn’t._

_“Bran, what is this?” She asked, glancing around the cave, but she could see nothing to distinguish it from the Black Cells, suddenly. “What is this place? Where are you?”_

_She wanted to ask him if he was dead, but somehow, she knew that she couldn’t, that if she tried, the words would lock in her lips._

_Bran sniffed. “I am everywhere, Sister,” he told her, with such conviction that Sansa flinched. “And nowhere. I am the Three Eyed Raven, now. And you shouldn’t be here. The longer you’re here, the less likely you are to wake. You’re not…you’re not ready for this. Not like I am.” A pause. “You never were.”_

_She shook her head, reaching up to wipe at her nose, realizing only belated that she was smearing someone else’s blood on her face._

_“What does that mean?” She asked him, because it didn’t make any sense, it didn’t, and this might just be a dream, but she needed it to make sense, suddenly._

_“It means we’ve all died, Sansa,” he said, and he didn’t sound like her brother, anymore. “Jon died, and became something Other. Arya died, and became No One. Rickon died, and he is a Shadow. Bran died, and he is now the Three Eyed Raven. But you…you weren’t supposed to die. You were the one who wasn’t supposed to DIE!”_

_Sansa breath caught in her throat. “No,” she whispered, but Bran was nodding, anyway. It didn’t occur to her not to believe his words; the denial on her throat was born of panic, and nothing more. “No.”_

_Because her brother was here, and he was not lying to her, she could see that. She knew her brother enough to know when he was, after all._

_Because if that was the truth, then it meant that she was the only one left, it meant that Bran had a reason to look at her like that._

_He sneered, “All of us except for you. You’re still Sansa Stark.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you here, if you’re still Sansa Stark? You’re not ready yet.”_

_She licked her lips, slid back from him in the snow, fear rushing up her spine. “I don’t…I don’t know,” she whispered, and it was the truth, as tears tracked their way down her cheeks. “Bran, I don't know.”_

_“Why are you here?” He screamed at her, and Sansa fell back on her arse into the snow, but she didn’t feel wet as the snow clung to her, as the blood dripped beneath her fingers where she had reached back to steady herself._

_She grimaced, reaching up to wipe the blood off on her gown, but it didn’t come off on the gown, just stuck to her fingers._

_She gulped._

_“Bran, I…”_

_“You shouldn’t be here,” Bran hissed at her, and now he was moving away from the tree, but his legs were not the things moving for him; instead the branches moved him, and he moved with them, as one. “If you’re here, it means that you’re not going to wake up. That you’ve gone too deep already…”_

_Suddenly, his face twisted into something furious and scared, at the same time, and she remembered, when he was a child, that he’d gotten very sick once, and this was the same face he’d made before he’d been sick all over the septa’s clothes, where she sat beside him, trying to take care of him._

_He wasn’t sick now, though, just staring at her in abject horror, and it stung, to have her brother looking at her like that, Sansa thought._

_He reached up then, pressing a hand to his forehead. “No. No, you have to go!”_

_The last word yanked at her navel, and Sansa opened her mouth to scream at the sharp sensation of something pulling her, but the sound woudln’t escape her lips, and Bran just kept staring at her, screaming that she had to go, that she shouldn’t be here, and suddenly-_

“-Sansa,” Margaery breathed, and her lips were on Sansa, kissing her, and Sansa startled despite how long she’d been waiting to feel that again, pulling away from the other girl.

Margaery swallowed hard, sniffing; her eyes were red, and wet.

Sansa glanced around. She was laying in a bed, she realized, and not in the snow that had felt so real, while she stared up at a brother who didn’t want her around at all.

“I…” she whispered, reaching up to rub at her temples, as she felt a headache coming on.

Margaery was still leaning over her, and she was crying now, but it was a relieved sort of thing, and slowly, it all came back to her.

The funeral feast, the goblet, falling to the ground at the sound of Margaery’s scream…

“You’re all right,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely. “Sansa, look at me.”

She didn’t speak until Sansa looked at her again, and it startled Sansa to realize that the other woman was touching her, voluntarily had her hand on Sansa’s, was squeezing it gently.

“Sansa,” she whispered again, and Sansa chewed on her lower lip, at the sight of the other girl touching her so unthinkingly, so easily. “You’re all right.”

It took her a moment to realize that Margaery kept repeating those words because Sansa was panting, loudly enough to fill the whole room.

“It’s all right,” Margaery assured, reaching forward and snatching Sansa’s hands into her own. “It’s alright. I’m right here. You’re safe.”

She realized that couldn’t be much comfort with the way that Margaery had been acting of late, but Sansa seemed instantly to wilt, when she heard those words.

She took one shuddering breath, and then another, staring up at the other girl where she leaned over her, and thought that Margaery had never looked so beautiful, as Sansa gasped for breath and tried to ward off that horrible feeling in her gut, from the conversation she’d had with Bran.

It was a dream, she told herself. A dream, and nothing more.

She didn’t believe the words, even as she tried to.

Above her, Margaery was crying, great, gasping sobs, like the ones she had given when Sansa had to tell her about her son, but she didn't look sad, she looked relieved; Sansa wondered if Bran was right, and she had been asleep too long.

“Sansa, I’m sorry,” Margaery gasped out, pressing their foreheads together, and she felt Sansa go very still beneath her, as if she was afraid that if she moved, Margaery would move away.

“I’m so sorry,” Margaery repeated, voice no louder than a whisper; Sansa swallowed hard. “For pushing you away, for...for...I was just, I was so hurt, by what had happened.”

Sansa squinted at her; she couldn’t understand why the other girl was apologizing, just now, when she had just kissed her, when she looked so relieved to see her.

“But…I’m sorry, for everything,” Margaery whispered, and perhaps Sansa didn’t understand her words, but she basked in them, all the same. “I shouldn’t have…Gods, I shouldn’t have shut you out like that, when you’re the only person that I…the only person I…”

And Sansa kissed her again, and for the first time in a long time, Margaery understood her without having to hear her say a single word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think!


	35. Storm's End

“You did this without my permission, without even informing us,” Jon thundered, and in all of the time Aegon had known this man, who had been a father to him far more than the dead one in whose name he was attempting to claim the Seven Kingdoms, Aegon had never seen him this furious, before.

It was the angriest Aegon thought he had ever seen Jon, the angriest he had ever been at Aegon, at any rate.

He was holding the letter that had come from King’s Landing in his left hand, flapping it about in the air like it was a flag and not a letter, and Aegon winced a little bit.

To be honest, he was surprised that the Tyrells had even bothered to write back; he had written them some time ago, and had come to the conclusion that their lack of an answer was, indeed, their response to his suggestion of treating with one another.

But the fact that they had, and not only that, but seemed genuinely interested in some sort of truce between them, by the sound of this letter, wanted to meet with him to discuss some sort of peace between them…well, Aegon couldn't help but take hope in that, even if his guardian seemed to think it nothing more than a trick, though Aegon was young and optimistic, Aegon knew.

But if they could work something out, could take King’s Landing without a drop of bloodshed, Aegon knew they had to try. He owed that as much to his mother, to make sure that no other mother suffered the same fate as she had.

And…if that was naive, well, he didn’t care, if he was being honest.

If there was a way to do this without bloodshed then, as the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, it was his duty to find it.

He lifted his chin. “I did it because I thought there might be some way to sue for peace,” he corrected Jon, forcing himself to meet the other man’s eyes. To not flinch back by the annoyance he saw flash in those eyes, before Jon looked away from him.

Jon let out a long sigh. “And when were you going to mention it to me?” He demanded, and Aegon closed his eyes, thought about how he’d been a little tipsy that night, how he’d taken the serving girl into his bed and almost forgotten about the letter, the next morning.

“I wasn’t,” he admitted, and Jon let out a noise of frustration. “I thought…Well, I thought that if they never responded, it wouldn’t be worth bringing up. And honestly, it’s been a little time.”

Jon gave him another long, searching look. Then, “Your Grace, I was tasked with protecting you. With doing whatever it took to protect you, now that you have no mother and no father to do so for you. But I cannot protect you if you are sneaking around behind my back, making choices that you know I wouldn’t approve of, as your advisor, and then refusing to tell me about them.”

Aegon swallowed hard, took a deep breath. “You know I have always valued your counsel,” he said. “More than that, you’ve been like a father to me, and you know it. But I thought…I thought perhaps your own past with the Tyrells, with the Lannisters, was clouding your judgment.” He swallowed hard. “I thought I ought to figure out about them on my own.”

Jon kept watching him. Aegon resisted the urge to squirm, under that gaze.

Then, “This is because of that girl, isn’t it?” Jon asked, and Aegon jerked; he hadn’t been aware that Jon knew about the girl, much less that he would think she had anything to do with Aegon’s decision to contact the Tyrells.

Yes, he knew that she had been a servant for the Tyrells; every servant in Storm’s End was, now, though they were either cowardly enough or agreeable enough that none of them had bothered to fight back when they were told they would now be serving Aegon, rather than the Tyrells.

And her…Well, Maela wasn’t like the rest of them. She didn’t flinch and cower every time he passed her, as the other servants did, didn’t act very much like a servant at all.

And he knew that she was not so loyal to House Tyrell as Jon seemed to worry. That, while she had been pledged to their House, she had been eager enough to get into bed with him, hadn’t seem bothered at all by it, in fact, either the first night they had been together, or any night since.

And a part of him had been worried, through his drunken haze that first night, that she was only sleeping with him as a way to survive, now that someone who was not a Tyrell had taken Storm’s End, but if that were the case…

Well, he had never been with another woman before, but he didn’t think ones uninterested in their lover could scream quite the way she did.

“How do you know about her?” He demanded.

Jon gave him an unimpressed look. “I was tasked once with watching over you since you were a small child, Your Grace,” he reminded Aegon, and Aegon had the grace to blush, at those words. “Of course I know about the girl.”

Aegon bit back a sigh; some part of him hadn’t wanted Jon to know, had wanted to keep the girl a secret, as if she were some devious, shameful thing that he ought not acknowledge, but he knew that was only because that part of him had known Jon would not approve of his relationship with her. Would think that, as a Tyrell, she was only trying to manipulate him.

“It’s not about her,” he said, even if a part of him thought that perhaps it was, but not for the reason Jon clearly thought.

She hadn’t uttered a word about the Tyrells, not since he’d taken her into bed, hadn’t uttered a word about these people who were her former masters, who clearly she must still have some loyalty to, or he wouldn’t quite want to bed her so easily.

But she was kind.

She was kind, and she was a woman, and perhaps that said more about him than it did about her, but when he had first decided to take Westeros, he had pictured the Baratheons as horrible monsters, as ingrates who had attacked and killed his father when he was the rightful heir to the throne, even if his father had done his mother wrong.

And all of their followers must surely be the same.

But they weren’t, and deep down, he must have always known that, especially after he’d bedded the girl, he couldn’t help but think.

He bit back a sigh.

“They have reached out to us, so they are clearly interested in negotiating, and am I not here to further the good of the realm?” He asked, and Jon just looked at him, a little sadly. “I’m having this meeting with them, whether you want me to or not,” Aegon said, tightly, and he saw the way that Jon’s jaw tightened, that he looked at Aegon like he wasn’t sure how he could stop him from making such a colossally stupid decision.

And Aegon…Aegon found himself annoyed, at the sight.

He had spent a lifetime listening to Jon’s advice, had spent a lifetime studying what it meant to be a king, to be the king that Westeros needed, and he would have thought that Jon trusted him a little more than this.

Had thought Jon respected him more than this. He had thought that Jon had…trusted him more than this.

Finally, Jon sighed again. “The Tyrells are not unreasonable. They are a cowardly people,” he admitted. “They would sooner find some way to negotiate and swindle a deal out of us than fight a war against us, especially when they know that their claim to the Iron Throne is thin enough, at this point. If it had been the Lannisters, I would think this some sort of trick, but them, I am likely to believe.”

Aegon released a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. “Thank you,” he breathed, but Jon still woudln’t look at him.

“We will meet with them,” he told Aegon, and his words were clipped, and Aegon flinched a little, under the intensity of his gaze. “On level ground: Dragonstone. Because they have asked for this meeting, and because I believe it would do you good, to hear what they have to say.”

But somehow, Aegon had a feeling Jon didn’t think this meeting would go well, that he wanted to have it to prove as much to Aegon, from what he had just said.

His brows furrowed in confusion.

“On one condition,” Jon went on, and Aegon bit back a sigh, feeling much like a recalcitrant child, being told off for his misbehavior.

He didn’t think Jon had ever looked so disappointed in him.

“This girl,” he said, and this time, Aegon did sigh. “The one you’re bedding. You agree to stop seeing her.”

Aegon opened his mouth to protest, but Jon didn’t give him the chance. “I know you think she is nothing more than a servant, but you forget, I know these Tyrells better than you do. I know what they’re capable of. How they…do their work, in the shadows.”

He said it darkly, and Aegon wondered at the story there, wondered if it had anything to do with the way Jon flinched, every time he heard the sound of bells, off in the distance.

Aegon bit back a sigh, knowing that if he argued again to Jon about how he was wrong about Maela, the man would only believe that he was too far gone for her.

Still, he found it annoying, that Jon was doing something as silly as dictating Aegon’s relations simply because he didn’t like them.

Silly enough that he didn’t quite want to agree.

But, he supposed, if this was the way that Jon was going to act, if this was the only way that Aegon got his chance for peace, he was going to have to take it.

“Fine,” he gritted out, and the look that Jon sent his way was sad and a little searching, and Aegon forced himself to lift his chin and pretend like he meant the agreement.

Finally, Jon set down the letter on the table between them; they were in Jon’s chambers, because the letter, of course, had gone to Jon before it ever reached Aegon’s eyes, and the summons he had sent for Aegon, who had been busy sparring with Rolly, had made him feel much like a child again, brought to task for some small slight or another.

But this didn’t feel like a small slight, today. It felt like something had been irreparably damaged, and Aegon didn’t like to think what. Didn’t want to wonder if he had lost Jon’s trust, hard-earned and long kept.

He took a deep breath, and walked out of the room, finding Rolly waiting for him out in the hallway, whittling a knife and looking bored, as if he hadn’t overheard the shouting even with the door shut.

He stood to his feet, smirking a little as Aegon glanced at him, and then kept walking. Distantly, he heard the sound of Jon’s door shutting.

“He’s infuriating, sometimes,” Aegon said then, fists clenched at his sides as he walked down the hall, Rolly struggling to keep up alongside him.

The other man grunted, and didn’t respond.

Aegon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and Rolly coughed.

“He’s right, you know,” Rolly said, and Aegon resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Gods, not you, too,” he muttered, trying not to think about the girl this was all about, the one they all seemed to think had manipulated him, had tricked him into doing something that had been his decision long before he’d bedded the girl.

“I just…Don’t think you understand,” Rolly said, his words strangely patient, when he was usually not so. “How devious some women can be, in order to survive. This serving girl, she’s a good fuck, sure, but don’t let her get under your skin.”

Aegon resisted the urge to tell him that she’d done more than that, since they’d first found themselves in bed together.

Aegon paused in the hallway, turning to raise a brow at Rolly. “She’s not…she’s not like that,” he said, slowly. “She…what we have together, it’s not…she doesn’t tell me how to think, like he seems to believe.” And he still couldn't believe that Jon thought that, that he underestimated Aegon so much. “She’s just…warm.”

He flushed a little, even as he said it, but he meant the words, all the same.

Rolly rolled his eyes. “Yes, as are all women,” he said sarcastically, and Aegon sighed and stared walking again.

Rolly, however, did not give up, following after him rather quickly.

“You’ve got what you need from her,” Rolly went on. “Good practice, for the next broad that comes into your life. A queen expects that sort of thing.”A pause, as Rolly echoed the words Aegon had thought to himself just the other day, but hadn’t dared say in quite the same terms. “Practice.”

Aegon closed his eyes, and then opened them again. “I get the feeling it’s going to be a long while before I have a queen,” he pointed out, and Rolly shrugged.

“Then find some village girl to scandalize Connington,” he said. “Fuck her over the throne, if you like.” Aegon flushed furiously, at that. “But not one who’s loyal to House Tyrell. You’re not that stupid.”

Aegon reached up, brushing a hand over his mouth. “Gods, do you even know anything about them? The way you all talk about them, its like you expect them to be sirens, rising out of the sea.”

Rolly made a face. “I just know they claim the Iron Throne, right now,” he said, as if that was enough. “So they’re your enemy, and because of that, they’re my enemy, as well, Your Grace.”

He said the words stiffly, with the sort of reverence one used to speak to a king, and Aegon gritted his teeth.

He still felt a little uncomfortable with the way they all looked at him, these days, as if they expected him to bring them glory and gold, as if they thought of him as something more than the brat he’d thought them all unimpressed with, the first time he’d met this Golden Company.

But perhaps that was still the sting of his aunt’s rejection, before he and Jon had made the decision to come to the Seven Kingdoms without her.

“I haven’t lost sight of that,’ he informed Rolly, because he thought perhaps that was what the other boy was worried about. “She’s just…I’m using her as much as she’s using me, at the moment.”

Rolly snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Your Grace,” he said, as they came to a stop in front of his chambers, and, as if thinking of her had summoned her, she was standing there, in front of the door where the guards still stood, looking bashful in a way he knew she most certainly was not.

Rolly punched him on the arm, looking considerably less worried about her presence now than he had a moment ago, and then stalked off.

Aegon took a deep breath, walking over to meet her, this girl who occupied so many of their thoughts’ these days, solely because he had wanted to bed her.

He wondered if it had been the same when his father had met Lyanna Stark, yet another girl unsuitable for a married man, for a king.

She smiled up at him then, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as he came closer, attempting to ignore the guards who he knew now would report back to Jon exactly what he was doing, just now.

His arms felt useless, by his sides.

“Your Grace,” she said, dipping into a deep bow before him, the neckline of her dress plunging as she did so.

Aegon swallowed thickly. “Maela.”

She bit back her smile, glancing at the guards watching them. “I was told to clean Your Grace’s chambers,” she said, looking like she was barely holding back a laugh, and Aegon almost laughed at those words, himself.

“All right,” he said, pushing open the door for her, and she stepped nimbly in before him, curtseying again.

He nearly slammed the door behind them.

She jumped, turning around to face him, no longer quite the bashful little maiden she’d been out in the hall. Her lips curved into a small smirk.

“So it’s like that, is it?” She asked, as he took a step closer to her.

Aegon bit back a sigh. “No,” he admitted, passing her to sit down on the nearby divan. “I just…” he reached up, rubbing at his temples.

He felt her touch on his arm, a moment later, and lifted his face to meet hers. “What is it?” She asked, and damn her, she actually sounded concerned.

He swallowed hard, running a hand through his hair and turning away from her, deciding he may as well give her the benefit of the doubt, just now. “Jon says that’s because you’re a Tyrell,” he said. “That you’re a spy, planted by Mace Tyrell to trick me into giving you information. Into…manipulating me.”

The last words sparked a wave of fury through him, at the way Jon had looked at him while he said those words like he thought Aegon was nothing more than a silly, manipulated child, at the way the sight of this girl still made him weak when even he was beginning to entertain his doubts about her.

She flinched, at the sound of his fist slamming down onto the tabletop between them, and Aegon felt a slight wave of guilt, even if she was a spy, for scaring her in such a way.

He opened his mouth to say as much, but then she was already walking towards him, was already reaching out to place her hand on his arm.

The touch burned, like it had during the nights they had spent together since that first time when she had approached him. Aegon closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

“Yes,” she agreed, quietly, and his eyes flew open. “I am a Tyrell. I have served them all of my life, and that makes me a Tyrell. They are…they are good people, even if they are not always kind, and I have never known any other masters but them.”

She looked up at him, and looking down at the sincerity in her eyes, Aegon couldn’t help but believe every word she said.

“But they are not here, now,” she said, cocking her head at him, and Aegon bit back a sigh.

“I think…I think that we should stop,” he said, softly, and the girl squinted up at him, swallowing hard.

She looked…genuinely saddened by that, which he hadn’t been expecting from her. While he didn’t think she was using him, didn’t want to think that, at the very least, a small part of him had to wonder.

He certainly knew that she wasn’t in love with him, after all.

She stepped forward then, her hand moving from his arm to his chest. He swallowed thickly.

“Am I so displeasing?” She asked, and there was something like genuine sadness in her eyes that made it impossible to look too long into them.

“I…No,” he stammered out, because he wasn’t quite sure what else to say, with that look in her eyes. “I…Not at all. But I can’t…I suppose Jon is right. I can’t take the risk that you are…not doing this entirely for yourself.”

There. That sounded the least like he was accusing her of being a spy, she supposed.

Still, her lips pulled down into a pout and she pulled back from him. “A spy,” she echoed, the words dry.

He sighed, reaching up to run a hand through his hair again, feeling like he could breathe a little better once he had taken a step back from her. “You are not responsible for the letter I sent to the Tyrells, but I wouldn’t blame you if you…felt you had to do anything in your power to survive, here.”

To his surprise, she looked strangely…touched, by those words. Then, she reached up, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Jon was right, he realized suddenly.

It would hurt him, he thought, if he were to get any closer to this girl, only to realize that she was, in fact, a spy for the Tyrells. That she was using him to send information to them that she couldn’t get just as a servant, even if he saw no evidence for her being a spy since they had started sharing a bed.

Then, she reached out, taking his hand and placing it on her breast.

Aegon flinched a little, at how readily she did so, at the feel of her hardened nipple beneath his hand.

“Does this feel like someone who doesn’t want to be here, Your Grace?” She asked, and he stared at her. She smirked again. “I didn’t think so.”

Then she moved forward, kissing him, and Aegon felt his sigh melt off in her mouth, felt his hand touching her breast with purpose, now, sliding down her stomach.

They stumbled towards the bed, and for a moment, Aegon almost completely forgot about Jon.

“What about,” she said suddenly, as they fell into the bed, her lips trailing kisses down his neck, “If I promise not to talk, when we’re together, and you promise to make it good enough that I don’t need to? Do you think we could stay together then, my king?” She asked, and Aegon felt his pupils blown wide, at her words, felt himself grimacing.

“I…”

She kissed his lips then, again and again. “It could be our little secret,” she said, as she pulled back from him, and he bit his lip where she had kissed it a moment before, and then smiled.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to talk,” he said, as he pushed her down towards the bed.

She let out a delighted squeal, as she fell, and for a moment, Aegon could almost forget his doubts.

But, he told himself, as long as she wasn’t talking, he doubted it mattered, anyway. It wasn’t like her cunt could tell him what to do about the Tyrells, after all.

* * *

Aegon didn’t look at Jon, at his grim face as they all sat down in these makeshift Small Council chambers that Storm’s End couldn’t really provide. They were set up in chambers that Aegon was pretty sure had been a study for Stannis Baratheon, once, and he tried not to let that bother him, anymore than it bothered him that he was now sleeping in rooms that had once belonged either to Robert or to Stannis.

He hadn’t quite worked up the courage to ask Maela if she knew, though he doubted it, considering her people, too, had taken this place from the Baratheons.

But still, he felt as if ghosts watched him, even now.

This wasn’t his home, he reminded himself. It belonged to the Baratheon Usurper’s family, and sitting in it now, he marveled that a Baratheon had ever thought himself worthy of the Iron Throne, being born in such a place.

Especially when Aegon himself hardly felt worthy of it, these days.

He sighed, reaching up to rub at his temples as Jon finished reading aloud the letter that had arrived not an hour earlier, while Aegon was still with Maela abed, from King’s Landing, from their spy there, by raven.

Jon had called for their Small Council to meet the moment he had read it, from what Aegon could tell, and now, as he read it aloud, he supposed he understood why.

Dear gods.

He had known, of course, that the moment he arrived in Westeros, not all would be well. Not everyone would accept him as their rightful king, nor would anyone lay down their arms just because he claimed to be such.

There would be a war to fight, to take back what had been stolen from his father and mother, and he would have to shed some blood to get there, even if the thought of negotiating with the Tyrells had appeal.

But the Tyrells were not the only ones in King’s Landing who stood against him, especially now.

He sighed, as Jon finished off the rest of the letter from the spy, its signatory marked with a simple ’S,’ and set the letter down between them and Harry, on the table.

Harry swore softly, under his breath, looking as surprised as Aegon now felt.

Many times, Aegon had wondered who Jon’s informant within King’s Landing was. Whoever they were, they were certainly well informed, and sometimes Aegon wondered if they did not send him all that they actually knew.

He understood how that could be dangerous, if they were ever intercepted and someone recognized such information, but still, it bothered him more than he wanted to admit, that he didn’t know them.

He thought if he did, he might trust them a little better.

But, however Aegon felt about this spy within King’s Landing’s walls whose identity only Jon could know, however he felt about the fact that Jon clearly didn’t trust him with that, either, he could admit that this time, at least, they had certainly sent damn good information.

Information worth the lack of an identity, Aegon supposed, this time, because dear gods, was the letter rather packed with it.

Euron Greyjoy, the mad pirate from the Iron Islands who had named himself its king and could move across oceans without being seen by anyone, had destroyed Lannisport, or as good as.

And if that wasn’t wild enough, the Dornish, who were supposed to be their allies, had, for unfathomable reasons, crowned Myrcella Baratheon as the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and sent their ships to lay siege to King’s Landing, under the orders of Gerold Dayne, Myrcella’s Regent.

He didn’t know what the fuck the man was thinking, but if he thought that they were going to take this sitting down, when Aegon had been at the very same time attempting to negotiate with the Tyrells, he had an unwelcome surprise waiting for him, when the Dornish finally did pull their heads out of their arses and came to meet with him, too.

At least they had not sent anymore ships, he supposed, only the ones who had, not long ago, been already in King’s Landing’s harbor, but that hardly made him feel better.

It was only a reminder that these people, his mother’s people, had been on the side of the Tyrells not a fortnight ago.

He didn’t like the reminder.

He didn’t know what his uncle, his cousin, whoever was in charge of Dorne now, this Gerold Dayne, perhaps, was thinking in doing something like this, and he did not want at all to deal harshly with his mother’s people, but he would want an explanation from them themselves, not from this spy in King’s Landing.

They’d had no right to do this without even informing him, and he knew that they were playing both sides now, to whatever end suited them. That was why they had crowned Myrcella, that was why they had reached out to treat with him the same day.

He didn’t like a people who said one thing and meant another, even if those people were his mother’s.

“Well, I suppose we understand now why the Tyrells are suddenly so eager to accept the chance to treat with us,” Jon pointed out, as he set the raven’s letter down.

It almost would have been funny, if the subject didn’t still feel like a sore one, if Aegon didn’t feel so blindsided by the contents of the letter.

The room was silent.

Aegon licked his lips. “This…Euron Greyjoy,” he said, and of course he knew the name. Most people did, even those who knew very little about the Seven Kingdoms, where he came from, knew about the pirate who appeared like a fog in the dead of night or the early morning, and laid waste to everything in his sight.

But Aegon hadn’t realized he had interest in going against the noble Houses of Westeros, either.

“Do you think he’s strong enough to take King’s Landing?”

King’s Landing suddenly seemed far too close to the water for his comfort, this place that would soon be his.

The Dornish were already laying siege to it, but the Dornish were not known for their fleet, after all.

Euron Greyjoy certainly was, even in the East.

Harry grimaced. “Your Grace, I think the more important question is what he wants,” he pointed out. “He attacked Lannisport and Casterly Rock, either because he could or because he wants it for himself. The Greyjoys attacked the Westerlands one time before, and it took the unification of the Houses, to bring him down. He could simply be after the chance to finish the job, this time, or he could be after something…more.”

It took a moment, for those words to sink in. “You think he’s after the Iron Throne for himself?” He asked, incredulously.

It wasn’t as if Euron Greyjoy had any right to it, after all.

The man shrugged. “I think that it is within the realm of possibility, Your Grace,” he pointed out, “These days, everyone with a cock and certainly those without seem to be making a decent attempt for it.”

Jon squinted at the man, disapproving. “Either way,” he said, “The man is rumored to be quite mad, and the fact that he was able to take Lannisport so easily is a threat, Your Grace,” he said it like he cared about Aegon’s opinion on the matter, and, after the way he’d acted about Maela earlier, about Aegon’s letter to the Tyrells before that, Aegon thought he couldn’t be certain the other man did.

The thought stung more than he wanted to admit.

“Of course it is,” he agreed. “But if he is an enemy of the Lannisters, surely that means he might have some use? In playing them against one another?”

Jon pressed his lips together, looking like he thought the idea of using a Greyjoy untenable. “I suppose, Your Grace,” he agreed.

Harry cleared his throat. “And what of the Dornish?” He demanded. “They were told that if they wanted to ally with us, they were to leave King’s Landing alone for us to deal with, and immediately turned around and attacked them. Not to mention, that little Lannister bitch has been named Queen, in Dorne. They say her uncle stands by her side, the Imp.”

Aegon ran a hand through his hair, glancing nervously at Jon, not wanting to admit that he had no idea how to even approach that situation after he’d been so annoyed with Jon for disregarding him, earlier.

Jon was a brilliant man, after all, and there were still some things that Aegon could stand to learn from him, even if it killed him.

The Dornish were…not what he had expected of them, from the stories he had grown up hearing about his mother. A woman with honor, who had stood by her husband even after he had humiliated her with that Stark girl. A woman who had been faithful, no matter what. Loyal.

He grimaced.

And he certainly didn’t know what they were doing championing the cause of a Lannister, in all of this. The Tyrells, he almost would have understood, but the Lannisters, from the way Jon spoke of it, were the reason for all of their troubles, in the first place.

Were the reason that his mother had died in such a horrible, degrading way.

Jon sighed. “They will be dealt with,” he said, and there was nothing of kindness in his voice, even though he knew how Aegon felt about turning against them.

Aegon looked away.

Harry glanced between them, and then got to his feet, giving Aegon a per functionary bow before walking out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.

Aegon didn’t remember to breathe again, after he’d left.

Jon got straight to the point, it would seem.

“I understand this girl, Maela, was seen in your chambers earlier,” Jon said, his voice terribly disapproving, and Aegon grunted and didn’t meet his eyes.

“I told her that we couldn’t be together,” Aegon said, tightly. “She was…understandably confused, seeing as no ravens have been seen leaving Storm’s End that don’t belong to us.”

“Yes, well, no ravens were seen leaving Storm’s End when you sent one to this Regent in King’s Landing,” Jon pointed out crossly, and Aegon flinched a little, at the reminder.

Damn.

Jon let out a sigh. “I’m glad that you decided to do the right thing, Your Grace,” he said the words almost gently, and they only served to make Aegon feel all the guiltier, as he remembered all of the things Maela and he had done together, earlier.

True to her word, she hadn’t uttered a single one while they were together. It had been…strange, but then, she hadn’t exactly been quiet, either, and that more than made up for her silence.

He swallowed hard. “Yes, well, I still don’t think she was a threat, or a spy, but…” he shrugged.

Jon eyed him carefully. “Then I’m glad you did it in spite of that,” he said, and Aegon bit back a sigh.

“Thank you,” he said, and Jon gave him another long look, before nodding, signifying that the conversation was now done, Aegon supposed.

“Don't worry about the Dornish,” he said. “I know that you do not want to make enemies of them. We will figure it out.”

Aegon gave him a shaky nod, trying to pretend that was what he had been worried about, throughout this conversation. He forced a smile. “I know,” he agreed, a little too easily for his own comfort. “They are my mother’s people.”

Jon gave him another long look, like he was going to contest that for a moment, before nodding. “Yes, Your Grace. And we’ll figure out how to bring this pirate to heel, as well. He’s been plaguing the South Sea for far too long, as well.”

Aegon nodded shakily.

He had a feeling this woudln’t be the last time that he lied to Jon, but it didn’t necessarily make the pit in his stomach go away any faster, thinking that.

“I know we will,” he said, uncertain if he believed those words or not. “Because the Iron Throne belongs to me, and the gods know that as well as the Dornish, and the Tyrells, and this pirate.”

Jon clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he agreed, and Aegon felt something a little like relief, at those words.


	36. The King's Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For…uh, somewhat spoiler-y plot reasons, you may notice that something in this flashback is…rather different than how things are in canon, but uh, it’s something I’ve been planning for a while and, unfortunately, is rather important… Also, warning for the return of Lannicest. Lannincest?

_“Jaime,” she whispered, trailing kisses down his neck, forcing his attention on her when it seemed like she was losing him. “Come on. Hurry up and fuck me. Jaime.”_

_He had been doing that a lot, lately, when they went to bed together, and it worried her._

_Drifting off, his mind a million leagues away even as he fucked her brains out, promising to get her with a child because if she had to carry anyone’s child, she wanted it to be his, and not Robert’s, damnit, when the man hardly seemed to care whether she ever got pregnant or not._

_She didn’t like this drifting, not from her brother, who had always adored her._

_Didn’t like that when she wrapped her hand around his cock and tugged, she didn’t get the reaction that she used to, when they were younger and didn’t entirely know what they were doing._

_They were one. He ought to be with her, in these moments, and not wherever his mind had taken him._

_She had always been able to keep her with him, in the past. Had always known how he felt about her._

_It scared her, that just as she was beginning to realize her new husband, the King, would never love her, Jaime seemed so…distant, especially after she had sworn to him that they would never be parted from one another, despite this farce of a wedding._

_Oh, on her wedding night, after Robert had passed out on top of her and she’d had to push the much larger man off of her, had gotten to her feet and reached up to adjust her robes, which had barely been ruffled by her husband’s attentions, and after she had snuck across the hall to find her brother, to pull him into her bed where she was now certain he belonged, he had been nothing but attentive._

_Attentive, and furiously possessive of her, in a way that made her feel hot and made her heart beat faster when she knew it shouldn’t have, because her brother was angry with the way her new husband was treating her. Or rather, not treating her. Not cherishing her, as she deserved to be, as his wife._

_Her brother had more than made up for that, though. Had made Cersei forget, a few times, in the throws of a passion that they had to be so quiet to conceal but still enjoyed nonetheless, that she was even married to a man who had yet to look twice at her after whispering Lyanna Stark’s name into her ear on their wedding night._

_And yet now, he seemed…disappointingly distracted._

_And Cersei could put up with that from Robert, who had never loved her, but Jaime had always been there for her. He had never made her feel unloved._

_And now, he was barely even responding to her, and she wanted to loathe him for it, but she knew that if she pushed him away now, she would never get him back._

_Worse, she would be alone, in this place full of Stags who all hated her, and Jon Arryn, who always looked on her like he thought her some lesser being, because she wasn’t a Stark._

_She needed her brother by her side, now, more than ever._

_It was becoming more and more apparent to her, as the dreary days as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms went on, that her husband would never be able to give her what she wanted, never be able to love her in the way that she needed._

_And Jaime, she already knew, could._

_She damn well wasn’t going to lose him, now._

_“What is it?” Cersei asked with a sigh, as she flopped down onto the bed beside her twin. Clearly, they were getting nowhere with this, which meant that he was going to make her talk._

_And…much as she wanted to be doing…other things, she did realize that if she wanted to get to that point, she was going to have to let him talk._

_Her brother was a bit like that, sometimes. For all that Tyrion, the little monster, seemed to think that Jaime was the simple one in the family, he always needed these moments that Cersei did not, these moments to actually think about what they were doing, to think about things that Cersei would not give the time of day._

_Still, if it served her purpose, she supposed she could let him talk for a little while._

_She reached up, rubbing at his bare chest; the Kingsguard uniform had been discarded in the corner of the room, and she was never so glad to see it gone._

_It didn’t suit him, she thought. It had when she had thought she would marry Rhaegar, and of course, it kept them together, but the white…wasn’t a good look on him._

_He ought to be Hand of the King, or something similar, and not a bodyguard whom her husband was free to ridicule day in and day out._

_“You’re troubled,” Cersei continued, when her brother was silent, his shallow breathing the only sound in the room. “Is it Robert? If you tell me about it, maybe I can help.”_

_She didn’t exactly know how to manage her husband, yet; the marriage was still rather new, after all, even if Jon Arryn was already muttering about babies and the lack of one in her womb, but she thought that if her husband’s ridicule was really too much for her brother, perhaps she could get him to let up on it._

_Though, her brother was a strong man. He had dealt with the Mad King, after all, and she was certain that he could deal with a few cold words from Robert Baratheon, the drunk who had yet to take his kingship seriously._

_Her brother scoffed. “You can’t help me,” he said, and he said it with such a certainty that Cersei flinched back from him, not liking that he was taking that tone with her._

_Not after everything that they had done to be together._

_He sighed, reaching out for her again, pulling her against him. “I, uh, I didn’t mean that. I’m only…I…”_

_She reached up, brushing at his hair. “You can tell me anyway, even if I can’t fix it,” she told him, and watched her brother’s chest rise and fall in a deep sigh._

_“I killed him,” Jaime whispered, and she could see the wetness in his eyes, now, a wetness that made him look weak, but somehow, Cersei couldn’t blame him for that, in this moment, because he didn’t let them fall._

_Cersei stiffened, at those words, her heart hammering a bit in her chest, surprised that this should be the thing standing between them, still distracting her brother._

_Surprised that he had even brought it up, despite her invitation that he do so, when he had insisted on never speaking of it to anyone who asked, these days._

_She knew that her brother had killed the mad King, of course she did; everyone knew that her brother had been the one to stab the Mad King through the back and effectively end the war. That he had become a kingslayer, with that one single action, while his father waited outside the city, ready to destroy it on a word. Ready to defend Cersei’s honor for the fact that the Mad King had chosen that stupid girl, Elia Martell, over her, for Rhaegar’s bride._

_If only she had married Rhaegar, instead of Robert, perhaps none of this would have happened. Perhaps none of them would be looking at Jaime like he was some sort of sinner, for doing what they had all wanted to do, anyway._

_For finishing what needed to be finished, and all but handing the throne over to Robert Baratheon._

_They all ought to be thanking him for it, rather than ostracizing and mocking him for it, she thought, and no wonder her brother was so hesitant to speak of it._

_But she couldn’t deny that she was curious. Her brother had taken an oath, after all, as one of the Kingsguard, to protect the king unto his death, no matter what he decided to do, to his own family or to the realm, and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, for it had been her idea once that he join the Kingsguard in the first place, she knew how much that oath meant to her brother._

_But he didn’t speak of it. Never spoke of it, no matter how much Cersei prodded and pried him for information, wanting to know how he had done it, why he had done it, when the war was already effectively over, had already been won even if the Mad King refused to concede._

_They said that when Ned Stark found him, he was sitting on the Iron Throne with the Mad King dead at his feet._

_Cersei would have given anything to see that, for herself._

_As it was, she had to settle for the tidbits that she heard from others, rather than her own brother, because he would tell her nothing beyond that he had done “what he needed to do,” whatever that meant, and that Robert thought him an untrustworthy fool, for it._

_She noticed the way his jaw ticked, every time Robert mocked him about it. Every time someone brought it up in front of him, or the Kingsguard looked at him like they no longer thought of him as their brother._

_And still, he would tell her nothing._

_So the fact that he was bringing it up now…Cersei leaned forward in interest, despite herself. Curious, as she had always been as a child about the morbid things of life. Tried not to look too interested, lest she disturb him._

_But the Mad King was an enigma to her. He had been the one to insist on marrying Elia Martell to Rhaegar, and if she was a little too interested in his death, well…that her was own fault._

_Jaime swallowed hard, not quite meeting her eyes, but she could tell that now he had begun to speak of it, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And she didn’t want him to. Wanted to know how the man who had ruined all of their lives had really died._

_And Jaime was the only one who could give her that._

_And perhaps, if he got it out there in the open, if it no longer stood between them, they could celebrate it._

_She glanced down the length of his body, and thought she knew exactly how they might._

_“I see the way they look at me, now,” Jaime whispered, and Cersei wanted to feel bad for him, but she also wanted his cock inside her cunny, and she knew from experience that the fastest way to get that was to convince him that, whatever it was he was thinking of, it was hardly as important as that. “Your husband, Arryn, all of them. A man without honor, Ser Barristan called me.”_

_Cersei scoffed. “As if any of them know a damn thing about it, either,” she said, to console him, but mostly to keep him talking, as she sat up a little on the bed and tried to ignore the warm heat in her womb._

_“Have you ever heard of wildfire?” He asked, and Cersei went very still indeed, then, afraid that if she spoke, he would stop his tale._

_But he knew that she had, so she merely nodded. When they were children, they had found the concept fascinating. Had wondered why their father didn’t just burn the Houses who rebelled against him, had wondered what it could do if it were allowed to spread._

_Cersei had been more interested than Jaime, she remembered now. In fact, she rather remembered him being disgusted when she brought up the possibility, at all, just as their maester had been, back when they still shared the same one._

_Jaime’s Adam’s apple bobbed against her cheek. “The Mad King…he was obsessed with it,” he said, and Cersei knew that. Knew that the Mad King burning Lord Stark and his son had been what had set all of this off, what had started it all. “He loved watching…watching them burn,” he said, and she remembered then how he must have been there, when the Starks were burned alive in the Great Hall for the Mad King’s amusement, because they dared to ask for Lyanna Stark’s safe return._

_“He watched as their skin blackened, blistered. Near the end, he was burning anyone who spoke a word against him. He…he saw traitors in all of them,” he went on, and Cersei’s breath caught, fascinated in a way she couldn’t understand now, by this story, and not just because Jaime was finally speaking of it, and she could see how difficult it was for him to even do that. “He had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city. Beneath the Sept of Baelor, the slums of Flea Bottom. Half the stables, taverns. Even the Red Keep.”_

_He shuddered, as he said those words._

_“When I heard that Father had come, that he was going to…I knew what he was going to do,” Jaime breathed, and Cersei had known what he was going to do, then, too, when she had seen him off to march on King’s Landing._

_“The King didn’t listen to any of us,” Jaime said. “Except Pycelle, when he said to let Father into the city. I…I told him to surrender,” Jaime said, and the words seemed to blur together, but Cersei could understand them all too well._

_She and Jaime had grown up together where it counted, after all._

_“He told me to bring him Father’s head,” he said, and Cersei totally forgot to breathe, then. “He turned to the pyromancer and told him to…to…”_

_He went quiet, for a moment, but he didn’t need to speak._

_Cersei thought she understood what he couldn’t say, after all._

_That…that the Mad King had told his pyromancer to set off those caches of wildfire, the ones that would have burned half the city away._

_She swallowed hard. “Is that when you…killed him?” She whispered, hoarsely, because she wanted to know, now._

_Her dear brother, whom all of the world seemed to loathe, now, for that simple act. She had known that he hadn’t just killed the Mad King because he knew that their father was coming, that House Lannister had finally chosen a side in this war, and Cersei woudln’t have cared a wit if that was the only reason he had done as he had, if he had killed the Mad King for their family, for her._

_She would have loved him still._

_But she thought she loved him a little more, hearing it now. Thought she understood a little more the burden he’d been carrying, while her bastard of a husband had mocked him for it, while everyone in King’s Landing looked down on him for it._

_He had been saving these stupid, ungrateful people’s lives, when he killed the Mad King._

_“What else was I supposed to do?” Jaime asked, into the silence. “What the fuck else should I have done?”_

_Cersei rubbed her hand up his shaking shoulder. At that realization, she felt something stirring in her, something that wasn’t just the lust that she always felt for her brother._

_Something…more._

_Her toes curled, as she reached up and kissed his cheek. Kissed his cheek, down his throat, because he had just told her something…something incredible, and he deserved to know how she really felt about it._

_How she really felt about him._

_But it was as if her brother still wasn’t really paying attention to her, and Cersei pouted a little as she kissed her way down his chest._

_“They’re still there,” Jaime whispered against her ear, and this time, when the tears came, she hardly noticed them, her eyes widening at his words. “They think they found them all, but they couldn’t have. Buried in…little pockets, all over the city. They’ll never be able to find all of them, not with how many he had that pyromancer make.”_

_He closed his eyes, as if even the reminder of what had happened that day, that day that Cersei was so curious about but knew so little about, was too much for him._

_She wondered if he had planned to keep this secret til his grave, when they were one, and he ought to have known that he could tell her anything._

_“And you made sure no one ever would,” she said, and this time, when she kissed him, her brother actually kissed her back._

_She felt relief spread through her, at that, alongside the warmth, and tried not to think at all of the burden that knowing there was so much wildfire buried in the city without anyone being able to find it might do to her brother._

_After all, there were plenty of other things that she wanted to do to him, just now. And, within moments, she thought she had gotten him to at least forget about the Mad King for a little while._

* * *

The road to the Westerlands was longer than Cersei remembered.

It had not been very long since she had last taken it, when she had turned to King’s Landing for the funeral of her eldest son, because she had forced her horses to go almost faster than they were capable of, and pushed her servants to the point of breaking, because she was not certain that Margaery Tyrell, in a fit of cruelty, would not change her mind and have the funeral before Cersei could even get there.

Would bury her son before she could lay him to rest.

But she had done something crueler than that. After stealing her son away from her, intentionally or not, she had stolen away Tommen, too, and sent Cersei away from the place that had been her home for longer than the Rock ever had.

And then, she had stolen the Rock from Cersei, as well.

She gritted her teeth, as her uncle called for them to stop and set up camp, for the night. He seemed to realize that their men needed the rest, even if Cersei would like for nothing more than to get back to the Rock so she could figure out how to liberate it from her bastard, traitor of an uncle and make it hers, once more.

As it should be.

But Kevan was insistent; the road to the Rock felt so long, this trip, even if Cersei knew that was because of the sheer number of men following them.

If only they would follow her, and not her uncle, she could turn them around and threaten to lay siege to King’s Landing, call for the rest of her troops where they were only waiting for her orders, back in the Westerlands.

But then…Margaery would still have Tommen. Would still use him against her, and she wouldn’t put it past the bitch to kill him, the moment her own child was born and had that claim to the throne.

So, as much as it irked Cersei to do nothing, she had a feeling that she would have to do just that, if she ever wanted to see Tommen alive again.

She bit back a snort, rather doubting, at this point, that there was even much chance of that. Margaery Tyrell had made it exceedingly clear, when she’d gone as far as to arrest that Sand Snake, that she was willing to go to great lengths to keep Tommen with her, to make sure that Cersei wasn’t allowed to see her son again, that Cersei couldn’t champion Tommen’s rightful claim to the throne over that of her own bastard’s.

Bastard’s.

For a moment, a terrifying, saddening moment, while she had been standing in the Sept watching Margaery Tyrell stand strong and pretend to grieve for her dead husband, for Cersei’s son, she had entertained a thought.

Had entertained the thought that perhaps they could try to find a way to make this work, for the sake of the child in Margaery’s womb, Cersei’s grandchild, her last living link to Joffrey. Had wanted to pretend that even if it meant the Tyrells would take from her everything which she held dear, perhaps she could see Joffrey’s legacy live on his child.

And that had lasted until that little whore, Olyvar, had told her the truth about the child in Margaery’s womb.

To be frank, Cersei couldn’t even say that she was surprised. Couldn’t even claim that she hadn’t been expecting something very like that, considering what type of girl Margaery Tyrell had always been.

But it had still…hurt, more than she wanted to admit, to realize that Joffrey’s legacy was no legacy at all, but a sham by a little whore who clung to power almost as desperately as Cersei ever had. To know that the grandchild a part of her had fantasized about forging a relationship with, about one day, perhaps, meeting, was no grandchild of hers at all.

That Tommen was likely to die sooner or later because he was nothing more than a threat to Margaery’s child’s claim, now, and that the Martells loathed the Lannisters enough to kill Myrcella for sport, if they so wished.

Legacy.

She could almost understand, now, why her father had always been so obsessed with it.

She took a deep breath, as she watched the servants putting up their tents and getting a fire ready for the evening, as Kevan steadily refused to meet her eyes while he conferred with their men, the few enough men she had brought with her to King’s Landing for the funeral, and the ones who had remained behind with him before that.

None of them would look at her, these days, and Cersei loathed them all for it.

None of them understood. She had only ever done what she had to do for her family; she didn’t regret it.

She only regretted not making sure the little twit’s ship sank in that damned ocean, along with her brother, the pillow biter.

Cersei took a deep breath, as she slid off her horse and went to sit by the fire, knowing that she wasn’t needed, as she watched her serving girl carrying her things towards the tent that the servants were getting ready to prepare for her.

She tucked her chin into her hands and watched the flames rise, watched the servants trying to coax them to enough life to make a meal for thirty people, as she considered what she should have done, instead of rushing all of this way to her son’s funeral.

What she should have done was bring her army, rather than leaving it behind to keep the peace in the Rock, where she had left her son. She should have besieged the damn city until she could get Margaery Tyrell to admit that the child she was carrying was no son of Joffrey’s at all, and then had the Mountain butcher the girl while her horrid, conniving family watched.

And, instead, she’d gone in thinking of peace, which had clearly been a mistake. Already, the men she had brought with her were listening to her uncle, and small wonder, when he had just been unlawfully declared the Lord of Casterly Rock. Of course they would follow him, over her, when she did not have the Crown to back her, and no son to rebel against the Crown with, anymore.

No doubt, when they returned to the Rock, it would be more of the same, and Cersei would have to endure Genna’s snide smiles as she watched her husband turn the army that Cersei had bribed, that Cersei had fought to keep, to his side.

And he would not have to try nearly so hard as she had, with the Baratheon traitors. He was a man, after all.

Cersei bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood to keep from screaming, at that thought.

And then, suddenly, her serving girl was by her side, the girl’s dark hair tied back with a ribbon as she held out a piece of bread and some jerky.

“You should eat, my lady,” she said, her voice rather wobbly, and Cersei wondered if she had enjoyed being in King’s Landing, and didn’t enjoy having to return to the Rock with Cersei.

Well, eventually, she thought, she’d make the title twit pay for having such thoughts, and so clearly written on her face, too.

Cersei shoved the offering away. “I’m not hungry,” she said, which was the truth. She had spent all day on horseback, and her stomach was roiling, despite the fact that once she had loved horseback riding more than anything.

Her servant looked nervous, then. “I…I really think that you should eat, my lady,” she tried again, and this time, when she offered the bread, Cersei snatched it viciously out of her hands, all the while glaring at her.

“Do you?” She demanded, tearing a chunk off and into her mouth, and, while she was chewing, muttered, “And it’s ‘Your Grace,’ still.”

The girl had the grace to look abashed. “Yes, Your Grace,” she agreed, and Cersei studied her for a long moment before rolling her eyes and dismissing the girl, turning back to the flames.

Gods, King’s Landing was an infernal city, she thought, as she tossed a piece of her perfectly good bread into the flames merely because she could. A part of her, staring into them, watching the bread burn away to ash, almost wished that the Mad King had been successful in burning it, that Jaime hadn’t killed him.

After all, where was her brother now? Certainly not rushing to her defense.

And King’s Landing had never brought her anything but pain.

She sighed, watching the flames for what seemed like hours as the servants set up the camp around them, getting the horses rested and putting up tents, ringing out clothes though they were not near a river, and getting food ready.

She knew it would take some time, before the camp had settled for the night.

She didn’t move, from her position in front of the fire, watching the flames as they grew higher in the night.

There was something almost…soothing about them, she thought, idly.

She wondered if the Mad King had once thought the same.

Then, the ground shifted beside her, and Cersei gritted her teeth as she found her uncle sitting down beside her, resisted the urge to shift away from him, telling herself that it would be a rather childish thing to do, even if a part of her wanted to do it, all the same.

“Cersei,” he said into the silence, as he ladled stew into a bowl that had appeared sometime after she had sat down before the flames, “You can’t avoid speaking with me forever.”

She lifted her chin, still not bothering to look in his direction. “I don’t see that I have anything to say to a traitor,” she gritted out, which was, after all, the truth as she saw it.

Her uncle let out a long sigh. “I know you see it that way, but, for what it’s worth, I’m doing this to protect you. To protect House Lannister.”

Cersei scoffed. “Are you?” She asked. “How fortunate, then, that becoming the Lord of the Rock is only a…consequence, of this.”

Her uncle grimaced. “It was the only way House Tyrell would agree to let either of us go, you have to know that.”

“They have my son,” Cersei said, swallowing hard, risking a glance in her uncle’s direction for the first time, then, and hating the amount of sympathy she saw in the look he was giving her. “They know I would do nothing to harm him, even from afar.”

Which wasn’t necessarily true, but it was the truth as she saw it, tonight.

Her uncle pressed his lips together. “And I will do whatever I can to protect him, Cersei. But they would not have let you remain the Lady of the Rock. You know that, as well as I do.”

She closed her eyes, tightly, in order to ignore him. Bit into the bit of bread she still had remaining to her.

It tasted like ashes, in her mouth.

“I will never forgive you for this, Uncle,” Cersei breathed, as she walked her way into the tent that the servants had set up for her. “For this betrayal.”

She did not even understand how he thought he could sit so close to her, such was her anger. She wanted nothing more than to turn around and slap him, but already she knew that the men traveling with them had chosen a side, all traitors, as well.

Behind her, she thought she heard the sound of Kevan’s sigh, thought she heard him mutter something eerily similar, but elected to ignore whatever it was.

Whatever it was he was so angry at her that he would do this to her, steal her son’s life from her and destroy their chances of taking back what was theirs from those bastard Tyrells, steal her title from her because he was a man and thought he deserved it when it wasn’t his right at all, it clearly wasn’t worth it.

And Cersei was going to make him pay for it, the moment that they got back to King’s Landing.

She pushed the tent flap back down as she walked inside, glared at the young serving girl standing within, waiting to help her to bed. She didn’t think anything the girl could do, from fluffing pillows to brushing out her long hair, was going to help her get comfortable sleeping on the hard, cold ground, and she said as much, enjoying the way the serving girl flinched a little under that cold gaze when Cersei reached for the wine bottle the serving girl had been smart enough to leave out for her and dismissed the little bitch.

Pouring herself a generous amount, Cersei drank from the glass the girl had left out before sighing and starting to drink straight from the bottle.

She had a horrible feeling that she would be spending the night plagued by nightmares, if she did not drink herself to sleep, suddenly, and no wish to test the idea.

Cersei Lannister, knowing that she would likely never see her son or daughter alive again now, cried herself to sleep.

* * *

When she awoke, too early in the morning, feeling groggy and as if she would never have a good night’s rest again, Cersei knew instantly that something was wrong.

It took her a moment to realize that it was because she was laying on the cold ground, with nothing but a cot between her and it, and that her servant was nowhere to be found.

She sighed, reaching up to run a hand through her hair, untangling it from the loose braid she barely remembered having shoved it into, before she had gone to bed, the night before. She yawned, sitting up fully as she glanced over and realized that her good for nothing serving girl had at least done something right, when she had clearly come back in the night to lay out Cersei’s morning riding gown for her.

She was too annoyed at the reminder of how the girl had looked the night before, cowed and frightened, and wanting nothing more than to not be in Cersei’s presence, to call for her, just now, and instead worked through the tangled job of putting the gown on, herself.

It took longer than she had anticipated; she had been a girl the last time she’d been forced to do so, and the feeling was rather strange, that helplessness that swept over her as she remembered Jaime laughing at her, as she bet him that he couldn’t help himself into one of her gowns and wear it for the day, while she wore his riding boots.

He had, of course. She wasn’t sure he’d enjoyed it as much as she had wearing his, pretending to be him for the day and delighting in the way that she was treated, because of it.

She took a deep breath, as she walked out into the camp and realized that the men were already fast at work, packing things away. She wondered what her uncle’s rush was; he’d been in no hurry in the past, strangely enough, and she wondered if he was more nervous about becoming the Lord of the Rock once he actually arrived in the Westerlands.

The thought gave her the strangest stirrings of hope.

Perhaps not all was lost.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as one of her ladies approached her.

“Would you…like something to eat this morning, Your Grace?” The girl asked her, nervously, but at least she knew her place, today. “Or…I could have some tea made?”

Cersei forced a smile. “Tea sounds lovely,” she said, because she could use all of the friends she could make, just now, and she could afford to be magnanimous in her victory over the girl, the previous night.

Even if she had a splitting headache from the amount of wine she’d ended up imbibing because of the little vixen.

The girl rushed off, and Cersei found herself watching the camp, wondering how many of the men might still even refer to her as such, how many of them might follow her into battle, if it came to that.

She was going to need to know that eventually, after all. This deal that Kevan had made with the Tyrells, it wasn’t sustainable, not really. Perhaps her uncle had spent too much time in King’s Landing, to forget the Westerlands and their ways so easily.

Cersei herself had spent so much time in King’s Landing throughout her life, but had never forgotten what her proud people were like.

And she was not going to let Kevan forget it, either, even if it meant she would have to suffer the indignity of his betrayal for a little while longer.

She was only just sipping at the last of her tea when she saw them, a dozen men cresting the hill behind them, coming from where they had, the night before.

She stiffened, as she saw the other me around her, saw Kevan, where he was helping with the horses, stiffen as well.

As she noticed the Tyrell green these men were wearing, that their horses were decorated in, and noticed that there were far more than a dozen of them, as they kept coming over the hill.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she glanced over at Kevan, didn’t like the look in his eyes. Even if the surprise there meant that he had not known this betrayal was going to happen, even if a part of Cersei had, surprise was not what she wanted to see on his face, either.

Not when the Tyrells riding towards them suddenly, easily outnumbered them, five to one.

She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and then another. Moved towards her uncle, as he called for the men to grab their weapons, to be prepared.

Well, that was good, Cersei supposed. It meant that he wasn’t just a blind lackey of the Tyrells now, as she herself was beginning to wonder.

“Lady Cersei?” The soldier at the head of this new group asked as they drew near, the camp only half packed at this point, and Cersei knew that they couldn’t make a run for it, now.

Cersei felt her back stiffen even as behind her, Kevan went still, turning in his saddle to face these new men as well.

She swallowed hard, tried to tell herself that the Tyrells would not have gone to the trouble to exile her if they were only going to send guards after her to drag her back to King’s Landing. Margaery Tyrell knew that she had been the one to poison Sansa, after all, or at the very least, that it had been on her orders, and had done nothing about it then.

She wasn’t going to make a scene now, not when they had gone to such efforts to seem like the good guys, in that scenario.

Perhaps these men were merely here - all fifty of them, she realized, with a sudden dread, and all riding horses and carrying enough weapons to go into a small battle - to help their escort. To insist that they did make it back to the Rock.

Or perhaps…Cersei swallowed hard. Perhaps something was terribly wrong.

Perhaps these men were here to tell her that her son was already dead. That he had died by some “accident,” at a Tyrell’s hands.

If that were the case, they would need more than fifty men to take Cersei down, in her fury, she thought, as she straightened in her saddle.

She lifted her chin. “What is it?” She demanded, very aware of the fact that this man was dressed in Tyrell greens.

He cleared his throat, glancing between her and Kevan as he moved his horse forward from among his men, as their feeble number of men reached for their own swords to defend her.

For a moment, she thought that almost touching, considering the way they’d been treating her earlier, before she realized that it was likely they were only defending Kevan, and not her.

Or, if they were defending her, they were only doing so for Kevan’s sake.

She ground her teeth together.

The man at the lead of this small army reached for what she thought was his sword, but instead, even as Kevan reached for his own weapon at the sight, he pulled free a large piece of parchment, with the Tyrell seal, and held it out to her.

“Lady Cersei, you are under arrest by order of the Lady Olenna Tyrell,” the guard said. “Please, come with me. The lady would like to avoid making a scene out of all of this.”

Cersei stared at him; for a moment, the words made no sense at all to her, not when it had been Margaery Tyrell’s own father, no doubt with the permission of both his bitch daughter and his poisonous mother, who had exiled her from the city.

It made no sense that Olenna Tyrell would order her to be arrested again, not when she had been sent away only a few days ago.

She gritted her teeth, exchanging a look with Kevan, who seemed equally surprised by the guard’s words, even though Cersei could admit, at this point, that she no longer knew what her uncle was up to.

Not when he had already turned so fully on her.

A part of her wanted to rage against them both, to scream that they couldn’t do this to her when they had already humiliated her so much already, that it had only been a few days and they had no right to do this, not when Margaery Tyrell was claiming to be the Regent, and not them at all.

Clearly, the Tyrells had wanted this as well, if Olenna was the one making the arrest. They had wanted to look magnanimous when they sent her away, as if she were the only one in the wrong, and now that they were out of the eyesight of the nobles and the people, they could do as they wished with her.

Cersei gritted her teeth.

Still, she knew better than to rage against the small army that Olenna Tyrell had sent after her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, reminded herself that at the moment, the Tyrells could do as they willed with her, because they had her son and because

She’d known this was going to happen, damnit. The Tyrells’ word could hardly be trusted, no matter what Kevan seemed to think of them now. They wanted for nothing, these days, save for the power behind Cersei’s throne, and

“Would she?” Cersei spat out, her face twisting in fury. She lifted her chin, where she stood before her horse. “I did not know that the Queen of Thorns had the power to make such an arrest on her own. And what for?”

The boy - he was young, she realized, older than Joffrey but not so old that he ought to be leading so many men, and she thought he looked familiar, even if she couldn’t place where she knew him - cleared his throat.

“Cersei Lannister,” he rumbled, “I am Dickon of House Tarly, and I was sent here by House Tyrell. You are under arrest for the poisoning of Lady Sansa Stark, your own goodsister, and for treason against the Crown in your attempt to crown your son, Tommen Lannister, as King of the Seven Kingdoms. And,” he lifted a hand, when Kevan opened his mouth, “Despite this transgressions, Lady Olenna wishes to take you into custody for your own protection, now, with the loss of the Rock, as you are one of its ladies.”

Cersei let out a silent scream at those words, at the smug look of pride on his face. She wondered, for a moment, why he had even bothered to allow her to leave King’s Landing, when no doubt these petty roses had been planning to drag her back here the whole time.

Or maybe that was the whole point, how dramatic all of this was.

He moved his horse as if to get closer to her, to grab her by the scuff of her neck, if need be, and drag her onto his horse, but then Kevan was moving forward, stepping between them, a literal block between them.

Cersei swallowed hard, uncertain what she could expect at all from him, if she were being honest. Perhaps this, too, was part of the show he had put on in the Great Hall when Mace had called for her exile.

Gods, she was so tired.

“This is ridiculous,” Kevan interrupted, then, and Cersei closed her eyes, relief flooding through her at her uncle’s surprising defense. Because even if he had turned traitor, clearly, he had some reason to keep her around, if only because she was his brother’s daughter. He wouldn’t just…turn her over to the Tyrells, surely. “We had an agreement. Cersei was to return to the Rock, with me.”

The soldier turned his cold gaze on Kevan, on the soldiers marching with them to the Rock, and held up a hand.

“Lady Olenna has instructed me to relay a message to you, as well, Lord Kevan,” he said, coolly. “That you can either choose to fight over the arrest of a woman whom you know to be guilty of these crimes and more, a kinslayer, to boot, or you can return to the Rock and try to liberate it for your House, once more, but you will not be able to do both.”

Kevan stared at him.

Cersei stared at the both of them.

Then, the words hit her, taking longer to do so than they probably should have, but she couldn't think about that, not when they finally did, not when her hands began to shake and she found herself growing hot, at the thought of what those words meant.

“The…loss, loss of the Rock?” She breathed out, horror swiping through her. “Don’t you dare tell me…Don’t tell me that those fucking Tyrells…”

Dickon Tarly looked almost sympathetic, as he said one simple name, but one strong enough to strike fear even in her. “It was Euron Greyjoy, my lady. I am sorry to be the one to break this to you.”

Her mouth went suddenly dry. “I…what?” She demanded, horror sweeping through her. “What do you mean, Greyjoy?”

Beside her, Kevan had gone very pale.

Dickon cleared his throat. “I realize this will come as a shock to you. Euron Greyjoy, who has been lately attacking our own shores, somehow missed every scout and landed in the Lannisport harbor. Destroyed the city, and then some.” He grimaced. “They say the bloodshed was worse than anything the Seven Kingdoms have ever seen. Worse than the Sack of King’s Landing.”

“No,” Cersei breathed, horror rushing through her as she took a desperate step back from the boy, found herself nearly bumping into her uncle instead. “No, no, you’re wrong. This is a lie.”

This was her home, and Dickon Tarly had called it a loss.

And if he wasn’t lying, if this was really the fault of Euron Greyjoy, then really, that made it her fault.

He hadn’t looked twice at the Rock before she had invited him there, explicitly.

No, no, no.

She had invited Euron Greyjoy to the Rock, before she had left for King’s Landing, as a contingency plan. As a potential ally against that bitch Tyrell girl and her horrid family, much though the Greyjoys had never much liked the Lannisters. She had figured that they deserved an enemy like Euron Greyjoy, and he was the sort of man one could promise little to and it would be enough.

She had promised him her friendship, if he would just help her destroy the Tyrells, and he seemed like the sort of man who would enjoy any such invitation.

She had not thought…Had not thought that he would do this. That he would turn against her, spurn her friendship in such an obvious way.

Oh, gods.

And he had done it after Tommen had been taken from her.

Gods, had he gone to the Tyrells about this invitation? Had they asked this of him, those cowardly, cruel fuckers, and promised him more than she could for it?

Gods, it had been a mistake to reach out to him at all, she realized.

The loss of the Rock…

More bloodshed…

She squeezed her eyes shut, forgetting how to breathe for several moments.

No, she thought. No, the Tyrells could not have reached out to him so quickly, surely. And even if they had, this had to be some sort of jape, some cruel response to Cersei’s supposed treason.

To steal every last thing from her, as the Tyrells seemed so intent on doing.

When she opened her eyes, her uncle was staring at her in obvious horror, had clearly read more on her face than she had hoped he would.

Kevan stepped back, away from her. Cersei felt her fingers growing cold as ice.

No.

No, this couldn’t be happening.

She swallowed hard, shook her head. This was a trick, a dastardly trick put on by those Tyrells to be cruel to her, to steal one more thing from her before they stole her freedom, and possibly her life, as well.

Gods, she would make them for it, because this sort of jape…she loathed it.

“Tell me the truth,” Kevan gritted out, and the words were like a slap in the face, as she looked up at her uncle, where he stood staring at her like they weren’t related at all, anymore, “Cersei. Did you…Did you have anything to do with this? Did you invite Euron Greyjoy to Lannisport to get your revenge on me for…what, failing you?”

He sounded incredulous; worse, he sounded righteously angry, as if he had any right to be so after everything he had put her through lately, after the way that he had betrayed her so fully.

Cersei lifted her chin. “I didn’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

Kevan stared at her like he wasn’t certain whether he believed her or not.

For the first time since it had happened, Cersei regretted giving the order for Lancel Lannister’s death.

He had been a traitor, too, just as his uncle had turned out to be, and she couldn’t have known that a father as nearly neglectful as he would have cared so much about Lancel’s death, but she regretted it, now.

If she hadn’t ordered it, he would still be on her side, and what’s more, she thought, as they met each other’s eyes, he knew it, too.

Cersei wanted to scream at him, too, even though she knew that, despite his recent betrayals, he was her best bet out of here. Their guards would not stand against the Tyrells without his orders.

She forced herself to look placating, at that realization. Forced herself to reach out to him, to smile as she touched his arm. “Please,” she said. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Her uncle stared down at their arms, where they were touching. Cleared his throat, and when he looked up at her again, she knew that she had gone too far. That she had lost him.

“Until this year,” he said, and his voice was hard despite how quiet it was, “There was a great deal that I did not think you capable of.”

Cersei let out a silent scream as her uncle pulled away from her once more.

And then, Kevan turned his back on her, turned back to Dickon Tarly, and gods, she wanted to hit him.

She couldn’t bring herself to move.

“I won’t contest this arrest,” he said coolly, not even looking at her at all now, and Cersei felt her heart drop into her stomach. “But only if I know that Lady Cersei will be treated with the respect she deserves, as a noblewoman. I know you are a man of your word.”

“You bastard,” Cersei gritted out, reaching for him again, and this time, her fingers were like claws as she latched onto her uncle, as panic swept through her at his words. “You fucking bastard. You…”

Dickon Tarly dipped his head, once. “You have it,” he agreed. “And House Tyrell promises that they will send reinforcements, if need be, at the earliest convenience, against this menace, Greyjoy, in response.”

Kevan didn’t look at her all, as he extricated himself from her grip. As Dickon Tarly climbed down from his horse and grabbed her by the arms, instead. As Cersei fought against him, her throat suddenly dry even as she forced a scream past her throat.

“You can’t do this!” She screamed, in blind fury, because they had already taken her sons from her. What else did they think they could get away with? She wouldn’t let them, gods, she wouldn’t. “You won’t get away with this,” she gritted out, “You won’t get away with this!”

She fought against him, kicked and screamed as he wrapped chains around her wrists like he had any right to touch the wrists of a former queen, as he dragged her up onto his horse like he had any right to sit one with her, as she screamed bloody murder, letting him know the things she would do to him as revenge for this.

But he was stronger than her, large for his age, and he handled her with all of the ease of a man handling a screeching cat.

Gods, she would make him pay for this. Even if her uncle was a traitor now, when the rest of the Westerlands learned what had been done to their lady, even with this defeat by Greyjoy, if that was even true, they would come to her aid.

They were obligated to, no matter what her uncle wanted to believe about his ability to control the Westerlands on his own.

All of this flashed through her mind as her uncle watched her be groped onto that damned horse, impassively, and she found herself almost glad that she’d ordered his little bastard of a son’s death, now.

Gods, she hoped the boy had suffered, in his final moments, with the sort of hope of someone who knew very well that he had.

It was no less than his father deserved.

But then Kevan was moving away from her, moving to pack up the rest of their camp, and Cersei was screaming then, screaming the most obscene, horrid things that she could remember, all of the things she had ever heard her father say about his brother behind his back, all of the things she’d ever thought about him but bit her tongue on, herself.

All of the things he deserved to have happen to him, for turning traitor on her, like this.

She screamed until she was hoarse, until her eyes were swimming, until this small army of men started to drag her away from the Lannister colors, where her uncle was slowly lowering them as he broke up their camp, and didn’t at all protest her being led away on horseback in the wrong direction.

She wasn’t quite aware of whether she was screaming any of those words aloud or not, not until she heard someone in their party, riding alongside them, derisively ask if she might be gagged, and Dickon Tarly said something about being a gentleman.

Cersei snorted, and privately thought that there was nothing gentlemanly about the way they were treating her so far, about the fact that they were arresting her at all.

Dickon Tarly had his hands around her waist, where he sat on the horse behind her, though they were loose, careful not to be too intimate.

“Your Grace,” he whispered in her ear, and dear gods, he even had the decency to remember her title when her serving girls did not, “If you could just…be calm, I could explain…”

He reached for her hands.

She slapped him, hard though it was to do with bound hands, and he flinched back.

Afraid of a woman.

Gods, how had she been brought down so low?

“Your Grace, you need to calm down,” he told her, and Cersei wanted to laugh hysterically at him, but couldn’t quite force the sound past her throat.

How the fuck was she supposed to be calm when these people had kidnapped her, and her uncle had let her go without a fight? When, even now, the Tyrells were breaking their promises, were no doubt butchering her son in some back alley in Flea Bottom, where his body would never be found, and it was not as if he had often left the Keep before all of this, so that anyone would notice his absence…

She shut her eyes to keep a tear from escaping.

She was not going to give this Tyrell lackey the pride of seeing her tears.

Still, she forced herself to breathe, as he’d asked her to. Sucked in one desperate breath, and then the other, and then another.

In, and out.

In, and out.

It didn’t help as she’d thought it would. But of course it didn’t; Jaime had always been the one to settle her, and he wasn’t here.

He had left her to the wolves, and even though all of the Starks were gone now, even Sansa neutralized by that damned poison that Qyburn had maybe given her too much of, she was still getting suck by thorns.

She let out a silent scream, and then sagged against Tarly, though the boy had the decency not to make a sound, when she did so.

The men around him, however, certainly seemed relieved by her silence, as they rode at a speed too fast for her to risk jumping down from her horse in chains, as they dragged along their newest prisoner because that old bag had ordered them to come after her, to not make a show of it where they had made such a show of her exile.

Gods, she hoped that when the Mountain broke Margaery Tyrell in half, the way they said he had Elia Martell, he finally killed the bitch.

It was no less than she deserved, too, of that, Cersei was now more than certain.

She turned in the saddle, ignoring Dickon Tarly when he told her that it would be better for her if she was still again, that she needed to calm down, in the soothing tones of a stable boy talking to a frightened horse, and glanced back the way they had come, then, hoping that perhaps her uncle had been smart enough to change his mind.

And as she watched her uncle drive their men and their servants off in the opposite direction, something terrible occurred to her.

She turned back in the saddle, glaring at Dickon Tarly as she did so.

“We’re not…” Cersei’s brows furrowed. “We’re not going to King’s Landing. This is not the Kingsroad. This is…the wrong way.”

She felt something like panic rushing through her, as she remembered how Stannis’ men had tried to violate her when they found her. As she thought of her own body, soon to be slit at the throat and dumped in a ravine, and no one there to save her.

The panic welled up, and she thought she might be sick, from the jostling of the damn horse. She closed her eyes, swallowed down nausea.

Surely, even Olenna Tyrell would not be so cruel.

She thought of Catelyn Stark’s ultimate fate, and shuddered.

Dickon Tarly, as her guide and guard had introduced himself, cleared his throat. “No, my lady,” he said, still in that gentle tone that set her teeth on edge. “We’re not.”

Cersei swallowed hard, staring up at him, trying hard to push down the panic suddenly filing her. "Then where the fuck are we going?" she demanded, and Dickon only pressed his lips together and didn't respond.

And then she remembered something, remembered that while Randyl Tarly was currently in King's Landing, she'd thought that his son was not. She could be wrong about that, she supposed; all of the Tyrell lackeys seemed the same to her. Or, if he had been, he had not been there long. She vaguely remembered a Tarly being introduced before the little Tyrell chit at the same time that she had been.

She took a careful breath, and then another. "The Regent doesn't know that you've arrested me, does she?" she demanded, ice running through her veins, now. "That's why you've arrested me in Olenna Tyrell's name."

Dickon Tarly grimaced, and really, that was all the confirmation that she needed. Her wrists moved blindly again, trying to shove him away from her, but he wrapped his arms tighter around her, now, like a vice. 

"You have no right to take me under her authority," she spat out, but Dickon didn't even bother to respond. Just kept his horse moving, a hand pushing into the small of her back suddenly, as if warning her that he had no concern about shoving her over the side of the horse and making her walk.

Since that sounded even more humiliating than her current position, Cersei closed her eyes and stilled, thought of Jaime. Wondered where the fuck her brother was, and when he was going to finally show up and make things right between them once more.


	37. Dorne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus, I did not realize how long this chapter was until I uploaded it.

_“Uncle,” Myrcella breathed, at the sight of him forced to kneel before her throne._

_And then she was climbing out of her throne, with a little difficulty, given her current state, a state which made Tyrion stare at her in something like horror, given how far along this literal child was, and running towards him._

_He just managed to gain his balance before Myrcella threw her arms around him, clinging to him with all of the desperation of a girl who dearly missed him, for all that the last time they had spoken, she had clearly not given that impression._

_And then, softly, she whispered in his ear, now that she was close enough that no one else could hear the two of them, “Help me.”_

_Tyrion jerked, blinking into her golden hair._

_She pulled back before he could respond._

_“I didn’t realize that you were in Dorne,” she said. “I would have thought you would have escaped Westeros after what they say you did to my brother.”_

_She didn’t sound particularly bothered that he hadn’t, nor that her brother was dead, Tyrion noticed, even before all of these nobles._

_But he was still rather disturbed by what the fuck was going on here, by why Myrcella was seated on a throne made of wood and glass, and was begging him to help her, when he stood here in chains._

_He shook his head. “I didn’t kill your brother, Myrcella, you must know that.”_

_She stared at him for a moment, expression searching, before she nodded sagely. “Of course not,” she agreed. “You wouldn’t do that to us. You’ve always been so kind, even to Joffrey.”_

_Which was hardly true, but he appreciated the way she said it, the way the courtiers around them seemed to relax when they realized they were not harboring a kingslayer, no matter how much they may hate the Lannisters._

_“Of course, we do not want you for an enemy,” Gerold Dayne interrupted their little reunion, then. “We would much prefer to have you on our side. If you will but swear your allegiance to the true Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Myrcella Baratheon, then we would see you as an advisor to her. A trusted counselor-”_

_“I swear it,” Tyrion interrupted him, and the man paused, blinking at him. “If you will promise me protection from my family for the accusations against me, then you have my allegiance.”_

_Gerold Dayne stared at him for a moment longer, and then laughed. “My dear man,” he said. “We couldn’t care less how many of our enemies you may or may not have killed.”_

_And Tyrion tried and failed not to notice the way that Myrcella flinched, at those words._

* * *

Tyrion reached up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in exhaustion.

Fuck, but this was a shitshow.

He’d been here in Dorne for nearly a month now, with ought to show for it besides his niece’s increasingly frantic looks, as she gradually came to the realization that her uncle was perhaps not here to rescue her from these madmen, and Bronn’s spiraling into a drunkenness that it made Tyrion enviousness he couldn’t partake in himself, without losing control, for all the man had been the one to drag him here in the first place.

And Gerold Fucking Dayne, for all his smiles and placating, a warrior at heart who wanted nothing more than to burn Westeros, Tyrion was certain, if only anyone would offer him the chance.

It made Tyrion furious. Furious because the man had offered to have Tyrion at his side, to let him help protect his niece’s future, and so far, Tyrion had only been kept here in a gilded cage, wanted for nothing more than his information on his own family and on the goings on in King’s Landing, neither of which Gerold Dayne seemed to want to make any use of, for all his talk of going to war.

And Tyrion was tired of the heat. He’d been tired of it in Essos, and he was tired of it here.

The door to his fine, gilded cage opened then; there were no guards on the other side, not at this hour of the day, but he jumped a little as he turned around to face the intruder, all the same.

Who was only Bronn, it seemed.

Tyrion bit back a sigh, sitting down again. Bronn raised a brow at him, and then shrugged and joined him on the sofa.

“Say what you like about these Dornish,” Bronn said, as he walked through the door into Tyrion’s chambers, uninvited and entirely unwanted, biting into a peach as he walked, “They sure know how to live in finery. And throw a damn good party. And damn, but their brothels…”

Tyrion sighed, at the sight of the other man. He doubted that if he tried to kick the other man out, he would go.

Bronn was terribly persistent, like that.

He was right about one thing, though. They had certainly placed him in fine chambers, for a prisoner. He suspected that had something to do with trying to keep Myrcella happy, even if he was grateful for it.

Those cells had been starting to stink.

The rooms he was in now, right next door to his niece, as if he didn’t realize that only made it easier for the Dornish to keep an eye on him, were certainly extravagant. Obara Sand had taken great pleasure in telling him that they had been the ones belonging to Margaery Tyrell, while she too had been a guest here.

Tyrion had barely managed to refrain from using whether she had taken any women into these rooms, or whether she had spent all of her time here plotting to kill her own husband without a thought toward pleasure.

But then, he supposed, perhaps she was truly devoted to Sansa. It would make what he had seen of Sansa’s change over the last few months before she had blamed him for Joffrey’s murder make rather more sense, if Margaery truly was faithful.

Well, not to her husband, of course, but to Sansa, at least.

Tyrion sighed again, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

As he’d thought before; a shitshow, all of it.

From Sansa and her lover killing Margaery’s husband so that they could so terribly rule King’s Landing, from what he had heard so far, from Cersei losing the Rock to some giant sea monster, apparently, to the Martells, unsure whether they wanted to crown Myrcella and claim all of the Seven Kingdoms for themselves.

But Gerold Dayne was a stubborn fucker, from what Tyrion had come to know of him, since his time here. He was quite certain that the man would manage it somehow, with or without his help, and Tyrion intended to offer that help if it was the last damn thing that he did.

Because Myrcella was only here because Tyrion had originally offered her to the Martells, and he’d sinned enough recently that he woudln’t like her to die here, as well.

He glanced over at Bronn, contemplatively. “Do you have any more news about…it?” He asked, and Bronn made a face that was almost sympathetic.

“I…” a pause. “My contact says that they’re quite content, here, to let Trystane Martell die in King’s Landing, if it comes to that. He’s Arianne’s brother, after all, and next in line if anything happens to her in her prison cell. Or if the nobles here decide they’re tired of Gerold Dayne’s grandstanding.”

Tyrion flinched. That was as he’d suspected, of course, but it still made him rather uncomfortable, to hear of it.

“I see,” he said, and wondered how he was meant to break that news to Myrcella, when the time came. The girl seemed, disturbingly, to really love the boy. That would only serve to make things complicated, later.

He knew what love did to little girls who had never felt it before far too keenly, these days.

The door opened again then, and this time, Tyrion felt rather justified in tensing, since Bronn was already here in the room and Myrcella never came to visit him herself. No, she always insisted on him coming to visit her.

He didn’t know if it was because, as she claimed, the pregnancy was becoming a bit much for her, or if it was some sort of manipulation that he had yet to understand.

He shook his head, told himself that she wasn’t Sansa, for all that she’d seemed able enough to manipulate Joffrey, in King’s Landing, months ago.

Gerold Dayne smirked as he walked inside. “Ah, the sellsword,” he said, smirking at Bronn. “I hear you’ve made quite an impression with the ladies of Sunspear’s brothels.”

Bronn lifted his chin. “Aye. And they with me.”

Gerold grinned. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, get the fuck out. I need to speak with your master, alone.”

Bronn glanced nervously at Tyrion, who only sighed and nodded for him to go. “it’s fine, Bronn,” he said.

After all, they’d been chatting enough for Tyrion to understand that Gerold wasn’t going to hurt him, at this point. That for some reason, for all that he didn’t use him, Gerold thought he needed him. Desperately.

The door closed behind Bronn before Gerold spoke again.

“Surely you understand what I am trying to accomplish here,” Gerold said, as he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

Tyrion took a deep breath. “I do understand, yes,” he allowed. “But I also question whether it’s the best thing for Myrcella.” A pause. “Or for Dorne.”

Gerold leaned forward. “I am making your niece a Queen in her own right,” he said. “She is next in line for the throne, not Tommen, or this child the Regent has not even born, yet.”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “By whose law?” he asked, as calmly as he could manage, because he was furious, about all of this, but he also recognized that letting that anger out on a man like Gerold Dayne, who wore his emotions on his sleeves, would be a bad idea.

Reasoning with him for the past few weeks, however, had accomplished very little. The man had been willing to imprison his own wife to get what he wanted, ad from what Tyrion understood, the man wanted power; he had made that very clear.

He wouldn’t get that if he had to bow and scrape before Margaery Tyrell’s infant son.

“By Dornish law, the child that Margaery Tyrell carries is the next King or Queen, regardless of whether it has a cock or not,” Tyrion went on, waving a hand dismissively when it looked as though Gerold might try to interrupt him. “That is the very reason that you’re touting Myrcella’s claim, but your own laws give her no right to the throne.”

Gerold glowered at him; clearly, he did not appreciate the lesson Tyrion was trying to teach him.

“I don’t know how familiar you are with the little...trip that this Margaery Tyrell took here, after she was kidnapped and ransomed by pirates,” he said, “but she made it rather clear that she was just as interested in getting rid of her husband as my wife was. I hardly think she ought to be rewarded for that.”

Tyrion blinked at him. “And yet, you said nothing of this to the Crown, once she had returned to King’s Landing. In fact, I seem to recall Dorne being rather silent, save for the ships that they sent to support her.”

“That was Arianne, not me. I disapproved of that move; evidenced by the fact that I declared my poor wife unfit to lead this great kingdom. I hear they blamed you for his death,” Gerold said, eying him. “Doesn’t that make you angry? Knowing that my wife plotted with yours to be rid of your own nephew, and then the both of them let you take the fall for it because it suited them to do so? Doesn’t it make you want revenge?”

He sounded…genuinely confused, that it wouldn’t. Tyrion had a feeling that in his situation, he would have already marched into King’s Landing and demanded a trial by combat.

Tyrion grimaced, feeling suddenly wrong-footed. He didn't like the idea of an utter buffoon like the man standing in front of him to be so easily able to read him, but it wasn’t as if he was wrong, either.

It made him feel distinctly too easy to read. Gerold was clearly no genius, even if he had been able to depose his own wife and claim a power through her that he didn’t quite have the right to. In that one respect, he seemed to at least know what he was doing.

It meant that he couldn’t afford to underestimate the other man, a mistake he’d made too many times in the past, but it also meant that he could never trust him.

The thought of Sansa flashed before his eyes, and he shut them, waiting for her image to vanish.

When he opened them again, he felt rather tired. “I do want that,” he admitted. “But not at the expense of my own niece. I think I’ve lost enough family lately. I came to Dorne to make sure that there was someone here who would protect her.”

Gerold snorted. “I didn’t know you cared so much about that,” he said. “They all say Joffrey was a little cunt, especially to his sister. That she wasn’t a virgin when she fell into bed with my dear goodbrother.”

Tyrion lifted his chin, not bothering to deny the simple accusation. The truth of the matter was that he didn’t know; he had seen the way that Myrcella and Joffrey had acted around one another, both before she had left King’s Landing and when she had returned, and he could admit that he could see it there when she had returned, that belligerence, that hint of something more in her hatred for her brother.

But then, Cersei had always hated him. He supposed that hatred for a sibling did not always need to be explained reasonably.

“You’ve kept me here, as an honored guest of my niece, for some time. You promised me that I would be a counselor, but so far, you do not seem to care for that counsel. So. What exactly is it you’re asking of me?” Tyrion asked, finally.

He was sick of the not knowing.

He hadn’t known what the fuck his little wife was up to, when she spurned the freedom he had tried to give her, in handing her over to the Tyrells, and returned to King’s Landing to be by Margaery’s side.

He hadn’t known what she was doing until she had forced him to either leave the city or take the blame for his nephew’s death; something that she had obviously done with ease, if the men who had come after him in Lys had been any indication, some of them barely fought off by Bronn, all with heavy pockets.

He wanted the damned truth, now, and Gerold wasn’t giving that to him, either.

He did not loathe the idea of Myrcella on the throne; of all of his sister’s children, he thought her the most suited towards it. Tommen was young, and would have been easily used as a pawn, either by his mother or the Tyrells, Joffrey had been a tyrant, but Myrcella…Myrcella had just enough wits about her that he thought she might actually know what she was doing.

But not with Gerold Dayne standing over her shoulder, making his own demands of her.

And Tyrion did not know how he could possibly accomplish the one without the other, but he had been blamed for killing his brother’s son, whether he had done it or not, and he thought he at least owed it to Jaime and Cersei, to keep their daughter alive, if he could.

There was little he could do for Tommen now; he had heard the boy was a prisoner of the Tyrells, and from what he had heard of the things happening in the Westerlands, the boy was probably better off there, much as the thought made his skin crawl.

But for Myrcella? He could do something for her here, especially when the Dornish had made no secret of the fact that they seemed to think Tyrion something of a thing to be celebrated, in killing his wicked nephew.

No amount of protesting seemed to convince them otherwise.

Gerold shrugged. “I know that once the whole of the Seven Kingdoms learns of Myrcella’s coronation, Dorne will have few enough friends. Whether this Aegon agrees to marry her or not, she will have a target on her back.”

Tyrion raised a brow.

“I know that you’re furious with the Tyrells for blaming you for your nephew’s death, when you clearly had no part in it. I know that you hate your sister, who is using your other nephew to cling to power in the Westerlands. I know that your brother has disappeared Beyond the Wall. And I think that you can help me protect your niece, and better than I would be able to do so on my own, since you know the people of King’s Landing and of the Westerlands better than anyone.”

Tyrion sighed. “I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” he said, because he was not even sure who was in charge of the Westerlands these days, but Gerold shrugged.

“Better than anyone in Dorne, then,” he admitted, after a moment. Then, “I want you to become Myrcella’s Hand of the Queen.”

Tyrion blinked at him, vaguely aware of his own jaw falling open. “I…” He licked his lips. “You’re so confident I can be trusted?”

He would have thought that Gerold would be vying for the position himself, though he supposed “Regent,” might appeal a bit more to the other man.

Gerold shrugged. “Honestly? No. But you are a Lannister, and I need that name behind me if this is going to succeed. And I think you hate your sister just enough to not want to see her succeed, and I think you feel similarly about the Tyrells, after they discarded you. And I think you care just enough about your niece to want to make sure that she doesn’t get killed, now that you cannot take back what I have done, and will do what you can to make sure she succeeds, because of that.”

Tyrion grimaced. He supposed that was true enough, even if he could not say with any certainty that there was a chance in the seven hells that Myrcella might actually succeed in any of this, as Gerold seemed to think.

“But you do not want me to be that Hand now,” he surmised.

He had made that clear enough, Tyrion thought, from the way he had allowed Tyrion and Myrcella to spend unlimited time together, in the recent weeks since Tyrion had been released from the dungeons, without once asking Tyrion to attend her new “Small Council.”

Every time he attempted to become more involved in…whatever it was that Gerold Dayne and these Sand Snakes were planning, he found himself rather politely shut out, reminded that he hadn’t seen his niece in some time, and that, so close to her pregnancy, she certainly needed her family around her.

Tyrion had gotten the hint somewhere around the third time.

Oh, they’d been perfectly agreeable, certainly interested in what he had to say about Aegon and the Golden Company, had seemed happy enough that he was here, and had not tried to stop him from visiting his niece.

But he got the feeling that the information he’d brought them, about Aegon Targaryen, had been more valuable than they wanted to admit, especially to him, and that there was much they didn’t want him to know, for all Gerold’s claims that he wanted him by Myrcella’s side.

And he very much didn’t like the thought of being used as the man’s pawn. As Dorne’s pawn.

There was something else going on here, something that had made Myrcella whisper in his ear a plea to help her, that first day when they had been reunited and he had shockingly found her sitting on a throne, her belly full with a child.

Tyrion just hadn’t figured out what it was yet. Hadn’t figured out why Myrcella flinched back, every time that Gerold Dayne reached out for her, why the Sand Snakes seemed to regard their new Regent with such disgust in their eyes.

Hadn’t figured out why Gerold thought he needed Tyrion so badly, at all.

Gerold crossed his arms over his chest once again. “Come to the feast tonight, Lord Tyrion,” he invited, for the second time in as many days; Tyrion had refused him, the first time. “I think you’ll find the announcement I make there…interesting.”

And then he turned and walked out of the door.

Tyrion sighed, as the door shut behind him.

In the corner of the room, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at him in idle amusement, Shae threw back her head and laughed.

“Go away,” Tyrion snapped at her.

She vanished into thin air.

He remembered to breathe again.

* * *

“Explain it to me again,” Arianne said, through gritted teeth, because no matter how many times Tyene did, she still didn’t understand what the fuck her husband thought he was doing. “Like I’m a child, please.”

Dorne did not have a fleet; at most, they had a few good ships that might make up what might conceivably be a fleet, if one was not fighting against the Tyrells. Even if the Tyrell ships were not, the majority of them, in King’s Landing at the moment, too busy from fighting pirates on the shores of the Reach, her husband had to know that this was a terrible idea.

At least if he had sent an army, she might have understood him.

But that was exactly what he was doing, turning their ships around after he’d ordered them out of the King’s Landing harbor, to lay siege to the place as if he thought they could succeed there at all.

Demanding that the people of King’s Landing turn against their Regent, demanding her surrender.

And Arianne had always known that her alliance with Margaery Tyrell was not going to last, much as the other girl had intrigued her for the short time that they had plotted together, but she had not thought it would end like this.

Tyene squinted at her. “He…Gerold,” she took a deep breath, looking terribly nervous, and Arianne couldn’t even say that she blamed her.

Considering the way things were going these days, Arianne wasn’t sure if she knew how anyone around her was going to react to anything, anymore.

She wondered if that was how her father had felt, when she had successfully usurped him, or if he hadn’t been as surprised as she would have liked to think.

Tyene took a deep breath. “He claims that Joffrey Baratheon, weeks before his death, sent out a letter to all of the regions of the Seven Kingdoms, claiming that he feared for his life surrounded by so many flowers, and that he worried that his wife’s child was not his own.” She paused, gauging Arianne’s reaction before she continued. Arianne clenched her fists. “He’s using this as justification for his siege of King’s Landing, for justification in his crowning Myrcella.”

“Oh,” Arianne said, as if she wasn’t supremely bothered by everything that had just come out of Tyene’s mouth. A pause. “And it doesn’t seem at all strange that none of the other kingdoms seem to have brought forth these letters, themselves?”

Gods, her husband was an idiot.

Tyene grimaced. “I don’t think he cares how reasonable it sounds,” she admitted, and Arianne rolled her eyes; she could have told Tyene that, after all.

“He just needs the excuse,” she muttered, leaning back in her chair. Tyene nodded, but Arianne was no longer looking at her. She sighed, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes.

She could not be bothered to brush it most days, now, and it was starting to snarl. The only ones who ever saw it were Ellaria and her cousins, after all; her husband could not be bothered to visit her these days, either too busy or feeling too guilty, though somehow, she doubted the latter, and it was just another pain that she had to deal with, on top of everything else.

On top of this complicated game of cyvasse that for some reason, a year ago, she thought she would be easily able to master.

Tyene hummed. “He’s planning to send an army along the Kingsroad, the moment the Tyrells realize how fucked they are, apparently,” she murmured. “Or at least, he told Obara as much.”

Arianne raised a brow. “And Obara isn’t here because…?” She asked, almost dreading the answer.

Tyene shrugged. “She said something like that it was my turn,” she said, in a voice that she probably thought was meant to sound reasonable.

Arianne rolled her eyes. “I need her to keep on him,” she said. “Under no circumstances can he be allowed to start a war with King’s Landing. It will look to the Targaryen boy like we do not honor our allies, and he won’t deal with us, later.”

Tyene made a face. “I’ll remind her,” she said, as this was, after all, not the first time that Arianne had mentioned such a thing to her.

It was somewhat annoying, delegating like this, even Arianne could admit. She didn’t understand how her own father had done it for so long.

Tyene’s eyes turned longingly towards the door.

“And the Imp,” Arianne said, before the other girl could go and leave her alone here, where she had far too much time alone with her own thoughts. Even Ellaria, sitting silent in the corner of the room, was not a help in that regard.

The other woman barely ever spoke to her.

And Arianne could have had herself moved to a different room; even if Gerold did not understand the ruse, the game that they were playing in which he was only a pawn, and not the king he seemed to see himself as, that could have been easily explained away.

The guards here were loyal to her in the end, after all.

She supposed she ought to have been more concerned about Ellaria overhearing her plots with her cousins, these days, but it was not as if there was anyone Ellaria could go running to about it, these days.

Tyene made another face. “Gerold has named him to some position on Myrcella’s Small Council,” she said. “It’s just a formality; he hasn’t even asked him for the best way to attack King’s Landing, so clearly, he doesn’t trust him. But at least it’s kept the Imp around. And the man certainly seems found of his niece.”

Arianne’s jaw twitched. That was what she was afraid of, after all; it was not as if it would not appear strange, for the Imp to come and visit her in her cell, and it was not as if she could devise another way to tell him that she was working slightly against Gerold, now.

If the Imp came to the conclusion that his niece was no longer safe here, because of Gerold’s plans, she could not abide his stealing his niece away, or worse, trying to make a deal with his sister or these damned Tyrells, or even Aegon.

They said the Imp was a shrewd sort of man; she knew him capable of it.

“I want you to…approach him,” Arianne informed her cousin, who made another face at the command. “Let him know that you have a common interest in Myrcella’s wellbeing. But don’t be too obvious about it; they say the Imp is good at politics, and we don’t want him getting cold feet before we have need of him.”

Tyene hummed. “He’s not a very social fellow, these days,” she pointed out. “He seems far more interested in spending time with his niece than anything else, or drinking.”

Arianne’s jaw twitched. Wonderful; her plans depended on a power-hungry husband and a drunk.

Men.

Tyene made short work of her escape, after that; Arianne didn’t know what had been bothering the other girl so much, but she thought she had something of an idea. Their last conversation, between her, Obara, and Arianne, had not done much to endear her to Tyene, she knew.

“You’re a fool,” Ellaria said, cracking one eye open to meet her gaze as the door shut after Tyene.

“Oh?” Arianne asked, tiredly, not in the mood for another verbal spat with the other woman. “And what would you have done, in my place?”

Ellaria squinted at her. “Gerold isn’t going to ally with Aegon Targaryen as long as he feels he has Myrcella Baratheon as his tool,” she pointed out, which Arianne could have bothered to tell her she already knew.

She didn’t. Bother, that was.

Gods, she was tired these days. She could almost understand the way that her father had seemed to do nothing, when he was not plotting directly against Arianne with these Targaryens whom he had never bothered to tell her about.

“He’s going to have to come to that conclusion eventually, that Aegon Targaryen is the only way that Dorne is going to escape any of this unscathed,’ Arianne pointed out, but her voice was shaking a little, even as she said it.

If Ellaria had been someone else, her father, perhaps, or Obara, but certainly not Tyene, who doubted her enough, Arianne might have admitted that she was no longer certain of that fact.

Ellaria hummed. “And if he doesn’t? If he decides instead that Dorne will benefit more from championing Myrcella alone?”

Arianne sighed. “Then I’ll deal with that when it happens,” she murmured, and Ellaria rolled her eyes, and went for the kill.

“Why hasn’t your mother come to visit you, since your…imprisonment here?” Ellaria asked her, suddenly, and Arianne flinched. “Strange, isn’t it? She came all of this way to tell you she thought you were making a mistake, turning against your own father, and then she hasn’t even bothered to come and visit you since you started reaping the consequences of your actions.”

Arianne looked away. “I don’t want to talk about her with you,” she gritted out.

Ellaria let out a noise of amusement. “Parents are…so strange, aren’t they? One moment, you’re assured that they must care something for you, and the next, you aren’t sure at all how they feel about you.” She hummed. “I tried so hard, with the girls. With my girls, and, hells, even Tyene and Obara, though they were not mine and did not hesitate to let me know that, in the beginning. I didn’t want any of them to think that they weren’t loved.”

Arianne sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “I told you that…”

“I’m sure you can imagine, knowing what you do about my own father, why I would want my children to know that I love them,” Ellaria said, smiling thinly, and Arianne realized then that they weren’t really talking about her own mother, at all.

Arianne swallowed hard, shivering, though it was quite warm in this tower, for all that it was made out of stone.

The days were getting warmer in Dorne, these days. Or perhaps that was just Arianne’s blood, boiling over. She wasn’t certain, these days.

Oh, she knew quite a bit about Harmen Uller, Ellaria’s father who had never acknowledged his bastard daughter as his own, but was fiercely protective of her in some ways, all the same.

She had almost been afraid to have Ellaria arrested alongside her own father, for that reason, but thankfully, Lord Uller seemed as eager for a war against their enemies as Gerold did, these days, and he hadn’t said a word about his daughter’s arrest since learning that she was at least being kept in comfort.

At least, he hadn’t before Arianne herself had gotten arrested; she hadn’t bothered to ask Obara about that sort of thing, since. She was rather afraid of the answer, after all.

Ellaria did not wait for Arianne to respond; it seemed she was already convinced of what she was going to say, so here they were. Arianne bit back a sigh when Ellaria opened her mouth again.

“Do you think my father isn’t furious that I am locked away?” Ellaria asked, cocking a brow when Arianne remained silent. “Do you think he wouldn’t go to…extreme lengths to see those who imprisoned me…punished for it, if he thought he could get away with it?”

Arianne knew well that he would. Ever since she was a little girl, she had known that Harmen Uller was the sort of man who would go to war over the slightest of offenses, and who, worse, had the arms to do it, while many of the Noble Houses of Dorne did not.

She had almost considered calling on him for aid, rather than Gerold, when she had first considered going against her father, before she had realized that the result would be far too much bloodshed.

She’d been silly; she’d thought that she would have a far easier time controlling Gerold. And, in some ways, she was, but not in the ones that mattered, it would seem.

“You seem to forget that I was the one who imprisoned you,” Arianne pointed out, quietly. “It would hardly be in my best interest for your father to revenge you.”

Ellaria snorted. “I’ve hardly forgotten,” she said, a cold sentence that promised retribution.

Arianne glanced away. “I thought that you would never side against Doran,” she whispered, as close to an apology as the other woman was likely to get from her, these days.

Ellaria let out another grunt. “Then perhaps you should have asked me,’ she muttered. Then, “Besides, my father knows as much as the rest of Dorne about what is going on at the heart of this kingdom, these days, which is to say, little at all. If you could…succeed in convincing him that Gerold had been the one to imprison me, as he imprisoned you, I think my father would believe it. Especially if I…convinced him, once you and I escaped from this place.”

“Escaped,” Arianne said, dryly.

Ellaria met her gaze, then. Her eyes, for the first time that Arianne could remember, were wholly unreadable.

“Why are you helping me?” Arianne asked.

Ellaria pursed her lips. “Don’t you think you’ve been sitting in this tower, claiming no responsibility for Dorne while still manipulating it, for long enough? Your little gambit with Gerold is failing, Arianne. You were working without some important information, and now that you’ve gained it, you know this won’t work. It won’t last. If you don’t want Dorne to be wiped off the map, you need to get Myrcella Baratheon away from your husband.”

Arianne squinted at her. “I want her to marry Aegon,” she said, finally. “It will secure Dorne, and her, and even him, and he’ll know it the moment it’s suggested. But he has to think that Dorne won’t otherwise bend the knee to him so easily. Gerold won’t be able to refuse, not when this means Myrcella gets to keep her claim to the Iron Throne, and Dorne gets to be known as the kingdom who assured it.”

Ellaria snorted. “You should really know the man you’re going to marry before you do,” she said. “Do you think Gerold will give up the regency for an instant, into the hands of a man like whoever is serving as Regent for Aegon Targaryen? He will get that girl killed trying to squeeze power out of her name, and you know it.”

Arianne flinched; despite what she had told Tyene and Obara, not so very long ago, the idea of Myrcella dying merely so that they could keep Aegon Targaryen on their good side unsettled her.

And, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she thought that Ellaria might be right. That it was very likely indeed that Gerold wouldn’t come to the conclusion that allying with Aegon would do Dorne any favors, even with Obara attempting to manipulate him towards that end.

“And your idea is to what, escape?” Arianne asked, raising a brow. “Go to your father, who wants a war just as badly?”

Ellaria sighed, leaning her head back against the wall once more. “He’ll get it, you understand, whether he champions Myrcella or Aegon. But he won’t bow before a Dayne, either.”

* * *

“Uncle Tyrion,” Myrcella greeted, the moment the door shut behind them, and Tyrion winced. Myrcella knew that she was being rather too obvious; their last few interactions in King’s Landing, before he had come here, had hardly been friendly, not when she had accused him of orchestrating so much of her unhappiness, and her uncle could hardly be expected to think her happy to see him, now.

But Myrcella could feel her child trying to rip its way out of her belly with every passing day. Could feel with each day that this child was about to be born, that it would be born and Trystane would still be a prisoner in King’s Landing, where her brother was now a prisoner as well, apparently.

And every day that passed, the more her panic increased. The more the vial of poison in her pocket, the one that she wore every day regardless of the gown or who she thought she might encounter that day, felt heavy against her skin, the more she wondered when she would actually work up the courage to use it and free herself.

So excuse her if she tried her best to remind her uncle of the girl he had once cared about, when she was a little thing who didn’t seem to have a devious bone in her body, a girl without a care in the world, supposedly, whom he had doubted on as he had her little brother.

The more she reminded him of that girl, she was certain, the more likely he might be to help her. To rescue her from this place, to save her from these people who only sought to use her, she realized that now.

She took a deep breath, and forced herself to smile as she turned to face her uncle, to pretend that the sight of him in front of her made her feel more safe than that of her guards, most days.

Her uncle smiled at her; she wondered if he believed her, that she was that same little girl, after all that he had seen of her in King’s Landing.

The trick to a good lie, she knew, from experience, and not her own, was to make some of it the truth.

She had taken Tyene’s hand, on the road to the Westerlands, and stepped into a nightmare when she had thought she was finally going home.

“Myrcella,” he said, and he was one of the few people who didn’t call her ‘Your Grace,” these days, and there was something ridiculously freeing about it, she thought. Relieving, even. “How are you feeling today?”

He sat down in the chair across from her loveseat, the one that she sprawled herself in most days because she couldn’t be bothered to sit up most days, not when she had a child on the way and it felt like that child was trying to force its way out of her stomach, most days.

He looked terribly uncomfortable, and Myrcella forced herself to smile and appear relaxed when she hadn’t felt relaxed since she had found out that she was with child.

“Fine,” she said, forcing a smile. “Better than yesterday, at the least.”

Yesterday, she’d spent the entirety of the day too busy throwing up the contents of her stomach, even though such sickness was not supposed to last so long into her pregnancy, according to the maesters, to worry about much at all, much less manipulating her uncle into saving her.

The maesters claimed that they weren’t too concerned about it, but Tyene, who had at any rate never had a child of her own, certainly had been, if the look on her face while she spent most of the day with Myrcella had been any indication.

Tyrion grimaced. “I heard,” he said, and it took her a moment to remember that his rooms were so close to her own and the walls in this part of the palace were paper thin.

She forced another smile, this one more commiserating than convincing, she couldn’t help but think, afterwards.

“No matter,” she said. “Has Cousin Gerold let you do anything yet?”

Her uncle grimaced, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she had referred to Gerold Dayne as ‘Cousin Gerold,’ or because she knew for a fact that Gerold Dayne hadn’t let her uncle do anything since he’d gotten here, for all that he claimed to be happy to host Myrcella’s uncle, if he helped them.

She knew what that meant, even if her uncle had seemed blissfully ignorant, when he had first accepted Gerold’s proposition.

Gerold wanted to be seen with a Lannister supporting him, just in case this little scheme of his with Aegon Targaryen - a scheme she could easily admit she understood very little - didn’t end up working out for him.

Then, with Tommen locked away in King’s Landing with the Tyrells, House Lannister would have little choice but to support her, perhaps he thought.

Little did he know how much House Lannister hated her favorite uncle.

Only uncle, she reminded herself, a little miserably.

“There’s going to be a feast tonight,” Tyrion said, and that caught her attention, at least.

It seemed to her that she generally knew about these things before her uncle did, so she found it surprising that he was the one informing her.

For his pride, she’d pretended in the past, of course, but not tonight. Tonight, the surprise on her face was rather genuine, and she thought her uncle got some hint of that, if the way he sat up in his chair was any indication.

She wondered, for a small moment, who was playing whom.

“Really?” She asked, cocking her head. “I didn’t…I didn’t realize.”

And she would have thought that as the supposed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, a title that she had once thought she might grow to enjoy and now felt stretched too thin over her shoulders, would have been invited.

Tyrion shrugged. “Another one of Gerold’s gambits to ensure that the whole of the Noble Houses of Dorne are on his side, no doubt,” he said, and Myrcella didn’t need to know her uncle well to know that being kept in the dark like this was making him more and more agitated.

He just needed a push, she knew, and they could be free of this place. Of Gerold, of all of these grasping nobles, of the crown that sat so heavy on her head and the child that felt like lead in her belly, knowing that it could only be used against her, once it was born, much as she already loved it so for being Trystane’s.

It was a thought, and the moment that Myrcella had it, she knew what she had to do, next.

Knew how she was going to push her uncle in the right direction, if it meant getting the two of them the fuck out of here.

Meant getting her child the fuck out of here, now that her uncle had confiscated the one thing she had thought might free her, even if no one else would.

“Tyene says that once the baby comes, she’ll have a whole new wing of the palace built for him, because he ought to have something that would make the Dornish proud…” she began, and then proceeded for the next half hour or so, over tea that they were both conspicuously silent during the serving of, as the serving girl had no doubt been sent to spy on them, to regale her uncle with tales of Tyene, and all of the things the two of them had done together since Myrcella’s arrival here.

Only the happy memories, of course. And then, once she was pregnant, only the ones where Tyene was the most helpful, and where she wasn’t standing by Gerold Dayne’s side, by Obara’s side, saying nothing and looking too guilty to meet Myrcella’s gaze.

She made sure to make the stories seem innocuous, of course. Because she knew that the moment her uncle thought he was being manipulated, he would pull back from her, would stop listening so openly to her.

Her uncle may have changed a great deal, even from the last time she had seen him and certainly from when she was a little girl, but she knew that as much about him.

And she wondered what he knew about her, these days. Or, more specifically, what he pretended not to know about her, and which of those was the more concerning.

“Myrcella,” her uncle finally interrupted her, in the middle of a lively tale about the Water Gardens that was mostly true, about Trystane falling off a horse and the children all laughing at him, one of the first moments that Myrcella had realized she was in love with him, “What’s wrong?”

She stared at him. “I…what?” She asked, carefully.

Her uncle sighed. “I’d be happy to sit here and listen to your stories all right, dear heart,” he told her, and he hadn’t called her that since she was a child, she thought, her face flushing, “but something is obviously bothering you, or you wouldn’t keep going. Perhaps…” he sighed. “Perhaps I might be able to help you, if you let me.”

Myrcella squinted at him, ashamed that he had managed to figure her out so easily. She took a deep breath, and then another.

“I…I’m worried about Tommen,” Myrcella said, glancing up at her uncle under her lashes.

A lie disguised with the truth was so much harder to parse out, after all.

And she was.

Worried sick about him, from the moment she had learned that he was coming back to King’s Landing, because she may not have spent long in the company of Margaery Tyrell, the girl that had been married to her brother, but she thought she knew enough about her, these days.

Knew enough about her ruthless ambition, considering the way that she had supposedly teamed up with Arianne Martell, for a time, to know that she wasn’t the sort of woman Myrcella thought would bother much with keeping her brother safe.

And after the way that Joffrey had probably treated her, Myrcella could not even say that she blamed the other woman.

But still, she worried.

Because she had left Tommen behind, knowing that she couldn’t exactly take him with her, if she left for Dorne, because even then she had known that the Dornish had no use for her brother. And if anything happened to him because she had left him behind - their mother had certainly always cared for him a little more than her, hard though most found it to tell - Myrcella would never forgive herself.

“I…When he was with Mother, at least I knew that she wouldn’t…” and Myrcella trailed off then, because she hadn’t known, not then.

When she had left him with…with Jaime, she had at least known that he would protect her brother to the death, that whatever happened to them after that, they would at least have each other, so she did not have to feel so guilty about leaving them.

When she had learned that her uncle had fucked off to the Wall and left Tommen with their mother, then, she had regretted it.

When she had realized that the Dornish had never really cared about her, beyond what she could do for them, then she had regretted it.

But now…now, her brother was a captive of those who saw him as nothing more than a threat, just as the Martells now saw him as nothing more than a threat to Myrcella’s claim, and that…terrified her, she could admit that.

Tyrion’s face softened. “Myrcella…” he began, and then sighed.

And she knew what that meant.

For all that her uncle had told her, again and again since his arrival in Dorne, that he was going to do whatever it took to keep her and her child safe, she knew that there was little that a fugitive on the run for kinslaying and kingslaying could do for anyone outside of Dorne.

In Dorne, they were happy enough that he may have killed her brother. Outside of Dorne, she imagined, it was only more proof that he was the Imp, that he was a monster, the monster that her mother had always claimed him to be.

He couldn’t keep her brother safe; they would only arrest him if he ever tried to get near King’s Landing, and she knew well enough that her mother would see him dead, the moment she realized he was in King’s Landing.

Gerold Dayne had offered him, in the name of the Crown he professed through Myrcella, forgiveness for the death of a mad king, as he had referred to Joffrey, ignoring the way that Myrcella flinched as he said that title.

And Myrcella…Myrcella could honestly admit that it didn’t matter to her, that Gerold had offered her uncle protection and immunity, for supposedly killing her brother.

Joffrey had been a horrible creature, a monster in every sense of the word, for all that her mother never seemed to realize it, and she was glad he was gone, even if she didn’t believe for a moment that her uncle had been the one to kill him.

That wasn’t like her uncle, she knew.

He had loathed Joffrey as much as the rest of them, but he would never kill him. Just as he had run away to Essos, and the moment he thought about it too hard, he had come to Dorne to help her, even though they had hardly parted on kind terms.

But Myrcella was glad that Joffrey was no longer alive to haunt her, even if her uncle hadn’t been the one to see him dead. Was glad, even with the storm of politics that she had been thrown into because of it, that her brother could no longer threaten to have her returned to King’s Landing and punished for ever acting against him.

She hoped he’d suffered, in his final moments.

It was no less than he absolutely deserved.

She sniffed a little, glancing away from her uncle.

But Tommen didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve to suffer merely for the sin of being related to Joffrey, no more than her child would deserve to suffer for being related to her.

So when her uncle reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a comforting hug, Myrcella forced herself not to stiffen at the touch, not to act like the feeling of anyone hugging her right now, and certainly the uncle who had sent her here in the first place, didn’t feel just a little repulsive.

Instead, she bent down and learned into the hug and closed her eyes, and for a moment, she could almost pretend that she was hugging Trystane.

“The Tyrells…the Tyrells are an ambitious bunch of cunts,” he said, and Myrcella flinched a little, at the harsh language, but it was not as if she had never heard it before, “But they have no interest in painting themselves as child murderers, I promise you. They’re much too…ambitious for that.”

Myrcella opened her eyes and squinted at him, wondering exactly what he could mean by that.

And then her uncle was glancing down, glancing down at her wide open pocket, the one she’d forgotten about, when her uncle had surprised her with a hug, and Myrcella felt herself stiffening, as she realized just exactly what it was he was seeing, in her pocket.

She resisted the sudden urge to swear aloud.

“What is this?” Tyrion demanded, staring down at the little vial peeking out of the pocket of her gown.

Myrcella felt her face flush; she glanced away, under the mistaken impression that if she didn’t meet his eyes, they wouldn’t talk about it.

That was how things had always gone with her…with Jaime, about the things that Joffrey had done to her that they were never supposed to bring up.

But her uncle’s hand whipped out then, fast and hard around her wrist, and Myrcella fought back a grimace as he turned her to face him once more, as he reached without asking into the pocket of her gown, the pocket that he wasn’t supposed to find and that plenty enough of her own ladies here hadn’t found, and pulled free the vial that she had stolen from Oberyn Martell’s poisons, weeks ago, when she had thought that there might one day be no hope for her here, when she hadn’t known what was to become of her future.

He pulled the vial free, and stared at it, and then at her.

She didn’t know if he recognized the exact type; Oberyn Martell had been a master at poisons, after all, and she knew that her uncle was wise, but perhaps not as wise as that.

But he seemed to understand its use, all the same, if the look that he sent her way was any indication.

She didn’t regret taking it now, not exactly. But the look on her uncle’s face, the one that went from confusion to dawning understanding to horror, in the space of a few moments…it made Myrcella feel just a tad guilty, all the same.

She looked down, and then away, told herself that she had nothing to feel guilty about before this particular uncle because it wasn’t as if he wasn’t at fault here, as if he hadn’t been the one to send her to Dorne in the first place, the one to throw her, kicking and screaming, into this situation.

And now, he was here to clean up his mess, and Myrcella didn’t know how she was meant to feel about that, not when he had been the one to send her here in the first place.

She tried to tell herself that if it hadn’t been for him, she would have never met Trystane, would never have met the great love of her life, the man she had loved and married and might never see again, and dear gods, woudln’t it have been better, if she hadn’t?

If she’d never known him, and thus known the pain of losing him for what could be forever, because the people who saw her as a pawn saw him as little more, either?

She let all of that fall into her wet eyes as they met her uncle’s, and could only hope that would be enough, that he wouldn’t try to interrogate her further because Myrcella didn’t think that she could take it, didn’t think that she would be able to keep herself from breaking down in front of him, if he asked her anything further about the poison.

About the poison that she had nicked from Oberyn Martell’s stores because it wasn’t as if he was alive to use it anyway, because she knew that even if it was painful, it was one of the few poisons that Tyene had taught her about that would definitely kill a person.

And in that moment, when she had stolen the poison, she’d had only one real goal in mind.

She didn’t know what was to come of her future, didn’t know who would next use her as a pawn, or for what purpose. Didn’t know who would pose a threat to her.

But she did know that the poison in her pocket, up until this moment, could protect her from that future, if need be. Could protect her only child, Trystane’s only hope at a child, from a future in which it wasn’t loved, as she had never felt loved as a child by any but Tommen, in a world where it would be wanted for nothing but the use that it could bring Dorne.

Having suffered such herself, it wasn’t a future that Myrcella would wish on anyone, and certainly not her unborn babe, this child that she already loved more than life itself, for all that it would never truly be hers even if she never used the poison.

She sniffed, hard, meeting her uncle’s eyes when he forced her to and trying not to read what she recognized there too easily, tried not to be ashamed by the horror in his features, as he suddenly pulled her flush against him, pulled her into an embrace that hurt, gods, it hurt, because it felt like he was crushing her bones against him with such force, and Myrcella let out something that might have been a dry sob, and might have been nothing at all.

Her uncle squeezed her, and he didn’t say anything, for which she was ridiculously relieved, because Myrcella thought that if he did start speaking, she would start sobbing and would never be able to stop.

She didn’t want to appear that weak in front of her uncle. Didn’t want him to know that she was nothing more than the scared little girl she was trying so desperately to convince him that she was, these days.

“Gods,” she heard her uncle breathe, against the shell of her ear. “Fuck. Fucking hells, girl.”

Myrcella felt a tear slipping down her cheek, down the cheek that wasn’t pressed against his, so she knew he wouldn’t feel it, wouldn’t see it.

Somehow, that didn’t make her feel better.

He was squeezing her as if he thought he could force the life back into her, if she did go ahead and do the thing he now dreaded, after what he had seen in her pocket.

Myrcella found it suddenly difficult to breathe.

“You know I would never let them hurt you, yes?” Tyrion asked, pulling back from their embrace. “I know that I…I have abused your trust in the past, and that…after the things I’ve been accused of, you have no reason to trust me, but Myrcella…” he sighed again, and for a moment, she thought he was going to say something else entirely before he continued. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

And Myrcella…Myrcella found herself shaking, in his arms, wondering if she could even believe those words because he may have been her uncle and he may have been family, but Joffrey had been family, too, and look what he had done to her.

She had been family to Tommen, and she had left him the moment she saw Tyene rushing at her uncle, without a second thought, because dear gods, she was so tired of fighting for a future that she wasn’t even certain she wanted, when the future she could have with Trystane was right there in front of her, and dear gods, did she want that one so badly.

Myrcella shook in her uncle’s arms, relieved that he was short enough that she could lay her head on his shoulder without having to worry about meeting his eyes, that she could simply let him hold her as she’d been wishing for so long that trystane would do these past few weeks, close her eyes, and shake with the sounds that weren’t quite sobs, because she couldn’t bring herself to sob, these days.

Not with the knowledge that if Trystane did die, in King’s Landing where he was nothing more than the prisoner she had once been here, before the Dornish found some more use for her, it would be the last time she ever cried again.

She took a shuddering breath, and then another, and finally, Tyrion pulled back, staring at her.

“Where did you even get this?” Tyrion demanded, holding up the vial now, and she hadn’t even realized that he had pulled it out of her pocket.

Myrcella felt her lower lip quiver; no, she thought, a little desperately.

If he took it from her, he would be taking her last, desperate rescue from her.

If he took it from her, she would have no choice but to rely on him, and him alone.

And sure, she wanted to trust him. Wanted to trust that there was some way he could get her out of here, but she was realistic to the bone.

Joffrey had taught her to be that, his final lesson before he’d left this world.

She swallowed hard, lifted her chin. “I just…did,” she said, and she knew that wasn’t an answer, knew by the look in his eyes that she may have just lost all of the progress she’d made with him, but that didn’t matter.

Because when his eyes shuttered, when he placed the vial in his own pocket rather than hers, she could feel the last, desperate hope she’d been clinging to slip away, just like that.

She shivered again.

Her uncle swallowed hard, moving away from her, running a hand through his hair, looking, for a moment, like Jaime had when he’d realized what Joffrey had tried to do to her, before he’d insisted on taking her and Tommen to the Westerlands.

She shivered, though it was never cold, in Dorne.

Tyrion let out a shuddering breath, and then another. “Promise me,” he whispered hoarsely, and she wondered that he should sound so broken by this, when she did not know if he had ever seen her as any more of a pawn than the Dornish had. “Promise me that you won’t go out and find more. Myrcella.”

His eyes were wet, when he finally turned back to her.

She swallowed hard. “I can’t,” she whispered, because that had not been the last time that Tyene had taken her to Oberyn Martell’s stock of poisons.

A part of her wondered if the other woman didn’t do it because she knew what Myrcella had stolen from that place, once. If she had seen exactly what it was that Myrcella had nicked, and this had been her way of allowing Myrcella to return it.

Or take something a little less horrifying, she supposed, with the way the other woman seemed to be teaching her about poisons.

She didn’t know exactly where Tyene’s loyalties lay, these days; the other girl was a Sand, after all, and she had stood by Gerold as he had arrested his own cousin, had stood by Obara, but the way she looked at Myrcella, sometimes, like she thought Myrcella was some breakable thing…

The way she had taken Myrcella to Oberyn’s hidden stash of poisons and taught her how to use them…

Well, sometimes, Myrcella wondered.

And she hoped that wouldn’t get her killed, too, considering what her other desperate plan was, these days.

She took a deep breath, and then another, met her uncle’s eyes.

Her uncle stared at her for a moment longer, looked truly horrified as he seemed to realize for the first time how things had really been for her, here in Dorne, and then her uncle sighed.

For a moment, she almost thought the jig was up. That he knew exactly what she was doing, that he knew she had placed that poison in her pocket this morning with the express purpose of getting him to see it, that he knew she had planned all of this so that he would be thinking about Tyene, about the fact that he did not have the luxury of time to save his niece.

And if he did realize what she was doing, what she had been doing from the moment he’d been dragged in chains before her throne and she’d felt something like desperate hope for something other than the freedom of death for the first time in a long time…perhaps that was terrifying. Perhaps he was far too difficult to manipulate.

Perhaps she was wasting her time here, talking of Tyene Sand and showing him the poison in her pocket.

But that didn’t mean Myrcella could stop; he was her only chance out of here, she had known that from the moment Gerold Dayne had told her they were going to crown her Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and he didn’t much care what she had to say about it, and then again, from the moment she had learned about this Targaryen boy claiming to be the true son of Prince Rhaegar and Elia Martell.

And she woudln’t be a Lannister, she thought, if she didn’t cling to that chance.

But the thought that her uncle had gotten even wiser at telling if she was trying to manipulate him, for all that his feelings at finding the poison seemed to be genuine, Myrcella wasn’t sure how she was going to persuade him to help her much beyond that.

Tyrion hadn’t spoken of Sansa, since his arrival here, beyond telling Gerold Dayne, when the man had asked, that they could not count on his marriage to Sansa Stark to deliver the North to their side of things, and a few veiled comments about Joffrey’s death.

Myrcella took that to mean things had not ended well, between them.

If Sansa had been somehow involved in Joffrey’s death, if it hadn’t been some freak accident at the hands of the religious fanatics whom he’d pissed off, well then…Myrcella could hardly claim that she blamed the other girl.

But from the look in Tyrion’s eyes when he talked of the other girl those few times, she thought perhaps he did.

And if he did, then she couldn’t help but blame the other girl for that, at the very least, because it meant that he would be far less likely to submit to Myrcella’s manipulations.

She knew her uncle well enough for that, after all.

Joffrey had been more difficult to manipulate when she had returned to King’s Landing than when she had originally left it, after spending so long in the company of his obviously manipulative wife.

“This Tyene Sand,” Tyrion said, and his words were slow, calculating, and she knew him enough to know that her uncle had been plotting something from the very moment he had stepped into the Keep and found her sitting on a throne that wasn’t the Iron Throne, but laid claim to it all the same, “What can you tell me about her? Besides…from earlier,” he went on, waving a hand dismissively. “Do you think she genuinely cares about you?”

Myrcella licked her lips. “I…” she shook her head. “She’s good to me. She…I always thought that she…well, I always that Arianne liked me, too. But Tyene…she’s always looked out for me.”

Even when the other of Oberyn’s children, the Sand Snakes and their littlest siblings, had not seen fit to look twice at her, even when Arianne had not yet decided how to use her, and Myrcella could well acknowledge that it had been use, now, Tyene had always seemed more genuine than the others.

She was placing a great deal of hope on that, now, but it wasn’t as if Myrcella had much else to place hope in, these days.

Her uncle eyed her for a moment longer, and then nodded, walking over to the door and knocking on it, signifying to the guards outside, the guards who constantly insisted that they were protecting Myrcella, not holding her captive, that their conversation was done.

She remembered having to do the same, when she had gone to visit Trystane in his cell.

She shivered a little, her pocket feeling terribly empty, without the poison inside.

Her uncle cast one last, curious glance at her, and then walked out the door, replaced, a moment later, by Tyene, who looked pensive.

Myrcella forced herself to smile at the other woman, when she asked how the meeting with Tyrion had gone.

“Well, I think,” she said. “He seems terribly concerned about the baby, though.”

He didn’t, but she knew for a fact that no one was actually listening to their conversations, now. She’d tested that often enough since her uncle had first started coming to see her.

“Of course,” Tyene said, quietly, and Myrcella reflected that it felt as if tyene was also another person entirely, from when Myrcella had first come here and befriended the other woman.

Or perhaps it was that Myrcella herself was a changed woman, had grown up, since then, as well.

Gods, she hated it.

But, to that end, she knew what she had to say next.

“I only hope that Trystane can be freed to come and see his child, when it is born, if he can’t be here before then,” she said, and took something like pleasure in the way that Tyene flinched, at those words.

Tyene wore her heart on her sleeve in a way that none of her relatives did.

It was refreshing, because it made Myrcella think she might actually be right about the other woman.

She wondered if that sadistic pleasure she felt bubbling up inside of her was too much like her brother for her own comfort, and didn’t let herself think about that for long.

“When are we going to get him back?” she asked, because in the end, that was why she had agreed to all of this. Because they had promised her that with a queenship came the power to get her husband back from the claws of Lannisters and Tyrells both. That, and the fact that she knew Gerold would use her anyway, if she agreed to it or not.

She might as well make sure that she got something out of it.

Tyene eyed her, and there was something unreadable in her gaze that made Myrcella reach into her pocket and clutch onto the Dragon’s Breath she had stolen like a lifeline.

And then she remembered, that her uncle had taken it, that she didn’t even have that to cling to, anymore.

“Soon, Your Grace,” she promised, and for the first time in a long time, Myrcella thought that Tyene, one of the few she had thought she could still trust here in Dorne, was lying to her.

Perhaps she had made a mistake, in pushing her uncle in the other woman’s direction.

She felt her heart beat a little faster, at the thought, but forced herself to smile up at Tyene.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she lied, too.

* * *

“You look beautiful, my lady,” her serving girl said, looking at her in the mirror from where she stood behind her.

Tyene scoffed, pulling away from her. “I’m not a lady,” she reminded her, a thing that Ellaria was always telling anyone who dared call her by such a title.

Tyene had never understood why, before. She thought she understood it a little better, now, though.

There was something about being called a lady these days, something that made her feel dirty, guilty, in a way that she didn’t like, that she had never felt when she did not have the responsibility of being a lady, and was merely the bastard daughter of a lord who loved her all the more for it.

The serving girl shrugged. “Do you think that there will be dancing at the feast, tonight?” she asked, sounding hopefully. The last dance had featured men of the South, whom Arianne was trying to woo through her choice of a husband. Tyene could admit that they had been something to look at.

But that only reminded her that Arianne was no longer in control of Dorne, that she was locked away by Tyene’s own sister and Arianne’s own husband, alongside Tyene’s uncle and the closest thing to a stepmother she would ever have.

She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to think about different things, but this was the one thing that she could never quite push away. It was constantly there, a worry at the back of her mind, reminding her of how much of a traitor she had been to her own family so far, the sins she had committed ever since her father had died.

Her father, who had only ever wanted to find happiness with his family again, and who had thought that would not be achieved without some sort of revenge against the Lannisters.

And it had killed him, instead of uniting them as a family. His death had been the catalyst for this family’s destruction, Tyene thought with a sigh. All of them choosing sides, and Tyene wasn’t sure if any of them had picked the same sides at all, anymore.

She had thought, when Lady Nym had betrayed she and Obara, and Doran had them locked away in the tower, that that was the greatest betrayal she would have to stomach. That at least she would always have Obara at her side, whom she had always been closer to as a child, anyway. That, secretly, Arianne still loved them, though she could not risk admitting it openly without getting into the same trouble with her own father.

But now, Arianne was talking about letting a little girl die so that they could ally with a boy who might not even be Elia Martell’s child, for all they knew. And she hadn't said whether they would do it, had implied that she would rather marry Aegon to Myrcella, but Tyene had seen the look in her eyes. Had seen the guilt, there already.

It wasn’t something that Tyene thought she could stomach, especially after Arianne had gone and let Gerold Dayne take over Dorne, as if that were anything close to resembling what was best for the kingdom, after everything that Dorne had been through already.

Tyene forced herself to smile at the serving girl. "I'm sure there will be," she told her, as she glanced out her window at the waning sunlight. "You know how Lord Gerold enjoys those types of parties."

Rather too much, in Tyene's opinion. After all, he had his own wife locked up for her own supposed protection; he could at least make an attempt to pretend he regretted being forced to do so, or, failing that, not dance with quite so many other women as if he were thinking about bedding them, Obara included amongst those.

"I don't want you dancing with Gerold, if he asks you," Tyene went on, the thought occurring to her that Gerold, for all his lack of subtlety, might love to find out what Tyene was doing in her private time. Or rather, who she was visiting.

After all, for all that she needed his permission to visit Arianne these days, she'd found ways around that rather easily. 

The serving girl blushed. "Yes, m-" Tyene was saved the embarrassment of having to correct her on the title as there was a knock on the door behind them, and Tyene gritted her teeth and bit back a sigh, as her serving girl set down the brush and ran to get it.

At the moment, much as she pitied Myrcella, she found herself not wanting to face her, just now. Not wanting to look her in the eyes and admit what Arianne was planning with just that look, or to lie to her face, instead.

It wasn't Myrcella at the door, however.

Instead, it was Mellario, and Tyene was startled, to say the least, at the sight of her.

"My lady," she said, getting to her feet and gesturing for her serving girl to make herself scarce, rather than serving them iced tea or any of the other things she might try to do while Tyene was reeling at the thought of Arianne's estranged mother visiting her. The thought of having tea with the woman made her want to hysterically laugh, and she just managed to restrain herself.

Mellario stepped inside the rooms as the serving girl stepped out of them, and Tyene forced a smile, pressing her hands together. "What can I do for you, Lady Mellario?" she asked, and there was only politeness in her voice.

This was yet another face she didn't want to see, even if it was better than being faced with Myrcella. She wasn't sure how much longer she could lie to a woman who thought Tyene had turned against her child as easily as she'd turned against her husband.

“I want to see my daughter,” Mellario said, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. Tyene sighed; she knew that look. “You have no right to keep me from her.”

Tyene raised an eyebrow, trying to appear unconcerned. “I am not keeping her from you; she has been arrested by her own husband, for her own protection, and nothing more. She is being kept under lock and key for her own protection,” she reminded Mellario. “Anyone could be a threat.” She looked Mellario up and down, feeling guilty even as she said her next words. “Especially some random woman who has been gone for years and years, and who has suddenly returned claiming to be her mother.”

After all, she had spent enough nights sitting by Arianne’s bedside, holding her hand, to know exactly how much that betrayal had effected the other girl; it was high time that it hurt Mellario, as well.

Mellario, who came swanning into their lives without an explanation the moment her husband, the one she had left behind, was imprisoned alongside his own daughter, but who seemed content to sit in the gardens - not the Water Gardens, perhaps even she knew she would not be welcome to go there - drinking iced tea with the other ladies of the court, and pretending that, for all that she had returned, those arrests meant absolutely nothing to her.

For all that she was a foreigner, Tyene thought bitterly, she certain knew the ways of the Westerosi ladies.

Mellario blinked at her. “You think that I’m pretending to be her mother?” she sounded amused. “And why should I do that?”

Tyene shrugged. “Who knows what those of the East decide to do, or why?” she asked, though there was no heat behind the words.

Mellario moved forward then, taking Tyene’s hands into her own. Tyene blinked down at them, swallowing thickly.

“I remember you, dear. How could I not, if I were not other than I am?” she said, and her words were gentle. “You were barely a little girl when I left here, just like Arianne.”

Tyene flinched.

“But you were so…sweet, then,” Mellario went on, as if she hadn’t noticed Tyene’s flinch. “I remember…” she laughed. “I remember that you were a devious little wretch, too. That you and Arianne once got it into your heads to sneak off and meet your mother, even though your father had forbidden you to. Oberyn was furious, when he found that you’d run off without even your guard.”

Her eyes were shining, as she said it, exactly the sort of way that a woman who actually remembered the event would.

Tyene closed her eyes, took a careful breath, and carefully extricated herself from Mellario’s grip.

“That wasn’t the last of our devious plots, after you left,” she told Mellario, quietly. “Arianne got it into her head that if we could make peace with the Reach, we’d be unstoppable against the other Kingdoms. She wanted to go and marry Willas Tyrell. Father was…livid, when he found us.”

That had been years after Mellario had left, though, and by the sad look on the other woman’s face, she knew it.

Tyene pressed her lips together.

She knew that her sisters barely remembered their own mothers. That Obara in particular spurned such affections for the women who had given birth to them, given how she had been taken from her own mother, given how weak she seemed to believe the ot her woman to be.

But Tyene knew her mother; she and Arianne had once snuck across the Mander, on one of their many getaways from Sunspear when they were younger, to visit the woman, a septa who loved Tyene deeply, for all that she was unable to see her often.

She remembered the look of sheer longing on Arianne’s face, when she first suggested the idea of going to find Tyene’s mother, and then as she watched the two of them together.

If Tyene could have given Arianne back her mother then and there, she would have done so in a heartbeat, but most of Dorne had thought Mellario quite lost to them, given the nature of her departure, years earlier.

Because she knew how much it had hurt Arianne, to be left behind by a mother who cared little enough for her to do, to leave her with a father who all but neglected her.

There was a reason that she and Arianne had run away from Sunspear so many times, after all, no matter how many lectures it wrought from Tyene’s uncle, and how many disapproving faces Oberyn made once he had finally found them.

She remembered how much trouble they had gotten into for not informing Oberyn or Doran of where they were going, but Tyene had been able to tell that the men would never give their permission for such a thing by the look in their eyes as they lectured her and Arianne.

Tyene licked her lips.

She couldn't do anything for Myrcella just now, couldn't do anything about the guilt eating away at her for that very fact, but perhaps she could do this small thing, instead.

Mellario was here now, even if it was rather inconvenient, given the state of their family at the moment, for her to have returned.

And Tyene could not, in good conscience, keep her away from her own daughter knowing how many years Arianne had longed to see her mother again.

She let out a long suffering sigh. “Come with me,” she said, taking Mellario by the arm and all but dragging her out of the room, into the hall. “And I swear by the gods, if you tell anyone I was responsible for this, if you get caught, I’ll see you poisoned in your sleep, Arianne’s mother or not.”

A part of her didn’t want to agree to this at all. Thought that leaving Myrcella alone for an even an instant, in a place like this, surrounded by so many of her enemies, would be a bad idea.

But she also couldn’t bear to meet Mellario’s eyes, not the way she was looking so pitiful, now. And Myrcella had her uncle; she could survive for a little longer with Gerold Dayne for company, Tyene was certain.

If she didn’t do something about Mellario, and fast, she had a feeling that they would be dealing with the aftermath for a very long time.

When she glanced back at the other woman, Mellario was smiling. “Thank you,” my dear, she said, but Tyene only lifted her chin and kept walking, pretending that she hadn’t heard the other woman.

Perhaps if she did, she wouldn’t feel guilty about the fact that Arianne had explicitly told her not to bring her mother to come and see her. That she didn’t think that she would be able to hide the truth of her machinations from her own mother, if the other woman did come to see her.

For all that she had derided Mellario’s identity to her face earlier, Tyene couldn’t help pondering just why she had come back to Dorne now. It was oddly suspicious timing, one had to admit that, when Doran had just recently been imprisoned and then, so had his own daughter who had usurped him.

If she cared about them at all, one would think her actions didn’t back that up. It almost looked as if she had only returned to Dorne because they both had been imprisoned, because Quentyn was…and Trystane was locked away in King’s Landing, far from Dorne.

Even when she had constantly been fighting with Doran near the end of their marriage, a shadowy memory, on Tyene’s part, she didn’t think that was like the other woman, to come back and dance at their demise.

No, she was here for some other reason, and Tyene told herself that perhaps bringing the other woman into the fold would save them some heartache later on.

It was going to have to.

They didn’t speak to one another, as they rode out to the tower where Arianne was being kept. Tyene was glad for that; she didn’t think that there was anything she wanted to say to the other woman, anything that wouldn’t end up spilling the truth about all of the rest of it, as well.

She had never been one for keeping a good secret, even she could admit that.

But Mellario seemed oddly pensive, the closer they got to the place where Arianne was being imprisoned. Tyene supposed that could be explained away by the fact that her daughter was imprisoned at all, or by nervousness at seeing her again, but something within Tyene, tuition, she supposed, told her it was more than that.

She didn’t try to accuse Mellario of not being Arianne’s mother again, and Mellario didn’t mention any past memories best left there, and Tyene was relieved as they rode the horses she had easily acquired from the stables hard into the night.

It was not a long journey, to the place where Arianne was being kept, and was one that Tyene had in fact made plenty of times in the past few months alone, but it felt like one, so close to night time, with Doran’s estranged wife riding alongside her.

It occurred to her, as their horses came to a stop outside of the tower, how easily they could liberate Arianne from this place, if she really wanted to be. She supposed that it was a surprise that no lords who disliked Gerold and his plans had not already attempted to do so.

A few good men and a prearranged place to escape to after that, and they would be able to raise an army against Gerold, amongst the lords who still disliked him and his plan for Dorne, if indeed, that was what Arianne even wanted.

Tyene knew she didn’t want it, of course, but still, the thought was tempting. For all that this was a willing imprisonment on Arianne’s part, a choice to manipulate her husband into taking the fall should things go wrong with this plan without having to take on any of the blame, it irked her, to so often come and visit her cousin in this place where she was being kept like a common thief, and to do nothing about it.

To come back to court afterwards, and smile and wave at Gerold Dayne just as if she didn’t want to run her blade through his teeth, to nod to all of the lords who followed him just as if they weren’t all traitors, easily persuaded into turning against the House that had kept them in peace for so long.

Gods, she loathed them for their lack of loyalty, even if they were finally getting the one thing that they wanted. She knew that not every Dornish lord had so easily agreed to follow Gerold, that plenty of them had returned to their homes and refused all of his summons’ since, but enough of them had.

Enough of them had, and once, Tyene had counted these people amongst her friends. She supposed Nym had been right, when she always called her naive.

Tyene swallowed hard, and climbed down from her horse.

She didn’t want to think about Nym. Nym, who had been one of those traitors in the first place, who had perhaps taught Tyene of her naivety more than anyone, with the way she had gone to Doran about Arianne’s plans, about their plans for Myrcella.

Still, more often than she would have liked, she found her thoughts drifting in that direction. Wondering. Wondering what Nym was doing, amongst so many enemies in King’s Landing. Whether she had found friends there, or whether she felt as alone as Tyene sometimes did now, in their homeland.

She shook her head, wondering where exactly that thought had come from, and pushed forward, towards the single guard standing at the doors of the tower. There were more inside, of course, and she could see that they were having a rather boisterous party, from the looks of it, but only he approached her.

Gods, it would be child’s play, with a few more men at her side, to take them down and steal Arianne and Ellaria both.

But Ellaria wasn’t on her side, either, she reminded herself, the smile falling. She’d stood by Doran, when they’d usurped him.

The thought pained her more than the thought of what Nym had done, just now.

“You weren’t meant to meet with the Princess today,” the guard said, eying the two of them dubiously, clearly recognizing Tyene at the very least, as she was often here, and Tyene thought fast, rolling her eyes and reaching up to run a hand through her hair.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You’re certain you didn’t ‘accidentally misplace’ the permission that Regent Gerold sent along?” She asked.

It had happened enough in the past - or, she and Obara had claimed that it had happened often enough in the past - that it was a plausible excuse for her presence, without Gerold’s prearranged summons, which was difficult enough to get, with the way he stared between her and Obara and asked them about their strange loyalties to their cousin. Asked them if they were having second thoughts about standing against her.

This was simply…easier, and it wasn’t as if the guards would go and ask Gerold if they were lying, Tyene knew.

The guard squinted at her. “I…” he opened his mouth, and then shut it with an audible click, turning away from them. “This way, my lady.”

Tyene grinned as she walked after him, motioning for Mellario to walk ahead of her. “Not a lady,” she corrected, but the smile fell from her face as quickly as it had come, as she remembered which of her sisters used that response the most.

Besides Ellaria, of course, who was also locked away in this horrid place.

Tyene took a deep breath, and started following Mellario and the guard up the steps, watching the flames from the torches shape strange images on the walls, trying to tell herself that surely Arianne wouldn’t care overmuch if she had disobeyed her instructions about bringing her mother here.

After all, they were all family, weren’t they? She thought, idly.

The thought felt like a rather flat one, however, after everything that they had done in recent months. Tyene didn’t like the feeling.

They paused outside the cell that Arianne and Ellaria had been sharing for far too long lately, and Tyene took a deep breath as she watched the guard fiddle with the key ring on his belt, tried not to think about how easy it would be to snatch one of the torches from the wall and hit it over his head, steal his keys, and drag Arianne out of this place so that she would stop this insanity once and for all.

The guard opened the door; the moment passed.

Tyene sighed.

Mellario pushed past the guard, then, didn’t even bother to wait for him to tell her it was fine, or wait for Tyene.

She supposed they deserved that.

Still, Tyene didn’t like the sensation of the door to Arianne’s cell closing behind all of them, when the guard left them alone. Didn’t like the way that Arianne stared rather too long at her mother, before finally turning to Tyene.

In the back of the cell, which was a rather fine cell after all, Ellaria glanced up from the book she had been reading and cocked a brow.

“What is this?” Arianne asked, glancing nervously between them. And she was nervous, Tyene could tell. She’d known Arianne long enough.

She opened her mouth to answer, but Mellario beat her to it, moving forward rather quickly.

“Arianne,” Mellario said, pulling the other girl into an embrace.

And Tyene couldn’t regret bringing her here to come and visit her daughter, even if it went against everything that Arianne had told her, before.

But Arianne didn’t seem at all angry, as she all but melted into her mother’s embrace, proving that family did mean something to her, in the end, Tyene told herself.

Took a deep breath, and told herself that if Mellario and Arianne could reconcile this easily, despite everything else going on around them, then perhaps there was hope for the rest of their family, as well.

“Are you well?” Mellario asked, when she finally pulled back from her daughter.

In the corner of the room, where she had sat silent since their arrival, Ellaria snorted. Tyene risked a glance in her direction, caught her eye for a moment.

The look that Ellaria gave her was pointed and cold, and nothing at all like any looks that she had ever given one of the girls she considered as a daughter before.

Tyene quickly looked away.

“I’m fine,” Arianne said, after a little glare in Ellaria’s direction. “What are you…what are you doing here? Is something wrong.”

Mellario’s face pinched. “Is something wrong,” she repeated, coldly. “No. Only that my husband and my daughter are imprisoned in a tower, and that your husband seems intent on dragging a place I once considered my home into war. And that my son is dead. Nothing beyond that.”

In the corner, Ellaria almost looked contrite.

Arianne looked far more so. “Mother…” she began, and Tyene’s eyes widened as she realized what Arianne was about to do.

But then, perhaps it was warranted. Perhaps they needed someone else on the outside, someone besides Obara, whose long looks in Gerold’s direction these days, worried Tyene more than she ever let on to Arianne.

She knew that Obara was meant to seduce him, but the rest of it…

She shuddered, and no one but Ellaria noticed.

Tyene was trying very hard not to notice Ellaria, however.

“You are walking a dangerous path, my dear girl,” Mellario whispered, reaching out with the back of her hand to brush it down Arianne’s cheek.

Arianne, interestingly, for all that she had always claimed she was better off without the coddling of her mother, for all that Obara had always vocally agreed with her, leaned into the touch.

Tyene looked away, feeling as if she were witnessing something intimate, something which she should not be.

“It is a path that I have chosen for myself, Mother,” Arianne said, and there was something pained about her words, but they made Tyene’s eyes narrow, all the same, as she found herself wondering how much Mellario actually knew at this point, or suspected.

She knew that Arianne had not wanted her mother to know all of the details of this arrangement, hadn’t known whether she could trust her or whether she had returned to champion the cause of Doran, or worse, of Gerold, since he wasn’t related to her abandoned family at all, and she couldn’t risk losing anything more.

But there seemed to be something of knowledge in Mellario’s eyes, all the same.

“I don’t want to lose you to this foolishness, the way that I’ve already lost…” Mellario sniffed. “Already lost your brother.” She took a careful breath, and then another. “Perhaps if you…just talked to your father. If you asked Gerold Dayne, I’m sure he would allow it, if only for a few minutes more. Then, perhaps…”

Tyene cleared her throat. Loudly.

She hadn’t realized that Arianne had already spoken to her father at all. Hadn’t realized that was even an option, after how fully she had repudiated him, earlier.

Silence.

Tyene’s breath caught in her throat, she looked away, when both of the other women turned to look at her suspiciously.

She had known that Quentyn was dead, of course; Obara had been the one to tell her and Gerold that he was indeed, that his armies were no danger to them because they did not even exist, not anymore, if they ever had at all, but it still hurt, to hear them speak of him as if he’d been dead for ages, as if the wound weren’t still fresh, for her.

Tyene glanced down at her hands, so that she did not have to look at either of them.

She had not known Quentyn well, as a child. He had been sent away to be fostered at a young age, when Tyene was still too small to understand where he was going nd that he may not come back for some time. And, when he had returned, he had been cold towards much of his family, save for Doran.

Tyene had thought he did not like them for the fact that they were bastards, though surely that shouldn’t have mattered when they were family, or because they were so close to Arianne, which lent credence to the thought that he was a threat to the Princess, when Arianne later became so convinced of it.

He was never to be trusted, because of that, and Tyene loved Arianne like a sister. She knew that her cousin would make a great princess, no matter what Doran believed of her, what Quentyn thought ought to be his, and was offended on her behalf when they actively worked against her.

But he had still been their cousin.

Tyene had believed, for so had Arianne, that perhaps he could be brought back into the light when Arianne had gained enough power to prove to her father, and to her brother, that she was truly a capable leader.

And now, he would never get the chance to see it. They would never have the chance to see him again.

She swallowed hard, reaching blindly behind her for the handle to the door, not even sure why this was affecting her so much, whether this was merely a delayed reaction to his death, now that she had the chance to truly feel something, now that Obara and Gerold were not in the room, or whether it was the thought that Arianne might share in her brother’s fate.

She swallowed hard, feeling her hand close around the knob. “I…I should go,” she told the two of them, not looking at Ellaria either, for all that, when she did sneak a glance in the other woman’s direction, she could see the pity on her face.

This woman, who had been Mother to her more than the septa had ever been, and Tyene was content to leave her locked away, rotting in here, as if they weren’t. With Arianne, at least, that had always been part of the plan, but there was no false reason for Ellaria to be locked away in here; she simply was, because she had loved Tyene’s father, and they could not be certain where her loyalties lay, now.

Gods, their family was falling apart. Fracturing, and Arianne, for all that she looked suddenly concerned about Tyene now, didn’t seem to care. Didn’t seem to care that Trystane was a captive in King’s Landing, and that Quentyn was dead, that Oberyn was dead, and their uncle was locked away in a prison. That every day, Tyene worried a little more that the feelings that Obara displayed for Gerold Dayne were not as false as she assured Arianne, that Myrcella, who was a part of their makeshift little family now more than ever, was going to get herself killed saying the wrong thing to Gerold…

The door slammed behind her as Tyene rushed out of the room, ignoring the calls of Arianne and Ellaria, ignoring the concerned looks of the guards as she rushed past them.

She did not stop running until she was back at the palace, and by then, panting hard and sweating in the desert sun, Tyene was not even sure what she was running to.

* * *

Tyrion did not like being manipulated by little girls who thought they were smarter than him. Did not like the feeling that he was being fleeced by them, and far more easily than he had always thought himself capable of.

And so the fact that his niece had obviously, and with little subtlety, meant for him to go to Tyene Sand, after their little chat, did nothing to endear the thought to him.

It was not that he did not sympathize with his niece; he knew that the little girl was frightened, either obviously so, from the way that she acted around him, or she was trying hard not to show him how terrified she actually was, but still, it rankled.

It rankled, because the last time that he’d knowingly allowed a little girl to manipulate him because he had genuinely thought that he might be able to help her, it had been Sansa, and she had gotten him accused of kin and kingslaying.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he almost couldn’t see Shae, out of the corner of his eyes, laughing at him.

She was always laughing at him these days, when it came to Sansa. He knew that it was because more often than not, he found himself wondering whether or not what she herself had felt for him was genuine, or whether she, too, had hidden her laughter behind her hands as she plotted with Sansa.

As she went to a witch to have the woman get rid of the child that they had made together, as she died in Arya Stark’s arms…

He closed hie eyes, fighting off what felt like a migraine. He reached out and took one of the glasses of wine that the servants were passing through the gathering, gulping it down with rather less ease than he had hoped.

It tasted vile, for all that he’d always had a taste for Dornish Red. It didn’t soothe him, either, the way that it always had in the past.

And it did not succeed in making him stop thinking about Shae, or Sansa, whom he had thought might be his safe haven, after what had happened to Shae in Braavos, but who had turned out to be using him far more than she ever had, for all that she’d been a whore.

Gods, where was Bronn and his talk of the wonders of the Dornish brothels when Tyrion needed the distraction? He thought aimlessly, glancing around at the feast goers and not finding the sellsword amongst them.

It was surely the least he could do, after he had dragged Tyrion here in the first place.

He sighed; that wasn’t fair, he told himself. Bronn had been only trying to help him, after he had given the man such a scare.

And he supposed that he deserved this; after all, he’d been steadily drinking and fucking himself to death, enough so that even Bronn, who had hardly kept away from the brothels since he had followed Tyrion to Lys, had gotten concerned.

But he couldn’t say that this felt any better, playing a game that he was far too familiar with, against players he didn’t know at all.

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes again. Myrcella was sitting at the head of a feasting table; for all that she’d said she had no idea that Gerold was planning yet another elaborate feast with the nobles of Dorne, something that Tyrion suspected he did to keep them within eyesight more than usual, she seemed rather comfortable at the head of that table, that crown sitting on her head.

She looked like Cersei had, sometimes, when she was sitting at Robert’s right hand. Or later, before Margaery Tyrell’s arrival had fucked things for her and everyone else in King’s Landing, at Joffrey’s.

The thought did not endear her anymore to him, either.

For all that she’d seemed so frightened earlier, frightened enough that he had believed her when she had all but threatened to take her own life…he swallowed hard, closing his eyes again as dancers moved out onto the floor to entertain them.

Cersei would have been disgusted by the scantily clad girls. Myrcella seemed quite at home, watching them.

He wondered if that was where the differences ended.

He turned away from her; he had come here to help her, after all, and he didn’t think that if he mused on her for too long, he’d appreciate having done so anymore than he did at the current moment.

Instead, he sought out a face in the crowd, but instead of this Tyene Sand who Myrcella thought they ought to ally with, he found himself drifting towards Mellario, the princess who had separated from her husband and caused such a scandal, at the time.

Tyrion had been quite young, when it had happened, but he remembered that scandal, all the same. His father, forever burned by Martells for Elia marrying Rhaegar Targaryen, had never quite let anyone forget it.

Anyone whom his father could disapprove of so strongly was instantly interesting, to Tyrion.

“Lady Mellario,” Tyrion said, as he approached the woman, where she stood alone and apart from the other nobles. “It was with some surprise that I realized you were back in Westeros at all. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He did not say it in a way he thought might be offensive, but Mellario still raised an imperious brow.

“And it was with some surprise that I found a Lannister eating at the court of the Martells,” she said, calmly enough, but he could sense some of the coldness in it, even with how quiet her words were. “Though, of course, I am no longer certain that this court does belong to House Martell.”

He grimaced. “I must confess, I have never been to Dorne before, but this is not the Dorne that I once pictured,” he admitted.

Mellario half turned where she stood, to squint at him. “Then perhaps we are both strangers in a strange land,” she said, and she sounded only slightly perturbed about it.

He eyed her with a new sort of interest, now; he knew very little about the estranged wife of Doran Martell; very few did, for all that his sister and his father had always had a few choice words about the scandal of the arrangement, about the fact that some foreign bitch had seen fit to leave a Westerosi, even if he had just been a cripple by the time she’d actually left him.

He wondered how his father would have reacted if he’d known that Cersei was barely with her own crippled husband, before she’d killed him.

He’d heard that Mellario was some wild thing, that she and Doran Martell had always been seen fighting one another, that there was never a civil word in either of their heads, before they had drifted apart, before she had abandoned her children and gone back to the East, but somehow, he couldn’t quite imagine the collected, bitter looking woman standing before him running after her husband, shouting of her anger and passion towards him.

“I had thought that your return might have something to do with your husband’s imprisonment,” he said, slowly. “I have…heard, forgive the rumors, that you and he did not part on the best of terms, when you did leave Dorne.”

She sniffed. “I am certain that I do not know what you mean,” she said. “I returned to Dorne because Norvos was no longer…an acceptable place for me to continue living out my days, and because I wanted to see my husband and daughter again before they got each other killed.”

Tyrion flinched; he could almost sympathize with the feeling.

“None of which explains what you yourself are doing in Dorne,” she went on, taking another sip of her wine. “After all, I know the history between House Lannister and House Martell as well as any Dornishman.”

“I…” he took a careful breath; she was an outsider here in Dorne, that was clear enough. He had seen her speaking with the other ladies of Dorne often, had seen them laughing together, or talking in serious tones, but there was always an element of otherness about them, as if they did not want to associate with her too long or too hard; he saw that she was alone tonight, as well.

That no one was approaching her, and certainly not the lords of Dorne, for all that they claimed to have no fear of scandal the way that the rest of Westeros did.

And in any case, she had arrived in Dorne long after the plotting of her daughter had gotten the girl imprisoned, so whatever it was that she was up to, it had nothing to do with Myrcella that he could see.

Perhaps she had merely come to watch her family tear itself apart, after the way she had left them a lifetime ago on unpleasant terms.

He supposed that he could sympathize with that notion, as well.

“I suppose that…I also wanted to come and see a member of my family, before she went and got herself killed,” he said, slowly, and met Mellario’s eyes, as he did so. “And…it was not as if I had anywhere else to go.”

Mellario gave him a sad, knowing look. It was more gentle than he was expecting, and he flinched a little, under the intensity of it, before he half turned away from her, unable to bear it any longer.

He noticed then how many of the nobles were watching him, how many of them were pretending that they were not.

The Imp and the estranged wife; what a pair they must make to all of the gossipers, he couldn’t help but think.

“Then I suppose that we have a common purpose, here,” Mellario said, and there was something about the way she said it, something of purpose there, that made Tyrion narrow his eyes at her.

He wondered, yet again, what the exact circumstances of her separation from her husband had been. Plenty of Westerosi couples were miserable enough, in their marriages, without attempting to leave one another and going to opposite ends of the earth in order to do it.

“Tell me something,” he said, slowly, and Mellario raised a shaved brow in his direction. He bit back a sigh. Then, “I suppose it has been some time for you, but is your daughter truly foolish enough to steal the throne from her father and then get it taken away from her so easily?”

Mellario squinted at him. “I haven’t seen my daughter since she was a little girl,” she said, finally, slowly, as if she were bemused about why Tyrion would ask the question at all.

But he could see a spark of life in her eyes, all the same. Knew that whatever she was saying with her lips, it wasn’t the same as what was in her eyes.

He only wished that he knew what that was.

She did not strike him as a foolish woman, as one ruled solely by her passions, as his father had always said dismissively of her, and he couldn’t imagine that she thought nothing at all of the shitshow she had found herself returned to, here in Dorne.

But she was silent, and he didn’t know her well enough to read her well.

Instead, he said, “You know, my sister thought that she could do the same. That she could take things over, do them better, because she had spent half a lifetime being humiliated and tossed aside.” He shrugged. “It clearly didn’t work out well for her, either.”

And the similarities between her and Arianne didn’t stop there, as far as he was concerned. He had yet to see the other woman, since his arrival in Dorne, but she had worked so hard to get her revenge on an absent father, from what he could understand, and gained nothing from it.

That sort of stupidity, the sort of stupidity that would lead to working so hard to gain something like that, could remind him only of his dear sister.

Mellario sniffed. “Perhaps my daughter and your sister might have something to say to one another, if they were ever to meet. Or, perhaps...not.”

He snorted. “I doubt it. She thinks very little of the Dornish, I think, for stealing her daughter from her. And even if she didn’t, she is…particular in the sort of allies that she keeps. Bootlickers, and the like.”

Mellario raised a brow. “And here I was thinking it was you who had arranged the marriage between Myrcella and my son.”

Tyrion hummed. “Yes, well, I don’t think she will appreciate my presence here, either, after the bounty she’s placed on my head for the murder of her beloved son.”

Last he’d heard, she was offering a thousand pieces of gold for his head, and his head alone. He wondered how she was planning to pay it, now.

Now that Lannisport had been…

He closed his eyes, and told himself that didn’t matter. His family had abandoned him long before he’d ever abandoned them, after all, had made it very clear that he wasn’t one of them; it had just taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time, and his wife framing him for murder, for him to realize it.

Even Myrcella, for all that she thought that she needed him now, had made it clear what she thought of him as an uncle, when she had confronted him in King’s Landing about sending her to a place she was clearly less miserable than she had been with her brother in.

Mellario looked wryly amused, at those words. “Yes, I was rather surprised that Dorne seemed to welcome you with open arms, rather than attempt to make that bounty,” she said, as Tyrion stiffened a little, beside her. “But then, I suppose, we have never been close friends of the Lannisters. And rumor has it that Euron Greyjoy melted the rest of your gold and nailed it to his ships for his own amusement. Along with the majority of your people, as well.”

Tyrion flinched.

He had been wondering, ever since he had learned what Euron Greyjoy had done in Lannisport, had heard the rumors about the man’s madness being taken out on people he undoubtedly knew, if he had made the wrong choice, in choosing to come to Myrcella and Dorne, rather than going home to the Westerlands.

Perhaps, if he’d just been there, he could have done something.

After all, he’d spent long enough as Hand of the King to one madman. It had made him rather good at dealing with them, if he did say so himself.

He sighed, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose with one hand, and bringing the glass of wine in his hands up to his lips with the other.

The dancing was giving him a headache, he told himself. He could see Myrcella, across the room, refusing Gerold Dayne’s hand when he offered it to her.

“I’m sorry,” Mellario said, though she did not sound particularly so. “I did not realize that I had…touched a nerve.”

She had, though; it was exactly as she had intended, he could tell that, though he wasn’t particularly certain why. After all, she must have known that the name of Lannister still meant something to him, if he had come here to be with Myrcella, no matter what he said about the rest of them.

She was smart enough for that, he could tell that as much.

“No, it’s quite all right,” he told her. “I just…brought it on myself, I suppose.”

His sister would say that he brought all such troubles on himself. When he inevitably failed to rescue Myrcella from this place, he wondered if she would feel exactly the same about him.

He wondered what Mellario thought of his niece being crowned Queen, and kept here as a prisoner in much the same manner that her daughter and husband were now being kept.

He didn’t get the chance to ask her, however, about that, or about how she felt about her husband’s rule of Dorne before that, if it had anything to do with her return to Norvos, before Gerold Dayne was clapping the dancers out of the middle of the room and gesturing for silence.

The nobles all gathered a little closer, wondering what their fearless usurper wanted of them now.

Tyrion still couldn’t decide whether or not the nobles of Dorne thought Gerold nothing more than a trumped up usurper, or whether they agreed with his taking power from the Martells to give them the war that everyone knew Dorne had been clamoring for for years, now.

He suspected it was a bit of both; Gerold was something of an idiot, and half the nobles he seemed to meet barely seemed able to speak of him without rolling their eyes that he was a warrior and not a politician, but at least he was giving them what they wanted.

“I have an…announcement to make,” Gerold said, as he stood at the front of the feasting hall. “On behalf of our new Queen, Myrcella Baratheon, rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms, Dorne has declared war on the city of King’s Landing.”

Tyrion felt his blood run cold, at those words.

The rest of the room was eerily silent, as if none of them were quite certain whether or not this news was something they should be cheering, or not.

“We have demanded nothing less than the surrender of their Regent, this false queen who champions her bastard child above the true heir, Joffrey’s oldest living blood, Myrcella,” Gerold went on, and it was only then that the room seemed to realize what was happening, if the way that some of them began to drunkenly cheer was any indication. “We will prove to these flowers, to this dragon prince, that Dorne bows to no man. That we hold the only and rightful heir to the throne here in Dorne.”

And that got cheers if nothing else did. Tyrion closed his eyes; when he opened them again, he was staring at the front of the room, where Myrcella sat next to Gerold, prim and proper, lips pressed together so tightly that they were white, in the beginning of a frown.

Her hand reached down almost unconsciously to touch at her stomach.

It occurred to him then, for all her flimsy attempts to manipulate him earlier, that she was still just a scared little girl, trying to survive in a place that had not once proved itself to be a friend to her or her family, for all her love for that Prince still locked away in King’s Landing.

Trystane, who no doubt would be killed the moment the Tyrells realized the Martells had turned on them for good. Tyrion grimaced again.

It occurred to him, then, that perhaps a little manipulation on her part could do some good, that perhaps she didn’t know how to do anything else, in her current position, and he knew his niece well enough to know that she would not beg him for help, not her mother’s daughter.

She wasn’t Sansa, though. Just because she had tried to manipulate him, just because he suspected that even the poison that he had found in her pocket had been placed there deliberately to scare him into action, didn’t mean that she was as able to play him as his little wife had been.

He had seen the look in her eyes, when he’d found that poison in her pocket, whether she’d meant for him to find it, or not.

She’d been terrified.

Sansa had proven herself more than just a girl in their last few months together; Myrcella had not, and he had come here, after all, to keep her safe for Jaime, for their family.

He could hardly begrudge her trying to save herself, for that hadn’t been what Sansa had been doing, in the end.

They weren’t the same.

He bit back a sigh, and took another gulp of his drink, ignoring the look that Mellario gave him out of the corner of her eye.

As the crowd cheered, he felt his mood dampen further. No wonder Gerold had not given him any real responsibility, since his arrival here. He had proven, time and time again, that he had no real care for Myrcella, that he was only using her for his own ends.

And perhaps Arianne had truly cared about Myrcella, as Myrcella had seemed to think before she had returned here, and he didn’t know what had changed her mind about her safety here, but she had been terrified, when they had spoken earlier, he’d realized that, even as he’d realized that she was attempting to manipulate him and that, worse, it was working, but he highly doubted that Gerold did, as well.

Gerold, who had just now not only crowned Myrcella as the rightful Queen, when there were far too many contenders for that damned throne already, but then, without telling her uncle, which was proof enough of his lack of concern for the girl, had sent ships to besiege King’s Landing.

He reached up, rubbing at his temples.

Myrcella’s attempts to manipulate him seemed paltry, in comparison.

“If you will excuse me, Lord Tyrion, I suddenly find my appetite gone,” Mellario said darkly, and then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Tyrion watched her go with a sigh; well, he supposed, that was unlikely to work out for him.

Tyene Sand was staring at him, when he finally looked up from his cup. Tyrion sighed, and gulped the rest of it down before approaching her.


	38. The North

“You know, when I told you that Jon had gone North, I thought you would have gone after him,” Theon said, where he trudged along in the snow behind her.

They had been walking for hours, before he finally broke the silence, and this was the most flippant she had heard him since she had stood over him, contemplating his death, days ago.

He had gone back to his shell of being Reek, since then.

She had almost preferred the silence.

It was the first thing that either of them had said all day, and it nearly startled Arya out of her next step. She glanced back at him, sharply, found that he wouldn’t meet her eyes, just as he kept refusing to meet her eyes ever since she had confronted him about her brothers.

She swallowed hard; tried not to think about that.

Because the more they walked through the snow, the wind howling about them, the air crisp and cold against her bare cheeks, the less Arya had to think.

And whenever they stopped, so that Theon could piss against a tree with some difficulty, and Arya could count the days it would take them to reach Winterfell at this rate, it was all she did. Think.

Wonder if Theon had a death wish, and was lying to her, all of this time. If he really had killed her brothers, and was just taking her to Winterfell because he was such a loyal little creature to Ramsay Bolton, whatever the fucker had done to him, as she’d heard the rumors about that, or if he wanted to show her the bodies of her brothers, hanging above the courtyard there, because he had never really loved their family.

She swallowed hard, starting to walk again, and she heard the moment’s hesitation behind her, before Reek carefully walked along in her footsteps.

Oh, forgive her, Theon.

It was so difficult to tell the difference, these days. He had insisted on only answering to Reek, whether intentional or not on his part, for she still couldn’t tell, as often as he had Theon.

Arya rolled her eyes. “Jon can take care of himself,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. The flippant words were harder to force past her lips than she had thought they would be. “Rickon and Bran, they need me.”

Theon glanced at her.

He didn’t say the obvious, the obvious thing that neither of them had said since they had started out on this journey; that it was unlikely, even if Theon hadn’t been the one to kill them, that either of her two youngest brothers still lived, not after so long.

Someone would have heard that they lived, after all.

Arya stubbornly lifted her chin, and dared him to say anything at all about it.

Theon wisely kept silent.

Everything within her had screamed that she ought to go North and find Jon, the moment Theon told her that he had seen him, not so long ago, alive and well in the Westerlands, standing at the side of the likes of Stannis Baratheon and Jaime Lannister.

Even if none of that made sense to her, it meant that Jon was alive. He was real, someone had seen him, and no one had seen either of her two youngest brothers in such a very long time.

She had almost given up hope on the thought that any of her family, save for Sansa, in King’s Landing, surprisingly enough, when her sister had been a prisoner for so long, were still alive, but to hear that Jon was not only alive, but apparently commanded enough respect to be seen at the side of Stannis Baratheon, the man her father had heralded as the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms…

She had wanted nothing more than to go to him, to be by his side and fight whatever it was he had seen fit to side with Jaime Lannister on.

But she had known that it was unlikely she would find her brother, if she decided to go North of the Wall herself, a place she barely knew. That she would only be lost in the snow, and her brother lost to her, much as she ached to at least try.

But Arya couldn’t bring herself to go. If her brother was alive, was, for some reason, fighting ghosts with Stannis Baratheon and Jaime Lannister, then, surely, she would see him again. He could explain what the fuck he was doing North of the Wall, and they could be brother and sister once again.

They could figure it all out.

But they couldn’t figure anything out as long as Winterfell, their home, remained in the hands of Ramsay Bolton, one of those who had turned against her brother and mother, had killed them like dogs.

No one knew if Rickon and Bran were alive, and they were younger than Jon, were more vulnerable.

She had to find them, had to see for herself whether they still lived or died.

They were her brothers, after all. She owed them that much, after leaving them defenseless for so long.

She lifted her chin, and kept walking, through the heavy snow, through the cold. She tried to pretend that she was still a Stark, that the cold didn’t nip at her skin in a way she could never remember it doing as a child, that she didn’t wish she’d brought warmer clothes, every time the wind picked up.

She’d stolen some warm clothes, from the camp below the Rock when they had left, but they had been warm for the Westerlands, not for the North. She was freezing, now, and she doubted that Theon, where he walked alongside her, was faring any better.

But then, she was used to the warm temperatures of Braavos, these days. She supposed it made sense, that she hadn’t remembered how cold the North would be, and winter was coming, now, in a way it hadn’t been the last time she had been here.

She didn’t remember the winter before this one.

She didn’t recognize this place as the land she had left once, a lifetime ago, and yearned to return to every day since.

Arya told herself that it was just the amount of snow, and tried not to think that perhaps it was she, and not the North at all, who had changed.

Arya shivered, as they walked along the path, and tried not to think of Theon at all, where he walked alongside her.

She’d found that silence worked best, between the two of them, if she ever wanted to keep her sanity.

She’d demanded to know everything that he knew about Ramsay Bolton, for the amount of time that he’d been the man’s prisoner, and Theon had told her…everything.

Things that she never wanted to know, things that she would think about for the rest of her life, she feared.

She looked at him differently, after that, and she didn’t want to, didn’t want to look at this pathetic creature whom she’d grown up with and think that he was a victim, as well, to the fates that had been placed before them.

They were fates he had brought upon himself, she told herself.

She thought of the Merling Queen, of Shae, and wondered if she had bought those fates upon herself, as well, though in a different way.

Gods, she hated the thought.

And, because Arya didn’t want to spend the rest of the journey back to their home, encountering so few people on the road, thinking about Theon, Arya started looking for an inn so that she could think about warmth, instead.

She didn’t tell this to Theon, but the other man seemed to realize how tired she was getting, she thought, if the way that he slowed his steps was any indication.

Arya regretted not stealing a horse, when they’d left the Rock.

She knew that there were several of them, inns, on the road to Winterfell, in the little villages nearby, and her eyes scanned the blank horizon of snow rather desperately.

“There!” She cried out, some time later, and Theon jumped a little, beside her. She felt a spike of guilt before she remembered that she had resolved not to, and started walking a little faster, forcing Theon to catch up where he walked beside her.

The inn was not a large one, situated at the very edge of a very small village, a village that Arya vaguely remembered from her childhood, knew was close enough to Winterfell that the way her heart was hammering in her chest at least had some merit.

There was snow in front of the door, as if it hadn’t been opened all day, and Arya kicked it out of the way before forcing the door open, ignoring the small noises of children, down the street, kicking a ball between them.

They looked around the age Rickon would be, now.

Arya swallowed thickly and stepped inside the inn, aware of Theon following along behind her, shutting the door once more to get rid of the cold.

The inn was warmer than she’d been expecting. It was…nice, she thought.

There was no one inside but a stout older woman, bustling around the main room, sweeping, Arya realized, and she glanced up as they entered, narrowed her eyes between the two of them, and stopped sweeping.

“We’d like a room for the night,” Arya told the innkeeper’s wife, trying not to meet her eyes when she watched the way the woman looked at her, wondering if the old woman somehow recognized her.

It was impossible, of course; there was no reason she should have ever met this woman, even when she had still been Arya Stark, but still, she found herself pulling her clothes a little more tightly around her.

The old woman, however, didn’t seem to be looking at her in recognition, at all. Instead, she was looking between her and Theon with something like knowing.

Arya bit back a sigh.

She had forgotten that things were different, in the North, from Essos, from what she had come to think of as normal.

She reached back, wrapping an arm around Theon’s shoulders, ignoring the way that he flinched as she did so, and turned back to the innkeeper. “My husband and I have had a long journey, and we’ll take any room that you have left. We don’t know how long we’ll be here.”

The innkeeper glanced between the both of them for a moment longer, before seeming to decide that she believed them.

Of course, Arya was sure that it helped when she placed a piece of gold down in front of the other woman. Gold from Westeros, which she had been lucky enough to trade for before she had left Braavos, for she doubted this hearty old woman would accept anything less than that.

The woman looked at it for a moment longer, and then beamed at her. “This way, lady,” she said, as she led them through the large dining hall and up a flight of stairs.

Arya rolled her eyes, muttering something about how she wasn’t a lady under her breath as she moved away from Theon to follow the woman, remembering a lifetime ago when Tywin Lannister, the Old Lion, had once told her that if she wanted to be mistaken for a peasant, she ought to try better to sound like one.

She’d forgotten that lesson, the moment she’d returned to Westeros, which was strange, because the moment she breathed Westerosi air, the air itself had felt different, to her.

She licked her lips, as the innkeeper came to a stop apparently in front of the room for the two of them, opening it wide as she explained that dinners would be included with the generous price that Arya had offered but that baths were extra, and Arya politely got rid of her, shutting the door a little too loudly after her.

When she turned back, Theon had his hands clasped in front of him, looking terribly uncomfortable. She lifted her chin.

“She wasn’t going to offer us a room, otherwise,” she said, “And I didn’t want to have to pay twice.”

He grimaced, seeming to realize that she was at least right, then. “I…suppose I’ll just take a blanket and the floor, then,” he said, and Arya rolled her eyes again.

“I’m not a prude,” she said, and gestured towards the bed. “It’s fine. Keep your hands to yourself, and we won’t have a problem.”

She slept with Needle these days, after all.

Theon just grimaced again, but he didn’t try to fight her on this. He seemed to know better than that, these days, or he was just too broken to bother.

Arya didn’t like that thought, and she moved away from him, reaching into the small pack she’d brought for the other clothes she’d been wearing, which at least looked more comfortable for sleeping in.

Theon was still glancing around the room in something like bemusement, when she glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Look the other way, would you?” She demanded, and Theon flushed a little, before looking away.

She wondered if he could even…feel anything from that sort of thing, these days. She’d seen him piss enough times against a tree to know what had clearly been changed about him, since the last she’d seen him.

She may have been young, at the time, but she’d known he was a rascal with the serving girls in Winterfell, even then.

Sansa, after all, had never approved of him quite so much, after their first kiss together. Arya had a feeling that was more their mother’s influence than Sansa’s own opinion of him, but the fact that he had pretended to kill her brothers hardly endeared Theon to Arya these days, anyway.

No, she was just using him.

Using him because she couldn’t have left him there in the Rock, and because he knew her brothers better than she did, these days, considering how long she’d been gone. And, he knew Winterfell better than she did these days, after serving Ramsay Bolton, much though she didn’t like that thought at all.

Once she had finished dressing and shoved her somehow simultaneously sweaty and frosty clothes to the ground, Arya turned around, pleased to realize that Theon hadn’t been trying to peek, not even a little, even if the awkward way he had remained standing in the middle of their new rooms also meant that he hadn’t bothered to change, either.

They’d been walking for days.

She would do just about anything for a bath, just now, but didn’t really want to pay extra for that, either.

A nice, or, at the very least, warm meal was just going to have to suffice, instead.

“Food?” She asked him, and Theon looked at her for a moment longer, before swallowing thickly.

“Sounds fine with me,” he offered, and Arya rolled her eyes, wanted to tell him that she’d been telling him, rather than asking, but didn’t know if that would be any better, considering what he’d been through.

They didn’t have slaves, in Braavos. The place had been established by escaped slaves in the first place, she remembered the Merling Queen telling her once, when she’d been telling Arya that women like them were slaves to no one but themselves. Even the word was practically forbidden.

Arya thought that, from what Theon had told her about Ramsay Bolton, it was as close to slavery as Westeros would allow, even if he had merely been a prisoner. At the very least, he barely responded to questions, these days, as if he expected her to make them for him, and she didn’t like that.

Didn’t like that his attentiveness towards her, something he had never possessed when he had just been her father’s ward, was so open. Didn’t like the thought of where that useful skill of observation had come from.

She didn’t know how to fix that, didn’t know how to stop pitying him for it, either, so she resolved to ignore it as best as she could.

They were some of the few people actually inhabiting the small inn, Arya realized, as they went downstairs for food. There wasn’t even any entertainment, which seemed a strange thing to Arya, after the time she’d spent in Braavos, where entertainment was more important even than lodgings.

The innkeeper, the stout woman who had let them in before, brought them stew and hard bread from the kitchens, and moments later, brought some more for the group of men sitting near the back.

They had the look of soldiers, that group, though they wore no uniforms, and Arya moved as far away from them as she could manage without seeming suspicious.

Theon took a seat across the table from her, merely raising an eyebrow at her choice, but saying nothing about it.

Good. Arya didn’t like the thought of getting into an argument with him anymore than she did with the soldiers.

The soldiers didn’t seem to notice the two of them, however, deep in their cups already, muttering to themselves, and Arya did her best to ignore them as the innkeeper eventually brought them out two large bowls of soup.

Arya thanked her, quietly, and lifted the spoon to her mouth, grimaced, took a bite.

She’d learned not to question the things that she ate, recently. Arya Stark had never been much of a picky eater, and it had served her well in the years that she had been No One, as well.

She took a deep breath, glancing around the inn as she tried to figure out where they were going to go from here. To be honest, she hadn’t given it much thought, this idea that she and Theon were going to march into Winterfell, a place she hadn’t been in years, and demand that Ramsay Bolton, a man whose father had betrayed her brother and her mother, give over her brothers, if he knew where they were.

And, if he didn’t, she was going to have to search the entire damn woods for them.

So she didn’t have a plan. She hadn’t had a plan when she’d watched them cut her father’s head off, hadn’t had a plan when she’d gone to Braavos, not really, and she was back here, now.

She didn’t know if she even still believed in the old gods, but if she did, she might suspect that they wanted her to be here, after everything she had suffered to get here.

For now, that would just have to be enough.

Arya grimaced again, this time when the matron had glanced up at her, and the woman frowned, slamming down the drinks she had refilled for the soldiers.

Theon, Arya noticed, or Reek, as he responded to that far more these days than the other, looked like he wanted to smirk when he noticed the matron’s response, but cut himself off before he could.

He had been doing that a lot, lately. Showing a bit of the Theon that she had known years ago, before that, too, was buried with what was left of him.

Arya didn’t know whether to be glad that he trusted her enough for that part of him to come out at all, when it had not in the early days of their time together, or annoyed that he thought she had forgiven him enough for it.

She didn’t know how she felt about Theon at all, these days. Didn’t know how to justify the sad creature before her with the boy she’d known, didn’t know how to justify him with the Greyjoy who had betrayed her family but apparently not skilled her brothers.

“You boys ought to be heading out soon,” the matron said loudly into the quiet then, and there was something like warning, in her tone, as if she were genuinely concerned for them.

Or, no, Arya realized. Not concerned for them, but concerned for herself, perhaps, if the way her eyes shifted to the blackness edging out the day in the window was any indication.

“You know what they say happens to anyone the Lord of Winterfell thinks of as deserters,” she went on, and the soldiers all turned to glare at her, as one.

It stung, Arya thought, more than she had expected it to, to hear that woman speak so casually of this other Lord of Winterfell, this different one whose name was not Stark.

She only knew how much it stung when Theon kicked her, under the table. A warning.

She had been far better at hiding the thoughts on her face when she was No One. Arya Stark had never been particularly good at it, after all.

“You ain’t got shit to say about that, do you, old woman?” One of them asked her, coldly.

Arya reached for Needle, where it lay against her thigh, an instinctive reaction, despite the wide eyed gaze that Theon sent her way.

The matron lifted her chin. “I only meant that I’ve heard rumors of what he does to you boys if you ain’t home in time for bed,” she said, but her body was tense now, as if she knew she had gone too far, with that comment.

After all, these men no doubt belonged to Ramsay Bolton’s men. Arya was frankly surprised that she’d spoken up at all; whatever it was Ramsay Bolton was rumored to do to his deserters, it must have had rather extensive collateral damage.

She closed her eyes, and saw flames licking up the entire inn in the middle of the night.

“Rumors can be dangerous, old woman,” one of the men warned her, even as he stood to his feet, sliding out his chair. “I wouldn’t pay them particular mind if you want to keep this…lovely place running with our gold,” he said, as he slapped down a coin for the four of them.

The old woman swallowed hard, dipped her head. “I ain’t meant…”

“We’ll be goin’, now,” the man told her. “But only because we want to,” he added, as if he felt he needed to justify the explanation at all.

Arya rolled her eyes.

“No, we’ll be gettin’ an apology, first,” one of the other soldiers snapped then, not standing up from his seat as he turned in it to glare at the innkeeper. “We won’t be hearing words like that against our lord.”

This time, Arya’s eyebrows shot up into her forehead. She glanced over at the Theon, noticed the way he’d tensed in on himself at the mention of Ramsay, and sighed.

The innkeeper swallowed. “I…As I said, I didn’t mean anything by it,” the old woman said. “Only…” she paused, and Arya closed her eyes. “Only I remember what happened to those last boys. Good, Northern boys, they were. And Ramsay Bolton ain’t that.”

“Ramsay Bolton is one of us,” the soldier with one eye said, slamming his cup down on the table. “A bastard, just like many of us. He knows us, unlike Stannis and that boy king, Robb Stark. He knows what we want. We’ll be hearing nothing against him.”

“A good fuck and a good kill, eh?” One of the other soldiers muttered under his breath, and the matron shot them a glare.

The first soldier shrugged, the motion almost apologetic, but not quite. “Those ones, they tried to tell us pretty speeches about deserving, as if we smallfolk know shit about their rules, their wants. They gave fine speeches, but in the end, they’re all dead. Ramsay’s still here, and he’s given us what was owed; our pay.”

He glared at the old woman as he said it, almost as if he were daring her to comment on the fact that the one piece of gold he’d handed over for their drinks wasn’t her pay, either.

Arya could feel Needle singing against her thigh, telling her to get up and tell these soldiers to get the fuck out, if that was what the woman wanted.

She didn’t move.

Her brothers were here, somewhere, and she wasn’t going to find him by getting herself dragged before this new, false lord of Winterfell on her first day in the North.

She watched them go, watched them slam the door after them, heard the sigh of the old innkeeper as the door shut behind her, as she turned then to Arya and Theon.

“Something wrong with the stew?” She asked, in a tone that implied she didn’t much care for the answer, either way.

Arya smiled in amusement despite herself. “You got a man around here to watch out for things?” She asked, even as her mind railed at her that they didn’t have time for this, that she needed to figure out if anyone had seen her brothers, and that was all that mattered.

This woman could probably tell her, though she knew how Northerners were about sharing information with strangers. She shouldn’t push her too hard.

And yet. Something about this old woman running this inn on her own, with Ramsay Bolton’s soldiers showing up to not pay for their drinks, bothered her more than Arya wanted to admit.

The woman eyed her. “I’m not sure how that’s a concern of yours, but I’ve got two village boys who come in to keep the place safe at night,” she admitted.

Arya sniffed. “They bother you a lot?” She asked, instead of answering.

The woman sighed. “That ain’t your concern, Lady,” she said, and Arya merely raised a brow.

“What do they do to deserters, around here?” She asked, because she’d heard enough from Theon about what sort of man this Ramsay Bolton was, but she thought she had questions, regardless.

The innkeeper eyed the two of them. Then, “Will that be anything else, Lady?” She asked, of the both of them, and Arya bit back a sigh.

“We’re not from around here,” she told the woman. “I just want to make sure that our stay here is not…unpleasant.”

The woman sniffed. “Shouldn’t be at all, Lady,” she said, and then turned and walked into what Arya assumed was the kitchens.

Theon was glaring at her, when Arya turned towards him once again. He was giving her a look that she remembered very well, back when they knew one another.

He was telling her to let it go.

Arya lifted her chin. “They won’t be bothering you while I’m here,” she called towards the kitchens just as the door started to close behind the woman, and the old woman turned back and gave her a look, like she didn’t quite know whether to thank her or laugh.

Instead, she let the door shut behind her once more.

Arya didn’t meet Theon’s eyes as she pushed back her bowl of stew and stood to her feet, told him that she was getting tired.

She didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes.

Instead, she walked back up the stairs to the room they’d been given, the only room let out for the night, from what Arya could tell. She could hear the quiet tread of Theon’s footsteps behind her, knew he was following her, and tried not to let the thought bother her as she climbed into their bed, fully on the side she had claimed earlier.

The door shut behind Theon, who stood there, looking uncomfortable.

Arya rolled her eyes, pulling back the blankets of the bed at the same time that she pulled Needle from the scabbard at her thigh and placed it directly in the middle of the bed, between them.

Theon started.

She rolled her eyes, realizing only then that the sight might not be a reassuring one, for him.

“Don’t move to this side,” she gestured to where Needle sat in the middle of the bed, and then turned on her side, away from him, closing her eyes.

A moment later, she felt him get into the bed beside her, felt the bed dip before he pulled the blankets over his side of the bed.

Arya didn’t feel particularly cold, but he was little more than skin and bones, she remembered. She wondered if that was from being Ramsay’s prisoner, or Stannis’.

She noticed he hadn’t eaten anymore of the stew than she had.

The silence, as earlier, felt oppressive.

Arya could hear Theon’s breathing in the darkness, an annoyance that she knew it would take some time to get over if she wanted to sleep tonight.

It was strange; on the road here, they’d slept in the woods, slept under the stars, and his breathing hadn’t bothered her quite so much, then.

And then, he broke the silence, and Arya gritted her teeth, finding that far more annoying than the breathing had been, only a moment ago.

“Ramsay he…he tortures the deserters,” he said, into the silence, and Arya opened her eyes.

“He tracks them down, no matter where they go. He always does. And then he…Well, House Bolton is known for flaying their enemies alive, you know.” Yes, Arya knew. “Ramsay…He enjoys it.”

Arya closed her eyes again.

If Ramsay Bolton had her brothers, even if Theon hadn’t killed them, a part of her knew they could either be dead, or so beyond recognition that she would never know them, that they would never know her.

And yet, she still had to try. Even if it ended in heartbreak, she had to find her family once again.

She just had to.

Otherwise, what was the point of coming back to Westeros at all? What was the point of going to the House of Black and White?

Revenge wasn’t enough, after all. She’d learned that the hard way, in the House of Black and White.

Or at least, not the type of revenge they’d been offering her at the time.

“Your mother, Robb, I…” he swallowed hard, and she could hear the sound rather loudly, and she didn’t understand why he kept talking. “I’m so sorry about what happened to them. I…I wish that before the end, we’d…”

“Theon, we don’t have to talk,” she interrupted him, then, and the other man grimaced, fell silent where he lay next to her on the bed.

The silence felt suffocating, the moment that Arya had told him to observe it. She shifted, where she lay on the bed, feeling rather uncomfortable with his presence so close to her, with the heat emanating off of him, even though she’d been the one to suggest it.

She knew that he hadn’t killed her brothers; whatever Theon was now, he was too cowardly to stay by her side, while keeping a thing like that from her.

But he had killed two young boys and pretended they were her brothers, had left Arya thinking that she was left alone in this world, save for Sansa and Jon, if Jon was even still alive, given what he was up to, these days.

And Arya couldn’t quite forgive him for that, as hypocritical as she thought it might be to do so.

After all, she had killed plenty of people, during her time in Braavos, and she supposed that meant she had little room to judge him.

She thought of the Merling Queen.

When she shut her eyes, convincing herself that if she just stopped thinking about it, the Merling Queen’s sad, resigned features would disappear, she saw Shae.

Arya groaned, turning on her side and away from Theon.

Still, that thought rankled more than she wanted it to. The thought that he hadn’t done anything worse than she had, serving a god who bent towards money when she had thought she was learning how to avenge her family.

She didn’t like the comparison.

And it compelled what she said next.

“Besides,” Arya said, brutally, into the silence, “If you gave such a damn about them before they died, you wouldn’t be apologizing to me, would you?” She asked, and was gratified by the way that Theon did flinch, then. “You would have died alongside them, like a good brother. A good soldier.”

Theon swallowed hard; she could tell that her words affected him more than he wanted to let on, certainly, but he said nothing.

Good.

She was tired of talking, anyway.

She closed her eyes, and managed to fall asleep, finally, after that.

* * *

_She dreamt that she was Nymeria, again._

_She hadn’t dreamt about Nymeria in so very long, since she had embraced becoming No One at the House of Black and White, and somehow, she knew this, even within the dream._

_So did Nymeria, she thought, for the wolf was her, for a time, and then she wasn’t, staring up at Arya’s face in a frozen pond, wondering why she pretended to recognize her when she had abandoned Nymeria to the woods long ago._

_And Arya didn’t know how she knew all of this, just from looking into the eyes of her direwolf, but she did. She could see the anger there, the betrayal in her wolf’s eyes, eyes that were blue where they hadn’t been, once._

_She swallowed hard, wanted to cry. Wanted to tell Nymeria that she was sorry for ever sending her away, that if she could do things differently she would have stabbed Joffrey in his stupid heart rather than make her leave, after she’d only been trying to protect Arya and Sansa._

_But she could feel the anger radiating off of Nymeria, could see it in the wolf’s eyes where they met hers._

_Nymeria was furious with her, and it wasn’t because Arya had sent her away, she didn’t think. Or perhaps it was, just a little but also because she had given up what made her Nymeria’s, as Nymeria’s had once been hers._

_She had been No One for so long, that the thought of sinking into Nymeria in her dreams, as she had once done so easily, hardly appealed to her, just now. In fact, the very thought of it made her more than a little squeamish, if she was being quite honest._

_Nymeria snorted, and trotted away from her._

_Hurt, Arya called after her, shouted until she made herself hoarse, but her feet woudln’t move, and Nymeria wouldn’t come back._

_And then, she was standing in the middle of the cave, staring up at her brother as he became one with the branches of a tree poking out of the middle of it._

_Bran._

_She lifted a hand to her mouth, suddenly fighting back tears._

_Because Bran was here, right in front of her, in this dream, and he wasn’t, at the same time._

_“Arya,” he said, cocking his head at her, looking almost…pleased to see her, but not quite, at the same time. Instead, he looked rather confused. “I’m getting so many visits, lately.”_

_She blinked at him; besides the fact that her brother seemed more tree man, it was her turn to feel confused, as well. “I don’t…”_

_“I didn’t expect you, so early,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You still have…such a path to follow. No One’s path is not yet complete.”_

_Arya shivered, not liking the knowing in those words, not liking the hint that No One still had a path left to follow, when she had given all of that up to come Home._

_Still, she asked, because there was something about this Bran that was so very different from her brother._

_She thought she had dreamt about him before, this way, but she couldn't be sure, now._

_“What do you mean?” She asked, moving closer, despite herself._

_Bran pressed his lips together. “We all have our own paths, the Stark children that remain,” he said, as Arya squinted at him. “They all skirt death, save for Sansa’s.”_

_Sansa._

_How did he know what Sansa’s path was, when she was in King’s Landing?_

_Hells, how did he know Arya’s?_

_Arya licked her lips. “I don’t…I don’t understand…”_

_“Have you been practicing your warging, Sister?” Bran asked her, and Arya just blinked at him, until it became apparent that he was expecting an answer._

_“I…no,” she said, slowly, furrowing her brows. “I don’t know how.”_

_Bran stared at her. Then, “You’re lying,” he said. “You gave up on Nymeria, but she never gave up on you. Don’t you remember burying Mother?”_

_Arya let out a strangled sob, at those words._

_Because yes, she had dreamed of that. She had dreamed about Nymeria pulling her mother’s naked corpse out of the river, had awoken in sweat and convinced herself that it was nothing more than a nightmare, that her mother might be dead but she hadn’t…_

_She shivered, hugging herself a little closer, then._

_Bran eyed her carefully. “Ah,” he said. “You didn’t realize. Well, I suppose none of us really know what we’re doing. But you should have realized, by now. What did you think the dreams meant?”_

_Arya took a step back, and then another, glancing around the cave. “Where are we?” She asked, hoarsely, because this place was cold and dark, and her brother was tangled in the limbs of a tree._

_Her brother stared at her. “You’re a crow, right now,” he told her, and it was only then that Arya realized how small she was, in comparison to her brother. “I am the Three Eyed Raven, and there is nowhere else we could be but here, for me. You think you don’t know how, but you’re doing it, right now.”_

_Arya shook her head. “No that…that’s not making any sense,” she whispered._

_“No, it’s not,” Bran said. “Because you aren’t finished being No One, yet. You’re supposed to go Beyond the Wall, and instead, you’re in Winterfell. Why are you there?”_

_Arya felt her hackles raise, at those words. “If you know about me and No One, about Sansa, then you know about Rickon,” she said, spitting the words out almost accusingly, now. “You know I can’t just leave him at Winterfell. He’s our brother, and Ramsay Bolton…”_

_“Will not survive what’s coming anymore than any of the rest of them will,” Bran said, and Arya shivered at the cold lack of feeling in her brother’s voice._

_“You…” she stumbled back from him, her straw like legs tripping over a twig and sending her sprawling in the snow. “What?”_

_Bran shook his head. “You can’t save Rickon,” he told her, “anymore than you can save yourself from becoming No One, or Arya Stark, once more.”_

_Those words…Arya shook her head, too. Nothing made sense. Nothing her little brother was saying, her little brother, who had once been so sweet and only wanted to climb, made sense._

_She swallowed hard. “I can’t just leave him. I can’t leave Ramsay Bolton overtaking our home. I won’t.”_

_Bran pressed his lips together. “Theon told you about Jon,” he said, and his voice was as cold as ice, now. “Beyond the Wall. You were supposed to go to him. Didn’t you feel it, when Theon told you?”_

_Arya squinted._

_Because gods…she had. She had felt a pull to travel North, Beyond the Wall to find the only brother she still knew was alive, the moment Theon had told her he had once been in the Westerlands, at the side of Stannis Baratheon._

_But she had gone to Winterfell instead, because her brothers needed her more than Jon did, surely._

_Needed Arya, not No One, as Jon might._

_Bran tutted at her, like she was a particularly childish crow. Then, “Above all of us, he has Changed the most, Sister,” he told her. “You should have gone to him. There’s a role you play, in making sure that Jon survives.”_

_“Survives?” She whispered, thinking of bedtime stories and snow and ice. “Survives…what?”_

_Bran shook his head. “I’m not sure that it matters, now,” he said, looking sad - emotive - for the first time since she had entered the cave. “I’m not sure that any of it will, without you there for Jon.”_

_Arya’s brows furrowed. “No,” she breathed, realizing what it was Bran was saying. “No, he’s not…he can’t be dead. You’re lying. You’re not my brother, and you’re lying about this, because I feel guilty that I went to find Rickon instead, and you’re just a dream.”_

_Her brother flinched back, at her words. Then, “You’ve always fought destiny, haven’t you, sister?” He sounded clinical, bored, as he had before. “You were meant to go Beyond the Wall and kill him like you’ve been trained to do, and instead, you’re here, trying to save a boy whose beyond saving.” He shook his head. “The Three Eyed Raven was right about you.”_

_Arya shook her head; her teeth were chattering, and tears were streaming down her face; she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t understand any of this. “You’re wrong,” she repeated, because none of anything he’d just said made any sort of sense. “You’re wrong. Jon is…he’s either dead, or he’s not, but I’m never going to hurt him. He’s my…my brother.”_

_Bran swallowed. “We all have a coming destiny to play out, sister, though you’ve always been stubborn about that sort of thing. Sansa has to return to Winterfell alone. Rickon has to make a sacrifice of blood to Them. I must stay here, forever. Jon has to die, and you have to kill him.”_

_Arya shook her head, already moving backwards. “You’re not my brother,” she whispered, but the entrance to the cave seemed so far away, now. “My brother would never tell me these things. Never.”_

_Bran’s smile in her direction was sad. “I’m not your brother, anymore,” he agreed. “I have Seen things you can’t imagine. Horrible things, that will happen if you don’t fulfill your destiny. If Sansa doesn’t. If Jon doesn’t die. Horrible things.”_

_He shuddered._

_Arya stared at him; she was still crying, she realized, as if from far away. “Why would you tell me something like that?” She demanded. “How could you?”_

_He shook his head. “The Others are coming, Sister,” he told her, cryptic words that she didn’t understand. “And when they do, if Jon isn’t dead, none of us will survive the Winter. It is your part to kill him, just as you killed the Merling Queen. You must.”_

_Arya blinked at him. “I won’t,” she whispered, thought of the warmth of a brother she hadn’t seen in so long, the brother who had given her Needle and hadn’t laughed when she asked him how to use it, who had told her she ought to be nicer to Sansa, who had always smelled of the horses, but never in a bad way. “I never would. Fuck destiny.”_

_He sighed; his eyes were full of tears. “Then, as I said, I suppose it doesn’t matter what happens now. None of it will. Ever again.”_

* * *

She gasped awake.

To find Theon, leaning over her, shaking her. His face was a mask of concern.

Arya shoved him away. “What the fuck?” She demanded. “Let go of me.”

Theon was shaking. “You were…calling out, in your dream,” he said. “And you wouldn’t wake, when I called out to you.”

Arya shuddered, hugging herself as she glanced around their little room in the inn. In the inn, because someone else was keeping her from her home, whether it be Ramsay or this horrid monster in her dreams who wore her brother’s face and told her she would have to kill another brother, would have to leave Rickon to his fate, both of which, she promised herself, she would never do.

Fuck destiny.

And fuck him, whoever the Three Eyed Raven really was, if he wasn’t just a figment of her imagination and whatever bad stew she’d had to eat, the night before.

She sucked in a deep breath, and then another, reminded herself that it had all just been a dream and that she shouldn’t be acting like this, not in front of Theon, who had proven he didn’t love their family as much as she had once thought.

She might have shown this feeling to him, otherwise, but she couldn’t afford to, now.

She moved away from Theon, then, pushed him back from her, because the thought of him trying to comfort her made her feel rather ill, in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

She took a deep breath, and sat up rather abruptly, ignoring the concern on Theon’s face, knowing that if she gave it much thought she would never be able to think about anything, again.

“I’m hungry,” she announced, and Theon let out something of a sigh as he moved back from her, but at least he wasn’t asking her what she’d dreamed about.

She didn’t think she ever wanted to think about it again.

It was strange; she’d had nightmares about the Merling Queen, about Shae, ever since their deaths, but this…this had been something Other, something terrifying.

Because it had felt more real than either of those dreams ever did, even if they were the ones that had been real in the first place.

She swallowed hard, moving to the edge of the room to splash water on her face before she followed Theon downstairs.

The innkeeper was the only one down there when they arrived, and Arya bit back a sigh when the old woman asked them if they’d be eating this morning.

She hadn’t intended to; she hadn’t even intended to sleep this late, she supposed, because she would have liked to have been at Winterfell before dawn, would have liked to find a way to sneak into the fortress and see what she could find there.

Theon had told her what he knew about the way things were being run, now that Ramsay Bolton was in charge, but Theon had clearly spent much of his time in Winterfell in recent years under great duress, and he didn’t seem to know anything of use as far as the army the Bolton bastard had, nor whether or not it was possible that he could have found her brothers.

And she knew that it was a long shot, this idea that Ramsay Bolton was keeping her brothers prisoner at Winterfell all of this time, especially when Theon didn’t seem to know where they were and he would have known, but Arya wasn’t prepared to give up on the idea yet.

There was something within her calling her towards WInterfell, and she didn’t know if it was because she was looking for her brothers or if it was something else entirely, but she knew that she needed to go back there.

She had to.

She took a deep breath as she took a seat at one of the tables again, this time summoning up a smile for the old woman as she disappeared into the kitchens once more, because she supposed it couldn’t hurt. After all, it would be nice if the stew didn’t taste like someone had spit in it, today.

Theon sighed, where he sat beside her, and she knew that he wanted to ask her about her dream again, wanted to ask her what it was that would have distressed her so much, but didn’t quite dare.

That was good; she didn’t want to talk about it with him, anyway.

The dream still clung to her when the old woman returned from the back room, muttering something to the man there, and Arya supposed he must have been her husband, with the way she was speaking.

At least she wasn’t alone, Arya couldn’t help but think.

She tried to banish the thought the moment it occurred to her, but still she shuddered.

She hadn’t been closest with Bran, when they were children. She’d always been close with Jon, of course, but that was because the two of them were both…not quite outcasts, but not quite able to fit in with their siblings, either.

Bran had been the youngest, besides Rickon, who was just the baby in their family. He’d been sweet, curious, fun.

The Bran in her dream had terrified her. Not only because of the passive way in which he’d told her that she should have stayed No One, as if he’d known exactly who that had been and why, but the sadness in his eyes as he told her that she was going to have to kill Jon, that it was her destiny.

He’d been sad, but he’d still been convinced that she was going to have to do it. As if destiny mattered to a family it had fucked over so completely.

She took a shuddering breath, realized that the innkeeper was talking to one of the boys who had supposedly been protecting the inn during the night. He was a tall, lanky lad, and Arya could imagine him getting skewered through the neck with as much ease as the old woman, with the way those soldiers had been the night before.

She grimaced.

“It ain’t right,” the innkeeper said, grunting as she set down the bowl of sludge in front of Arya, and another water in front of…Theon.

Theon, as Arya was no longer quite certain she would be able to call him. Not after the things he had told her. Not after the things he had done, when she associated that name with a person almost wholly different from him.

“You say they stole the whole herd?” She asked the boy, who nodded again.

“Every last one,” he said. “Lord Ramsay apparently needs them for a feast he’s having for his men, what for them being friendly with the Crown again, now.”

The old woman rolled her eyes. “And they need eighteen cows for that,” she muttered, tsking. “Poor Leota.”

The boy shrugged. “Way I hear it, she’s lucky to be alive, after she stood up to them. They worked her over pretty well. Killed the boy, too.”

The old woman flinched, moving slightly away from Arya’s table, then. “They gonna do anything about this, yet?” She muttered. “Your…friends.”

That piqued Arya’s interest, far more than she wanted to admit.

The boy grimaced, glancing sideways at Arya and Theon, who were suddenly very absorbed in the sludge that the old woman was calling food, and shook his head.

“The North remembers,” the old crone said, as she ladled more soup into Theon’s bowl. “It ain’t right, them remembering, and doing nothing.”

“Oh shut it, Old Woman,” her husband said, as he walked out of the kitchens. Arya assumed he was her husband, at least; he certainly didn’t look like one of the “boys” she’d said came to protect the inn at night. “What the fuck would they do, anyway? Bunch of peasants against that…lord and his armies. Ain’t like there’s still a Stark in Winterfell, save the Wife.”

“Wife?” Arya asked, brows raising. Because, the last she’d heard, Sansa had been in King’s Landing, and nothing Theon had said contradicted that.

Theon’s face went suddenly very pale; he wouldn’t look at her, when Arya glanced over at him, but instead stared fixedly down at his soup.

Wife.

A Stark wife.

She turned her full glare on him, as Theon swallowed thickly.

The old woman didn’t seem to notice the sudden tension between them. “Oh, that poor dear,” she said, nodding. “Arya Stark, sold like cattle to that Bolton man after they was involved in the Starks’ deaths.”

Arya shivered.

It was strange, she thought, hearing about herself like this, hearing about a girl with her name who wasn’t her, while she’d been playing at being someone else all of this time.

She wasn’t quite able to glare at Theon, anymore.

Hells, a part of her almost understood why he hadn’t told her.

“Uh,” the innkeeper’s wife said then, looking suddenly nervous as she seemed to remember the amount of money that Arya had given her, the way she’d talked, as Tywin Lannister once warned her. “Meaning no offense against Lord Bolton, Lady, I’m sure.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “You’ll find no offense here,” she muttered, and the old woman’s eyes widened before she turned and almost vanished into the kitchens, yet again.

She supposed it made sense; after all, to the peasants, the nobles were all the same, she supposed.

That was something she’d learned rather well, in Braavos, for all that it wasn’t quite Westeros, there.

Arya did turn her glare on Theon, then, after she’d heard the door slam and thought it might be safe enough to say a single thing.

But Theon only shook his head, and she supposed that was fair, as she waded through the rest of their soggy stew and then followed Theon back up the stairs, though it was only midday, hoping beyond hope that the innkeeper and her wife didn’t think they were up there fucking, all this time.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me _that_?” Arya demanded in a hiss, the moment the door shut behind them. “Didn’t you think that was something I ought to know?”

Theon swallowed. “I…It doesn’t matter,” he said, quietly. “It’s just…she’s just some girl that Ramsay Bolton and the Lannisters found to play the part, to make it look like his taking Winterfell had any sort of legitimacy. That’s all.”

Arya snorted. “There’s a girl in Winterfell wearing my name,” she said, which was a strange reversal of fortunes, she couldn’t help but think. “A girl wearing my name, married to Ramsay Bolton, and you were just going to let me walk in there and…”

He reached out, snatching up her wrist. She was so startled by the motion that she didn’t try to shake him off.

“I wasn’t going to…let you walk in there,” he said. “I was going to convince you that we should go look in the woods for your brothers if there was a hint of them there, instead.”

Arya rolled her eyes, and did shake off his grip, then. “I meant that it could have been useful, to know that in advance,” she pointed out. “I could have used that.”

Theon flinched. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he admitted, and Arya rolled her eyes, wanted to tell him that he didn’t know her at all, not anymore.

“You’re not my brother, Theon,” she reminded him, because sometimes, back when they were children, she thought he’d forgotten that. She hadn’t minded at the time, of course, but she damn well minded now.

Theon flinched. “Arya…”

She was surprised that he was putting up this much of a fight, if she was being honest. He certainly hadn’t when she’d told him that they were going to Winterfell to start the search for her brothers, after all.

“I’m going,” Arya said, shoving Needle into her bag, something like anger bubbling up inside of her even though she knew it shouldn’t, at the thought that some common girl was wearing her face, in her own home. That Ramsay _dared_. “And you can’t stop me, so stop trying.”

Theon grimaced. “I woudln’t dare,” he said, and Arya rolled her eyes. “But…Arya, you need to be careful. Ramsay, he’s…if he catches you…he’s a monster.” He took a deep breath. “Let me go with you. I can help. I…”

She looked up, saw the hooded look in his eyes, and her own softened, just a little. He was shaking, even as he made the offer, and as angry as she found herself with him, she couldn’t help but admire him for offering.

“I know that,” she whispered, softly, and Theon’s head jerked up. “You told me the things…the horrible things that he did to you, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that happened to you. But my brother is still in there, and I have to get him out if I have a hope of getting my home back. You know that.”

“Arya…” Theon worried his lower lip. Then, “Have you considered that it might not be yours, anymore? Any of it? Rickon, Winterfell? That it might not be what you remember, that you might not find them at all? I…I lived there, for so long, and I didn’t see a hint of them. I know you want to find them, but it might just be that they are lost.”

Lost. All of it, no longer hers. Gone.

Even her name.

Yes, Arya had considered that.

But she had not allowed herself to consider it for long.

After all, the old woman had been right.

The North remembered, and so did Arya. Remembered every happy memory she’d had in that place, before it had been sullied by Ramsay Bolton. Remembered how happy her quiet little brother had been there, too.

And she wasn’t about to sit back and let traitors keep her from her home, keep her brother from his.

She had to do this.

“I can take care of myself,” she told Theon, reaching out then to grasp his hands in her own. He stared down at them, looking rather confused. “You stay here.” Theon opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “I’ll…signal you, if I get into trouble, but this is something that I have to do on my own.”

He swallowed hard, still staring down at her hands in his. “Robb wouldn’t…he woudln’t forgive me, if I let anything happen to you.”

Arya shrugged a thin shoulder. “Robb’s not here,” she told him, and the words came out more harshly than she intended; Theon flinched. She bit back a sigh. “I said I could take care of myself. Get some horses ready, to take us into the woods, when I get back.”

He blinked up at her then, brows furrowing. “Into the woods?” He asked, sounding suddenly nervous.

She nodded. “If I can’t find my brothers there, we’re going into the woods. That’s where they would have gone, if they thought they were…in danger. It’s…it’s a start, at least.”

And they had been.

Theon had told her that he hadn’t killed her brothers, but he had killed two other boys and pretended that they were her brothers, because they had escaped.

She wondered if he truly would have killed them, if they hadn’t run first.

Theon flinched, as if he knew exactly what her eyes were accusing him of, and Arya looked down before he could read even more than that, into it.

Then he opened his mouth again, as if he was going to try and talk her out of this yet again, and Arya turned and walked out the door.

She didn’t quite know what she was going to do, once she did finally get there, but she had to try, anyway.

Winterfell was calling to her. No matter what Theon said, it was her home, and yes, he had been imprisoned there for some time, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something he had missed, some clue as to what had happened to her brothers.

After all, he had lost them.

When she went back down the stairs alone, the innkeeper gave her a strange look, as if she wanted to say something about the prospect of Arya going out alone, but restrained herself.

After all, she thought Arya was some sort of lady, by her accent. Funny that; Arya didn’t feel like a lady, didn’t look like one.

She ignored the old woman, and the boy, as she walked past them. Ignored them, and walked out into the brisk winter air.

It felt like coming home.

She started walking; she knew this path far too well, after all. Knew her way from the village into Winterfell like the back of her hand, she had traveled it enough times.

Which was a good thing, she supposed, because she couldn’t stop thinking about that horrid dream the entire way there.

The dream where Bran had told her that she was destined to kill her own brother. That she was going to need to, that horrible things were occurring because she hadn’t done so already.

She shivered, though her body felt accustomed to the cold air once more as if she had never left it, and Arya hugged herself as she walked.

It was just a dream, she told herself.

Just a horrible dream, and it meant nothing. Nothing at all, because that hadn’t been Bran, hadn’t been anything like him. She had only dreamt about him at all because she was so worried that Winterfell would yield no clues to where he had gone, that she would never find him despite having made it her mission to do so.

And Jon…

For all she knew, she would never see Jon again, just as she would never see her two youngest brothers again.

It had just been a dream. Just a dream.

Just a dream.

It had felt like so much more than that, though. Like something important, something she was missing.

And when Winterfell finally loomed in front of her, Arya was almost relieved to see it, though she knew now she was going to have to find a way into the fortress without being caught.

She was going to have to think like Bran; he had always been good at sneaking around the castle. Had done so enough times that she’d imagine he knew every nook and cranny.

Arya hadn’t been interested in hiding, back then. She didn’t know those hiding places as well as Bran had.

There weren’t Stark flags, hanging from Winterfell, now.

It was her home, and it wasn’t.

She looked up at the flayed man hanging from the walls of her home, and thought they looked the worse, for being at Winterfell. Looked like the beginnings of a nightmare.

She knew it was just her imagination, but Winterfell felt darker, looking up at it now. Like she was looking up at the beginning of a nightmare, and didn’t know how to stop that nightmare from lasting forever.

Home.

It didn’t feel like her home, anymore.

Theon was right; it wasn’t.

There always had to be a Stark in Winterfell, after all, for it to truly be home.

* * *

She took the tunnels, the ones that a Bolton wouldn’t know about but a Stark would, the nones that went down to the crypts where her aunt had bee buried, the last time there was a war.

And her family wouldn’t be, because their bodies had been scattered across Westeros, disrespected even in death.

She breathed in deeply, then out. Followed the tunnels to the back staircase, the one that the servants hardly even took themselves because it was always so cold, hugged Needle to her as she walked up them, to the parapets of the fortress.

The route was so familiar she felt tears pricking at her eyes.

And then she was out by the parapets, surprised by the lack of guards here; she saw one, patrolling at the other side, and ducked down, but knew he hadn’t seen her when nothing happened, after that.

And then, someone was reaching out and grabbing her by the arm.

Arya let out a squeal of surprise, turned to find herself face to face with Theon, and felt her face darken at the sight of him, crouching down beside her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” She snapped at him, shoving off his touch. “I thought I told you to stay behind.”

Theon grimaced. “I thought I should come. That I could help…”

She didn’t hear whatever excuses he made, after that. Didn’t hear anything at all, in fact, besides the ringing in her own ears, as she stared down from the parapets into the courtyard, as her breath caught in her throat and the world rushed past her eyes.

She could feel her heart hammering, in her chest, and she reached out blindly to grab at Theon’s arm, to grab it in such a viselike grip that the sound of his whimper was the one thing that did make it past the rushing in her ears.

Gods.

It had been so many years, and yet, for a moment, she was Arya Stark again, the little girl who had been such a tomboy, in Winterfell, who had always wanted to spar with her brothers rather than knit with her sister.

“Rickon,” she breathed, and the word erupted from her throat like a prayer, made her feel like she might go faint, then and there.

Because she was looking at her little brother, down in the courtyard.

Her little brother was alive.

A part of her truly hadn’t expected it. Had expected to embark on this quest only to find that her little brothers had died out in the woods long ago, half their bodies torn apart by wild wolves, the rest of them never to be found again.

Or to always be left with the question, the worry, wondering where her brothers were and never finding a hint of them again.

And there he was.

A part of her had come to Winterfell at all to find Arya Stark, rather than her brothers, because Theon had said they weren’t here and because she thought they might really be dead, and if they were, at least perhaps she could find the girl who would mourn her brothers, here, rather than simply seek revenge for them.

But Rickon was here.

Worse for wear, she thought, and older, but still her brother. Alive. Here, in front of her.

And Rickon Stark was standing in front of her, standing in the courtyard facing her, though he wasn’t looking up, wasn’t seeing her, but with such an expression of sadness on his features

“Rickon,” Arya breathed, and it was as if the air had been knocked out of her, as she looked down at her little brother, this boy whom all the world said was dead, save for Theon, Theon whom all the world had accused of killing him.

She hadn’t been certain, when she had confronted Theon and he swore to her that he hadn’t killed her brothers, that they weren’t dead, whether or not she could even believe him. Hadn’t been sure that she wanted to, because if her life these past few years had transformed her, she couldn’t be sure what they might have done to her brothers.

But Rickon was here, so it didn’t matter what had happened to him, what he’d been forced to become to get to this point, she told herself.

All that mattered was that he was here, alive, standing in the courtyard with a group of armed guards surrounding him, looking terrible and pale and sickly, she thought, but alive.

A shadow of his former self.

She stood up a little, in spite of herself, and that was when Theon finally seemed to react, the bastard.

Theon, who had told her that she would find nothing in Winterfell, had warned her over and over, as if he thought that was going to stop her from finally going home again, when she was so close.

She looked at him, saw the look on his face.

Guilt.

And she knew, then, that Rickon hadn’t just been brought here, hadn’t just been found as a feral animal in the woods.

That he’d been here, when Theon had, and Theon had known, and had the audacity to lie to her about it.

He’d _known_.

Gods, she almost wished she couldn’t feel pity anymore, so that she could kill him for this.

“Wait,” Theon hissed, pulling her back by the shoulder, and when she turned around to face him, her face was granite.

“Touch me again, I dare you,” she murmured as she tried to shake him off, and Theon flinched, but he didn’t let go of her.

“Arya…” he swallowed hard. “If you go running in there, you won’t do a damn thing for Rickon besides get him killed, or get yourself taken prisoner alongside him. Please. Think about this.”

She shrugged him off. “You _knew_ ,” she said.

He grimaced, not meeting her eyes. “Arya…”

“I think I’m a better fighter than you give me credit for,” she informed him, coldly.

Theon lifted his chin. “Maybe,” he allowed. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to give you back to Rickon alive.”

Arya stared at him, bit back a sigh. “You’re not ‘giving’ me to anyone,” she told him, coldly. “I’m taking back what belongs to me. I’m rescuing my brother, and if you’d told me from the start that he was here, I would have had a much better plan than this!”

She barely remembered to keep her voice down, as she spit out those words.

Theon wouldn’t meet her gaze, flinching at the accusation in her tone. “I thought…I thought if you did know, you wouldn’t leave, earlier, and we would get caught.”

Arya glowered at him. “Of course I wouldn’t _fucking_ leave!” She hissed, still careful to keep her voice down. “My brother is here, in Winterfell, when I told you I was coming for him, and some girl is walking around wearing my face, pretending to be Ramsay Bolton’s wife. I could have used that, to get him out of there.” She shook her head. “Is Bran here, too?”

Theon swallowed hard, not meeting her gaze. “I…Arya…” he said, slowly. Then, “Rickon isn’t the little brother you remember, isn’t the boy I remember. He’s…changed.” He held up his hands at the fierce glare she sent his way. “You wouldn’t recognize him, and I doubt he’d recognize you, now.”

She let out a ragged breath. “You lied to me,” she snapped at him, and Theon flinched. “For all I know, you’ve been lying this entire time.” He shook his head, but she ignored him. “Don’t touch me again.”

Theon opened his mouth to respond to that, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure what he could say in response to that, wasn’t sure if he might be Abel to convince her, when a low laugh interrupted him.

Arya spun around, and found herself facing a woman with a bow and arrow pointed directly at them, on the parapets before them.

She laughed, raising the bow.

“Well, well,” the girl said, and there was a nasty smirk on her lips, “What have we here, but a little wolf separated from her pack?”

Arya stared at her, sized her up, this woman who thought she could stand in Arya’s home as if it were her own and not pay for that.

She looked familiar, Arya thought, and couldn’t exactly place why.

The girl was still smirking at her. Suddenly, Arya wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off the bitch’s face.

She stood up straight, meeting the other girl’s eyes. “From the looks of it,” she said, coldly, “There are two of us and one of you.”

The girl’s eyes slid to Theon, then. She laughed. “One and a half, perhaps,” she allowed, but she didn’t lower the bow and arrow she was pointing at the both of them. “And a poor fellow in arms, at that, aren’t you, darling?”

“Myranda,” Theon whispered, clearly recognizing her, if the fear in his face was any indication.

Myranda lifted her chin as she did her bow, smirking at Theon. “Reek,” she said, and her voice was saccharine sweet, as she greeted him. “Ramsay’s been wondering where you went. He’d very much like you to come back. I’m glad you realized that on your own, and he didn’t have to drag you out of Stannis Baratheon’s prison.”

Theon was shaking; Arya glanced over at him, her eyes narrowing.

All of the progress, or what little of it they could make, that they had made since she had found him, all of the times he had actually deigned to look up at her, before quickly looking away again, all of the times he had whispered about what was done to him, and none of it mattered, the moment he was standing before one of his tormentors again.

She wondered if it would matter at all, if she ever even found Cersei Lannister, or if she would only be able to think about the things that Cersei Lannister had allowed her son to do to Arya’s father, instead.

Arya lifted her chin, taking a step in front of Theon.

He hadn’t killed her brother, as she had seen. Her brother was alive.

For that, she could protect him from this woman.

The woman, Myranda, cocked her head at Arya, smirking. “You know, you don’t look at all like her,” she said, and Arya squinted at her, wondering which Stark she might be referring to, for clearly she knew who Arya was. “I thought you would; I thought they would have tried a little harder to make her look like you, at least. Silly me.”

Arya bared her teeth. “No one wears my face but me,” she told the other woman, and watched the confusion bloom across the other woman’s face before she shrugged.

“What?” Myranda asked, and then shrugged again, never losing her aim. “No mind. Perhaps you’re as feral as your little shadowy brother,” she said, and that caught hold of the anger that had been bubbling up in Arya’s chest ever since she had seen Rickon, a boy that she both recognized and didn’t, who looked so like he had as a child, and nothing like him at all. “I’m sure Ramsay would like to add you to his collection of little Starks.” She glanced over at Theon again, smirking. “Him, too, of course. Maybe he’ll make the two of you fuck for his own amusement; maybe he’ll let me watch-”

“Shut the fuck up,” she said, perhaps just to see the words wipe the smirk off the other woman’s face, “This is my home, not yours, and if one of us is going to be held captive in it, it’s not going to be me.”

And then, she attacked.

The girl flinched back from her, already reaching for an extra arrow behind her back, but Arya was faster than her.

That was what came of training in the House of Black and White, after all.

Myranda, if that was this girl, never stood a chance.

She didn’t even have her arrow notched before Arya’s knife was sliding like butter between her ribs, and the girl let out a cry, clearly ready to scream for her master, then, but Arya wasn’t about to give her the chance.

Instead, she yanked the knife free, wrapping her free hand around Myranda’s throat, and squeezed.

Myranda struggled against her, fought, while behind them, Theon made noises of distress at what he was witnessing, and for a moment, it was like Arya was no longer Arya, but was once again No One, sitting over the serving woman and the Imp’s whore, Shae, squeezing the life from her throat before-

Arya squeezed harder.

Myranda’s legs started to buckle, and Arya followed her down, pushed her down the rest of the way unto the catwalk, leaned over her, never once losing her grip.

Myranda wasn’t that much bigger than her, and with the blood rushing out of her like a stuck pig, as much as she tried to struggle, there was little she could do.

Not when Arya Stark had been trained for such a thing as this.

It was ironic; she had left the House of Black and White when she realized what they were, that their god was nothing more than money and the name that money asked for, that she wasn’t meant to be a murderer if those deaths should mean nothing to her.

And here she was, not so very long after all of that false bravado, before the Kindly Man, doing just what she’d thought she would never do again.

Kill for something meaningless.

After all, this Myranda wasn’t on her list.

But she could tell by the look in Myranda’s eyes that she ought to be, that she was just as wicked as the master she served, the one who had helped betray her brother and who was keeping a girl with her face here, was keeping Rickon here, when Arya truly hadn’t expected to see him here at all, and she squeezed until she felt the resistance give way, until she saw the light die in Myranda’s eyes.

Arya was panting, when she finally finished with the other girl. When she saw the last of the light leave Myranda’s gaze and felt her go still, beneath her, saw the bow and arrow she’d tried to use to kill Arya slip from her limp fingers.

Arya hadn’t heard the breath leave her.

When she looked up, her fists covered in blood that was only partially her own, Theon was staring at her in something like horror.

Arya sat up, from where she was crouched over the bitch, and got to her feet, a moment later.

“Stop staring, Theon,” she muttered, rather darkly. “It doesn’t suit you, that look.”

Slowly, Theon closed his mouth. Then, he opened it again. “That’s her,” he said, and he was no longer looking at Arya at all now, but rather at the woman by her feet on the wall. “That’s his girl. Myranda. He’ll…he won’t be happy about this. We’ve made a scene. He’ll realize she’s missing soon and then…”

Arya turned, staring dispassionately down at the girl laying there, clearly dead, because Arya knew the moment the light left someone’s eyes, these days. She was good at knowing it, now.

Theon had told her all that he knew about Ramsay Bolton, on their journey to Winterfell. Had told her how the man was a sadist who had tortured him in ways that Theon still could barely speak of, had turned him into that miserable little creature named Reek before Theon had fallen into the hands of Stannis Baratheon.

How Ramsay had some little bitch, a kennel master’s daughter, who stood by his side at all times and didn’t seem to give a damn about the things he did, seemed to enjoy them far, far too much.

She lifted her chin. “Good,” she said, and ignored the small spike of guilt she felt, at the look that Theon gave her for that, too.

“Good?” He echoed, incredulously. “He’ll now we’re coming, now.”

Arya wiped her hands off on her skirts.

Her brother had looked like a shell of his former self, and he had been so young, the last time that Arya had seen him. Barely more than a child, though she’d hardly been more than a child herself, and it had not been so long, since then.

But if she hadn’t been looking for him, Arya was almost certain that she wouldn’t have recognized her brother, this boy who looked as if he had not seen sunlight since last she had seen him, who looked like he wanted nothing more than to curl in on himself every time that the guards moved close to him, and Arya didn’t want to think about why such a reaction should be so instinctual for a proud Stark.

“Good,” she repeated, and this time, she ignored the way that Theon stared at her, so fearfully, as if he thought her quite mad.

Perhaps she was, but she was home now.

Her heart had been aching to return here, some part of her had known that it was destiny she should come here, whatever the Bran of her dreams had told her, and she was here now. The fact that Rickon was here too was just another sign she was where she belonged.

“I meant what I said,” Arya said, lifting her chin, wiping the blood on her chin on accident. “This is my home, and Rickon’s, and he’s here. We’re taking it back, Theon. All of it.”

He swallowed hard. “Arya…”

She reached out then, taking his hands in hers, clasping them. “And I’m going to kill Ramsay Bolton for you,” she promised him, because even if he hadn’t been on her list before, he was, now.

He deserved to be.

Theon stared down at their hands, and then up at her. “I…”

“We should go,” Arya went on. “Where do they keep my brother?”

She had to know. They’d gotten what she needed to know, from this, but she knew better than to stick around until Ramsay Bolton found his whore, not when she needed to plan her brother’s escape, needed to plan how the fuck she was going to back up those words, the ones she had just said to Theon.

But she knew Winterfell, better than Ramsay Bolton did, she was sure.

They’d figure this out.

They would; they had to.

Whatever Bran had said to her in her dream, she knew this was what she needed to do, knew it like she’d known as she watched them cut her father’s head off that she was going to kill them all for it.

Fuck Destiny, Arya could live with Justice.

And then she heard a noise, heard the sound of footfalls, and Arya grabbed Theon by the arm, yanked him down to a crouch as they hurried down the parapets, hurried to the tunnel she had found earlier, the one she had once watched Bran walk into and then disappear into for half a day, until their mother got worried enough to send out all of the servants to find him, and he’d emerged, grinning about the catacombs.

Their father had told him to never go down there alone again, but he had, Arya knew. Multiple times, if she remembered correctly.

They connected rather easily with the outer wall, much to her relief, and she all but dragged Theon into them, ignored the noise that he made as she pulled him into the dark.

She’d noticed that he rather feared it, these days. But she still glared at him at the noise he made, surprised they weren’t found by that alone.

She dragged him along behind her until they made it to the small hole in the walls of the tunnel, stood on her tip toes and glanced out toward the courtyard then, squinting at the sight of two guards dragging Myranda’s freshly dead corpse into the courtyard.

Saw the man that half of the North seemed to fear, these days, walk out into the courtyard, as well.

He didn’t look like much, she had to admit, wearing a cloak that looked eerily like her father’s and with a mop of curly hair. But there was something about his eyes, about the look on his face, as he knelt down beside Myranda’s body as it was set on the ground.

He knelt for several moments, and she thought she could almost see something like sadness in his expression, for a moment.

It didn’t last long, but that didn’t surprise her.

Joffrey had never been good at faking his emotions when he wasn’t angry, either, though Sansa had bought into them well enough.

“Find them!” Ramsay Bolton, for she could only assume that this disgusting creature, this man whose face reminded her far too much of Joffrey, was Ramsay. His face was twisted into a furious sneer, his eyes holding no soul within them, for all that Arya could tell. “Find whoever did this to her, and bring them to me!”

And then he was leaning over her body, and for a moment, his shoulders were shaking. For a moment, Arya thought that perhaps he was crying.

When he lifted his chin, he was laughing.

Arya flinched back, more disturbed than she wanted to admit, more disturbed than No One ought to be, after everything that she had been through.

She wondered if Joffrey had laughed, when he’d heard that his wife was dead. If he had laughed when he cut off her father’s head.

She couldn’t remember.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Ramsay’s voice boomed out in the courtyard, louder than it ought to be, Arya thought. Perhaps he knew Myranda’s killers were there, watching. “She watched so many Starks be killed in this courtyard, in this very spot. So many of Stannis’ loyal soldiers be slaughtered here.” He laughed again. Arya shivered. “And now, she’s sleeping with them…I’m sure she would appreciate that.”

The maester, who had gathered with the rest of the House of Winterfell, whoever that was, these days, for Arya could not with any certainty provide an answer to that, stepped forward, then. “My lord, what would you like done with the body…?” He began, but Ramsay only began laughing again.

Arya had known, from nearly the first moment she’d met Joffrey, that the boy was mad. She had wondered why her dear sister couldn’t see it, if her desire to be a princess so blinded her to the fact that the prince she wanted would much rather cut her open than be with her.

But Arya’s parents hadn’t seen it, either. Perhaps they had begun to suspect, when Cersei Lannister demanded that Lady be murdered for a crime Nymeria had committed only to protect Arya, but they hadn’t seen the madness, clear as day, in Joffrey’s eyes, as Arya had.

She didn’t think anyone had, and at the time, she had wondered how they could all be so foolish, how none of them could see it.

But the madness in Ramsay Bolton’s eyes…she didn’t think that madness was capable of hiding itself from anyone. Was capable of hiding at all.

She shuddered.

Ramsay Bolton stood to his feet, wiping his hands on the sleeves of his robes. Of her father’s robes, or robes that looked rather too much like them for Arya’s comfort.

He sniffed, loud in the otherwise silent courtyard, all of his people seeming to hold their breath the same as Arya was, the same as Theon was, beside her.

“Have it fed to the dogs,” Ramsay said, the words almost dismissive, before he turned and stalked from the courtyard. He paused, just at the edge of it, turning back abruptly. “And have a man day fed to the dogs, too, until we find the traitors who did this to her.”

The maester’s face had gone white as the snow outside of Arya’s home.

Ramsay disappeared back into Arya’s home as if he belonged there. She thought about the fact that the Boltons had fought side by side with the Starks until they had betrayed them to the Freys. How she had almost been reunited with her mother and her brother before they had stolen that chance away from her forever.

Her fists clenched at her sides.

And now, here the Bolton bastard was, living in her home, acting like he thought it was his.

“Arya,” Theon hissed again, desperate, pleading. “We have to leave.”

Arya turned back, grabbing him by the collar and pretending she didn’t hear the sound he made, at the violent move. She backed him up against the wall, telling herself that it wasn’t guilt that she felt, when she saw the way he reacted to even the slightest bit of aggression.

She swallowed hard, waiting for him to meet her eyes. She found that he hardly did that, anymore, unless she forced him to.

She didn’t like it, the way she had to force him to do something like that, but she needed him to understand.

She was home now, yes, but this place wasn’t recognizable as the home she had left, so long ago.

And she wasn’t leaving until it was.

“We’re not going anywhere until we get my brother away from that madman,” she hissed out, and Theon stared at her with wide, terrified eyes, until she let go of him, pushed herself back from him.

“Now,” she said, “I need to know everything you know about being Ramsay Bolton’s captive, Reek. The fucking truth, this time.”

Theon flinched, and Arya told herself she didn’t feel guilty about that, either. Not right now.

Later, she would have time for all of that, just as later, she’d had time to feel bad about what had happened to that woman, Shae, and to the Merling Queen.

Later.

After she had liberated Winterfell from the Bolton bastard, and seen him dead for what he had done to her brother, for what she suspected he had done to him, hells, even for what he had done to Theon, she could feel bad about how she had gotten there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably not the chapter y'all were expecting (I know, I know, it's coming), but please let me know what you think!


	39. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uhm, originally this was going to be another Arya chapter, and this chapter was going to be part of a longer one...I decided not to be that mean to you guys, though. Also, I'm in the middle of finals and I thought we might all like a bit of a...pick me up? *Runs away trailing angst behind me*  
> Hopefully it's worth the wait.

“I think…” Tommen swallowed hard, and, walking beside him in the gardens of King’s Landing, Shireen went still, realizing that whatever he was about to say, it might be important, by the sound of his voice. “I think that the Regent wants the two of us to…that eventually, she’s going to want us to…marry.”

Shireen blinked at him. “Marry?” She echoed, because for a moment, the idea sounded absurd.

He blushed, even as he nodded, and Shireen wanted to berate him, wanted to ask him where he had gotten such a silly idea, but her mouth snapped shut.

She suddenly wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer.

Every other word out of his mouth these days, after all, was about Margaery Tyrell. Margaery, his brother’s _dear_ wife, who was so kind to him, who came to see him in his bedroom sometimes, who apparently had whispered a few pretty words into his ear and convinced him to give up his right to the Iron Throne.

Shireen had thought him weak, when she’d been forced to watch him sign away nominal rights. It didn’t matter, she thought, because he was just a child and his mother, if she had the power, could do whatever she wanted on her own.

But it had looked like it mattered, and Tommen certainly seemed to think that it mattered.

Shireen didn’t understand how he could just…give up his rights to the throne so easily. She didn’t like the way that he talked about Margaery, either, as if giving up his right to the throne was the right thing to do solely because she had asked it of him.

It reminded her, sometimes, of the way that the Red Woman had whispered in her father’s ear and gotten him to do all but one of the things she asked of him.

But she didn’t say any of this to Tommen, too blindsided by what he’d just said.

That he thought the Tyrells were going to want them to marry.

She supposed that in some ways, the idea had merit. If they married, it would mean that they were both out of the way, that Shireen was married to a bastard or to her cousin, that Tommen’s claim to the throne would always be partially overshadowed by his wife’s. After all, even the Tyrells now claimed that he was nothing more than a bastard, and if she were married to a bastard, no one would care about Shireen, either, anymore than they already did.

That Margaery Tyrell’s child would have total rights to the Iron Throne, without a single person to stand in its way who seemed more legitimate.

After all, she doubted that Cersei Lannister would champion the cause of Shireen Baratheon, Princess of the Seven Kingdoms.

But it didn’t make sense, not really, the two of them marrying.

She didn’t think that the Tyrells were going to let either of them survive the winter, at this rate. The moment the Regent had her child, she was sure, she and Tommen would find themselves dead with a blade through their backs, the same way that the Mad King had been killed.

Dishonorably.

Alone.

She swallowed hard.

Yes, that made far more sense, to Myrcella’s mind. Right now, the two of them were threats, yes, but they were also contingency plans; her mother had had enough stillborn babes that she knew one child did not guarantee a legacy, and the Tyrells had to know this.

Had to know there was still a risk that the child in Margaery Tyrell’s womb would be useless to them, and then they would need them, either Shireen or Tommen.

It just remained to be seen, she supposed, which of the two of them would be more malleable, when the time came, if the child didn’t survive.

She didn’t like that thought, didn’t like the thought that she was competing against Tommen in a game that he didn’t even understand he was playing.

Shireen bit her lower lip.

She did not think that she and Tommen were that much different in age, and yet, it felt very much like they were years apart. Like she knew far more of the world than he, and she had spent much of it cosseted away on account of her face.

She wondered if that said more about him, or about her.

“I don’t think the Tyrells are going to be in charge of King’s Landing for very much longer,” she admitted to him, and she didn’t know if the words were meant as comfort, or sabotage.

This time, it was Davos, walking along only a step or two behind them, who cleared his throat, and Shireen got the message, folding her hands placidly in front of her and forcing a smile in Tommen’s direction.

“Though I’m sure they’ll figure a way around whatever’s in their way at the moment,” she said, in a soft voice, as if it were something she wanted.

The Tyrells had betrayed her father almost before anyone else besides the Lannisters, she remembered, and it seemed to her that she remembered that more and more clearly the longer she spent in King’s Landing. They had sided with her brother Renly, who, even if Tommen and his bastard brother hadn’t been bastards,

And besides that, they were Tyrells. She ought to know from her mother’s own words about the Florents’ complicated history with that family that they weren’t to be trusted.

But her mother…her mother was a captive of the Lannisters, and from what she understood, the Tyrells and the Lannisters were a breath away from war.

She didn’t know if that was supposed to make her feel better about her own situation, but she thought it did, just a little.

She wondered how Tommen felt, about being a Tyrell captive. Wondered if he had seen her own mother recently, where she hadn’t.

Wondered if he knew if her mother was even still alive.

She hadn’t quite gotten up the courage to ask, yet, regardless of the amount of time she’d spent with him.

Tommen looked more disturbed by the look on her face than he had by the words she’d said.

“I should go,” Tommen said, when he heard one of his keepers clear her throat at the back of the gardens path.

He always seemed uncomfortable whenever she hinted at such things, like he didn’t want to hear a bad word against the Tyrells, and Shireen supposed there was some danger in that, that she should be afraid, as Davos always warned her, that he could be going straight back to his Tyrell minders with those words, but she thought he deserved a chance to pick his own side, in any case.

Shireen bit back a sigh; Tommen’s keepers, far more attentive than her own but certainly far more annoying as well, hadn’t let him out of their sight from the moment he and Shireen had begun spending time together. At this point, she didn’t know if it was because they thought there was a risk Tommen might run away, or if they somehow though she might corrupt him against the Crown.

She didn’t know, but she found their presence at all times annoying, all the same.

Oh, they were nice enough on their own; some of them even seemed to like Tommen and Shireen, seemed to be nice in that sort of way that the Tyrells were known to be, before they stabbed someone in the back.

But it seemed that Tommen knew a bit more about all of that than Shireen did.

“They say she’s going to have the baby any day,” Shireen said, glancing out of the corner of her vision, at Tommen, as he turned to go. “The Regent.”

She enjoyed their walks in the gardens of King’s Landing; she’d never been allowed here as a girl, and some part of her wanted to do whatever it took to keep him near her, just now, though she didn’t know if that was because she enjoyed his company so much, or because she hated feeling so alone, in this place.

Oh, she had Davos, and he kept her from getting bored with stories about his son or about the high seas, but Shireen had spent so much time with only him, in recent years.

She wanted to stop feeling so alone, and Tommen was just like her, here. Yes, he was a bastard, but they wouldn’t let him leave, either, and they kept him in the same gilded cage she was forced into.

“My brother said it would be a strong boy, an Heir,” he offered, as if he didn’t quite know what to say in response to that, and Shireen bit back a sigh, realizing he hadn’t understood her warning, with those words.

But then, in some ways, he still seemed painfully young, for all that he always looked so disturbed by the mention of her brother.

“Your brother’s dead,” Shireen said, and immediately flinched at the look that crossed Tommen’s features, opened her mouth to apologize, and then didn’t.

She knew the sort of sore subject that his brother was; he didn’t talk about Joffrey unless he had to, and when he did, his whole tone changed, his voice flat and eyes dead, like even the memory of Joffrey pained him.

Or made him angry.

Honestly, she couldn’t tell.

But still…the way he’d said it, the way he’d mentioned his brother, it had unnerved her, in some way that she couldn’t quite put into words.

As if the specter of Joffrey Lannister was still haunting not only him, but all of them.

Tommen shivered. “Yes,” he whispered, hoarsely. “But sometimes…before he died, I mean, before I went back to the Rock with Uncle Jaime, sometimes, he’d…”

Shireen stopped walking altogether then, turning to look at him. “What?” She asked.

He swallowed hard. “Sometimes he’d say things,” he whispered, “And I think he believed them utterly.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, he was a King,” she said, but she didn’t think that was what he’d meant, not by the shadowed look in his eyes.

Tommen shook his head. “No, I think he believed them because he knew they were true,” he said, and Shireen shook her head, then.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said, even as her mind conjured images of the Red Woman who stood by her father’s side, staring into Flame.

Tommen swallowed. “That’s what I thought,” he whispered, but he didn’t elaborate on that, not before one of his minders, Alla Tyrell, Shireen thought her name was, scurried forward and murmured to him.

“Tommen, you’ve lessons with the maester, now,” she reminded him. “You shouldn’t be late again.”

And that didn’t make sense, either, Shireen thought as she watched Alla Tyrell guide the boy away, that they would bother to continue educating him like a prince if they weren’t planning on using him as their contingency plan, if the baby was stillborn.

But she didn’t quite understand why they still needed her.

An heir and a spare, that was always the rule, wasn’t it?

Her mother had wished for one often enough.

And then Tommen was gone, walking down the winding path of the gardens back inside, and Shireen bit back a little sigh as she felt Davos move up the path to stand beside her, ignoring the guards around them as if they weren’t there.

After all, where would she and her fierce protector even go?

“You should be careful with him, Shireen,” Davos warned her, and Shireen resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his warning; for all that she knew it was only coming from his care for her, and she knew she shouldn’t resent him for it.

“He’s a nice boy,” she offered, reasonably enough, or so she’d thought.

By the look on Davos’ face, he was unimpressed. “You shouldn’t be telling him that you don’t think the Tyrells will last,” he reminded her.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “But you don’t think they will,” she pointed out, and he bit back a sigh.

“No,” he said, “These Dornish, they…they’re rather persistent, and they have the city surrounded. It would take…something like a miracle, to figure this out, with half the Tyrell army so far away. But,” he sighed, “they’ve gotten out of worse straits than these.”

Shireen decided she would have rather liked to have seen those. “And the Dornish people,” she said, the question almost musing, “What are they like?”

He made a face. “The Tyrells are flowers,” he said, slowly. “They like to pretend kindness, even when they aren’t. The Dornish make no pretense of anything, and they already have a princess.”

Shireen licked her lips. “A false one,” she pointed out. “Myrcella Lannister.”

Davos grimaced, but he didn’t try to correct her, not like he always did whenever she called Tommen a Lannister. After all, it was the truth, and even the Tyrells seemed to have accepted that, now.

“Yes, perhaps,” he agreed, “but a princess, all the same.”

She sighed. “I think I’d be relieved to do away with all of this pretense,” she admitted to him, hugging herself a little as they came to the edge of the gardens, to the cliffs that looked out at the waters, where there were far too many Dornish ships waiting in the harbor, already. “To know a little truth, for once.”

Her father had never been one for pretense, after all, and Shireen had decided, in the recent weeks that she had spent in King’s Landing, surrounded by courtiers who said one thing and meant another, where they had all been far too frightened to lie to her father, that she didn’t care much for it, either.

“But why haven’t they attacked yet?” She asked, as she stared down at the ships. They’d been there for almost a day and a half, she thought. A day and a half, and they hadn’t attacked yet, hadn’t listed their terms, as far as anyone knew.

Perhaps they had, to the Crown, but no one was allowed to know. She supposed that made something like sense.

Davos pressed his lips together. “If I were a betting man, my lady,” he said, and it grated on her, the way he said ‘my lady,’ now, like he used to call her ‘Princess,’ “I’d say they’re only waiting for the Tyrells to sweat.”

* * *

Sansa’s lips tasted of roses.

It was such a strange sensation, and so different from the way she’d dreamed of them, in Dorne, that Margaery found herself obsessing over that so she didn’t have to think of what was bound to come next.

She kissed Sansa, and all she could think about was the fact that Sansa didn’t quite taste like she had, when Margaery had dreamt of her in Dorne.

She tasted better.

Finally, when Margaery pulled away, or rather, came up for air, she found that Sansa’s eyes were open, blown wide.

Margaery swallowed hard.

For a moment, neither one of them said anything.

Then,

“Margaery,” Sansa breathed, and there was such emotion there in her voice, such relief, that for a moment Margaery could forget the distance that had been separating them for these past few months, could resist all of the pain that had come before, and could just lean into her, breathe her in.

Gods, she’d missed her.

So damn much.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathed out slowly, ran her fingers through Sansa’s hair, where her face was buried in it, breathing her in.

When they pulled back from each other again, the both of them sitting on the bed, the air around them stagnant, Margaery didn’t quite know where to go from there.

Or, perhaps, she did.

She didn’t understand why it had felt so much easier to say all of the things bubbling up at the back of her throat while Sansa had been unconscious, though.

Instead, she pulled back from the other girl, body mourning her touch immediately, and reached for the glass of water that had been placed beside Sansa’s bed, Margaery thought, yesterday. She held it out to Sansa, watched as Sansa’s slim fingers wrapped around the glass, as she brought it to her lips.

Her very parched lips.

And while she drank, it gave Margaery the opportunity to think, something she found herself rather relieved for.

She knew what she needed to say, and she had no idea how to say it, beyond the most simplest of ways.

And, too, it helped her look over Sansa.

The longer that Sansa had remained sick, had remained unconscious, the less Margaery had wanted to truly look at her, to take in how she was deteriorating, slowly, in a way that frightened Margaery not just because she thought that Sansa was going to die, though she was, but also because it reminded Margaery, in a strange way, of when Sansa had been refusing to eat, when she had been wasting away from a guilt that had literally been eating her alive.

She’d been eating normally lately, Margaery knew, and, to her shame, it wasn’t because Margaery was keeping up on her as much as she had been, back then.

It was because Sansa spent far too much time taking care of her, these days, to worry about the guilt she felt for doing so.

It was a strange thought; the more Margaery got to know Sansa these days, the less she felt like she knew her, while the longer they spent together, the more Margaery felt she endured the mortifying ordeal of being known.

She didn’t know what that meant, about the two of them.

About Sansa.

But she did know it wasn’t right.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and was treated to a look of bemusement on Sansa’s face that would have been adorable if Margaery wasn’t shaking so badly.

She couldn’t think.

She could barely choke those words out, and by the look on Sansa’s face, she was going to have to elaborate on them, as well.

“For what?” She asked, and Margaery felt like someone had taken hold of her heart and squeezed. She sucked in one breath, and then another, not quite meeting Sansa’s eyes even though for all of the time they’d spent separated lately because of Lannisters, Margaery found she wanted nothing more than to stare at Sansa for eternity.

She swallowed hard.

Eternity.

The thought took hold, deep inside of her, where Sansa always seemed to find her way despite every defense Margaery put up against her. The one person who could find her way there, besides Margaery’s family, and even then, that was only born of necessity, in some ways.

Margaery closed her eyes, shook her head.

Opened them again.

“I’ve been…horrible to you,” she breathed, slowly, cocking her head at Sansa because the other girl still looked confused, and Margaery was beginning to suspect that she was the butt of a jape that hadn’t quite gotten to the point.

When she’d been a little girl, she had always hated not being in on the joke.

Now, it just made her feel sick.

“These past few months, I…After everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve done together, I…” Margaery chewed on her lower lip. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that. It was…it was wrong of me, and I’m sorry. More sorry than you can know.”

Her hands reached out, seemingly of their own accord, to wrap around Sansa’s.

Sansa stared down at their entwined fingers, and Margaery found that she had no idea what the other girl was thinking.

And then, finally, she looked up. “You don’t have to apologize to me,” she said, and her voice was so absurdly gentle that it brought tears to Margaery’s eyes.

Instead of letting them fall, she choked out a wet laugh. Sansa was staring at her, when she glanced up, and Margaery shook her head.

“Sansa…” she swallowed. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I can guarantee you, it wasn’t worth it, on your end.”

Sansa smiled sadly, shaking her head, as she reached out to touch Margaery’s cheek, and then aborted the movement. Margaery flinched.

“You’ve been through something…horrible,” Sansa said. “I’ve never…I didn’t begrudge you, for that. It’s never happened to me, but it almost did, more than once. And…and you killed him, too. That sort of thing…I understood that you needed time.”

Time.

Yes, Margaery had needed time.

In the days after Joffrey’s…after her husband had raped her and she had murdered him, Margaery hadn’t been able to think without reminding herself that she needed to breathe, that that was an important bodily function, just as drinking water was.

She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to convince the majority of King’s Landing that she wasn’t guilty, that she hadn’t gone insane, the way she often felt.

She supposed most of that was down to Littlefinger, to Sansa.

But time was a luxury that they didn’t have, in this world. Not when the world seemed to be breaking apart around them, not when everything felt like it was going to shit just when things were nice.

Not when she was sitting on the Iron Throne in the name of a son who wasn’t born yet and who wasn’t the son of a king, and she could be killed for it at any moment.

She swallowed hard. “Yes…” she said, slowly. “I needed time. But…” she shook her head, not quite sure how to put this into words but resolved to do so. “I needed time, but I shouldn’t have treated you like that. You were the one who…I mean, others had guessed, but you were the one who knew, and every time I looked at you I thought about the way you were looking at me, because of it,” she said, and now that she had started talking, she found she couldn’t stop.

It was horrible, the words spilling past her throat.

She woudln’t be surprised if Sansa never wanted to speak to her again, after this. After she told Sansa that she couldn’t even stand to look at her, sometimes.

“I thought…I thought if I looked too hard at you,” Margaery went on, and felt her face going pale, felt rather sickly, as she forced herself to go on, “If I looked too hard at you, I was going to see pity in your eyes, or…”

Revulsion.

Sansa reached out, then, snatching Margaery’s hands into hers without stopping this time, clasping them so hard that this time, Margaery flinched for an entirely different reason.

She thought Sansa understood what she’d been trying to say without her having to utter that final word, and Margaery felt a sickly sense of relief, for it.

It was easier, this conversation, after she’d already had one so similar to it with Olenna, but in so many ways, it was more difficult.

“I _love_ you,” Sansa said, and there was a quiet intensity to her words that forced Margaery to meet her gaze.

And what she saw there, meeting her eyes for the first time in what felt like an eternity…it made Margaery’s eyes prick with tears again.

“I love you,” Sansa repeated, and Margaery felt one of those tears slip down her cheek. “Margaery, I…”

“It…It isn’t easy for me,” Margaery interrupted her, and she couldn’t look at Sansa as she said the words, because she knew she would lose her nerve, then, “It isn’t easy for me, letting other people in. It…Doesn’t come naturally. I’ve lived half of my life trying to figure out how to get others to let me in, so I don’t…”

Trust.

It was the most important lesson her grandmother felt she could teach her, as a woman.

Margaery hated her a little, for doing so.

“Hells,” Margaery whispered, and her voice was hoarse, the tears were falling freely now, but Sansa hadn’t tried to interrupt her yet. “The first time I told you I loved you, I was using you then, too. I was…I was manipulating you, the way I do with everyone who lets me trust them. Because I…Because I can. I was just trying to protect you, but I didn’t mean it, not really.” She swallowed hard, pulled her hand from Sansa’s to wipe at her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to die.”

Sansa flinched. Hard.

Margaery’s words, in the Black Cells that day, rang through her mind again, and she flinched, too.

_I love you, Sansa Stark, and I would do anything for you._

Another careful manipulation, a way to persuade Sansa to save herself in a way that would also get Margaery the revenge she sought on a man who had nothing to do with her brother’s demise, after all.

Yes, she had been trying to save Sansa, but what did that matter, when she’d been lying, at the time?

They were both silent, after that.

Margaery supposed that there really wasn’t anything that Sansa could say, in response to that.

After all, that had been the start of it all.

They’d…done things, before that, and Margaery…Margaery had felt things for this girl that she hadn’t felt for anyone before that, but after…

After, because of what Margaery had whispered to her in a Black Cell, Sansa had lied about Oberyn, and he’d died, and Margaery had to watch it eat away at Sansa until she thought the other girl might be going mad, because of her.

Because she’d tried to help her.

Because Margaery had beat her to keep her from being raped, that night, by Joffrey.

She swallowed, looked away. “But I…” she had to salvage this somehow, had to explain that it wasn’t like that, anymore, but didn’t quite know how she could say anything that would convince Sansa at this point, after what she had just said. “I got to know you after that, and Sansa, I…” She looked up at her, eyes shining. “You know me better than anyone ever has, I think, and I thought I was going to lose you, and that…That wasn’t acceptable, for me.”

She sucked in a breath, just remembering the terror she had felt at the thought of losing Sansa, like this.

Because Cersei had guessed the truth about them during months in which Margaery had been trying to deny it to herself.

“These past few weeks without you, Sansa, I…” she bit her lip, because Sansa wasn’t talking, she wasn’t saying anything at all, and somehow, that was more nerve-wracking, in this moment, than Margaery’s own words. “I love you. I don’t think that I…I don’t think that any of this,” she waved a hand around them, somehow meant to encompass the entire Keep, she thought, “I don’t think it would matter to me, and…once upon a time, it did. So much. But without you…It just felt…flat. Tiring. And I…I don’t want to do it without you, again.”

Sansa squinted at her. And, finally, she spoke. “What are you saying?”

Margaery swallowed hard. She didn’t quite know the answer to that herself, she realized.

Only that the thought of ever being parted from Sansa like that again, either because of poison or war or her own foolishness, filled her with a dread she never wanted to feel again.

The kiss waking her up, that had been a blessing. All of the maesters had said that they didn’t know that she would wake again, even if they were still treating her, even if she had seemed just a little bit better, lately.

Margaery knew not to expect many of those.

Blessings. They didn’t happen, in Westeros.

She thought about all of the things that had kept them apart - Joffrey, Margaery herself, the world they lived in - thought about the jealousy she’d seen in Sansa’s eyes, every time Margaery had to go back to her husband, had to stand beside him, had to fuck him, and Margaery thought at least she might be able to right one wrong, just now.

And, she supposed, when those words did finally make themselves heard, they did so in the only way her mind could truly understand.

“Marry me,” she whispered, not quite caring how it sounded, meeting Sansa’s eyes, and so she noticed the moment they blew wide, the moment Margaery’s mouth parted wordlessly.

Noticed the shock, written all over her face.

“Margaery…”

Margaery hesitated, then. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she said. “Marriage hasn’t been easy for either of us.”

“Gods,” Sansa whispered, closing her eyes.

Marriage.

Yes, Margaery rather felt the same way.

She almost felt silly for suggesting it; what they had, it seemed to defy any type of definition that Margaery tried to give it, seemed like something beautiful but other, and marriage…marriage was so very simple.

She’d been married to Renly, and it had been nothing.

She’d been married to Joffrey, and it had been horrid.

But when she suggested it to Sansa, she thought it meant something.

Something like a definition, like an explanation.

“Was I…was I really going to die, or something?” Sansa asked, blearily, and Margaery felt her breath catch in her throat.

“I don’t…” Margaery shook her head, felt her emotions choking at her voice. “I don’t know,” she admitted. Pressed her lips together, not meeting Sansa’s eyes. “I don’t know. I thought you might.”

Just the thought made her shiver.

And then Sansa was leaning into her again, and Margaery almost forgot the panic she’d felt, each day, as Sansa only grew worse and worse in front of her, as Margaery had to hide for so long how she really felt until that bitch had left King’s Landing.

She swallowed. “Was that a ‘no’?” She asked, softly.

Sansa flinched back a little from her. “No,” she said, and then, at the look on Margaery’s face, “I mean, it wasn’t a no.”

Margaery felt her heart skip a beat.

“I just…” Sansa swallowed hard. “It just wasn’t something I was expecting.”

That _felt_ like a no.

Margaery backtracked as quickly as she could manage without looking like the fool.

“If it’s because of what I said,” Margaery whispered, leaning back, “Because of the Black Cells, Sansa, you must know, I don’t feel like that at all anymore. I…I do love you. I promise you that. I know I haven’t acted like it, lately, but…”

“I knew you didn’t,” Sansa interrupted her, and Margaery’s heart caught in her throat.

“I…”

No, there wasn’t quite anything she could say, in response to that.

Sansa’s smile was sad. “The more I got to know you, Margaery, the more…the more I think I could read you. I knew you, even then. I knew you didn’t love me, I knew what those words really meant.” She shrugged. “And they worked, yes, but I still knew.”

Margaery licked her lips. “I…I’m sorry,” she repeated, and wondered if she would be apologizing for an eternity, now that Sansa was finally awake once more.

“I didn’t say it back for so long because I knew it wasn’t quite real,” Sansa went on, and her voice was shaking now, and Margaery felt another tear slip down her cheek, “And when I finally did, that was when I thought…”

When she thought Margaery meant it.

Margaery closed her eyes, breathed in deeply.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she said, swallowing hard as she opened her eyes once more. “It was…it was foolish of me, really. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She did know what she had been thinking, though. It was the most coherent her thoughts had felt, in recent months.

She wondered if this was what Sansa had felt like, in recent months, this crushing despair of knowing the woman she loved didn’t want what she did, really.

And instantly banished the thought; after all, it had been a silly idea.

“It wasn’t silly,” Sansa said, shaking her head. “I just…need a moment to think about it. I mean…We’re…women,” Sansa said, slowly.

Margaery shook her head. “There’s nothing against it in the Seven Pointed Star,” she said, softly. “Just the hearts of men. And I think we’ve let enough men stand between us. But I…if it’s not what you want, especially after…recently, then I understand.” She swallowed hard. “I just want…I just want you to know that I’d like to, because I want you to know that nothing is ever going to come between us again. That no one will ever take your place in my life. That I…” She licked her lips. “That I’m committed to you, Sansa Stark. Now and forever.”

For a moment, it looked like Sansa had forgotten how to breathe. Then, she sucked in a rather heady breath. “I…”

Margaery didn’t breathe, either.

“You don’t have to promise to marry me for me to know that,” Sansa said, softly, and Margaery didn’t know how to explain to her that this wouldn’t just be for her.

That it would be for Margaery, too. A reminder, a promise.

“But, I’d like to,” Margaery said. “I mean, if you would, too. We wouldn’t…”

Obviously, they wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. If anyone found out that the woman sitting on the Iron Throne was married to another woman, Margaery was sure there would be chaos, and there would be chaos besides, regardless of whether or not she was on the throne.

No one could ever know, because if either of them had been worried about being used against each other before, this would only make things worse.

Cersei had poisoned Sansa just because she suspected them.

Margaery didn’t like to think of what she might try to do to Sansa with proof.

But still, Margaery needed this, and, by the look in Sansa’s eyes, she thought the other girl might need it, too.

Then, when it seemed that Sansa could find herself again, she added weakly, “We don’t have a septon.”

Margaery snorted. “I don’t think even I’d be able to find one who would marry two women,” she said, as if she had thought about this before. Then, “Besides, I didn’t mean that kind of marriage. I just meant…something for the two of us. Something that matters, something that means another husband can’t come between either of us, that…nothing else can.”

Sansa hesitated, and then, slowly, she nodded.

And perhaps it was more for Margaery than herself, perhaps Sansa had consigned herself to a life with a woman who needed more from her than she did from Margaery, and perhaps Margaery would spend a lifetime making up every wrong done against Sansa to her, but she’d nodded.

“Are you sure?” Margaery asked, slowly. “I don’t…If it was a silly idea, or you feel like I’m making you do this…”

Sansa laughed. “How do we want to do it?” She asked, and Margaery blinked at her.

“What, now?” She asked. “I think…I think just now,” she said, very slowly, “I should send for the maester, don’t you?”

Sansa stared at her for a moment, and then she laughed. “Margaery, I think we would have noticed, during the course of this rather lengthy conversation, if something were wrong with me. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to wait.”

She was right.

Margaery swallowed hard. “I…I’m not sure,” she admitted, and for a moment, Sansa’s face fell. Margaery hurried on, “How to do this, I mean. I just…”

It had been a very spur of the moment idea, after all.

Sansa took pity on her a moment later, smiling and reaching out to take Margaery’s hands into hers once again.

“Then let’s make it simple,” she suggested, and Margaery nodded, a little breathlessly.

“I take this woman,” Sansa said, squeezing her fingers as she did so, and her hands were shaking, and that was all the answer Margaery thought she needed, really. “Before the old gods, as mine own.”

She ducked her head, as if in prayer, and then lifted her head, smiling softly.

Margaery licked her lips; she’d never heard that vow before, and it didn’t sound like any of the marriage ceremonies she’d ever seen, which had admittedly all been conducted under the Faith of the Seven.

But then, she supposed, there was a simple elegance to it, all the same. She wondered if all the Northerners used that vow, or if it was only those who followed the old gods, wondered if this meant that Sansa had rejected the Seven altogether, wondered-

Dear gods, she was getting married, now.

Margaery felt herself blush, as she realized that Sansa had been waiting for her to respond, was looking a little worried, now.

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Maiden, Crone, Stranger,” Margaery whispered, and didn’t know if it mattered that she didn’t believe in those gods, or did, didn’t know if she felt a little bit silly or a bit elated, just now, because dear gods, Sansa was awake and they were, strange though it seemed, marrying each other, “I am hers, and she is mine, from this day, until the end of my days.”

Sansa bit her lip, and then whispered, the words seeming to almost ring through the room, “Cursed be any man who dares try to tear us apart, ever again.”

Margaery let out a breathless laugh, and waited.

It was Sansa who started the kiss, who leaned forward and pressed her lips to Margaery’s rather chastely, and then like a drowning woman, sucking Margaery in like she might die without her.

And, considering the fact that Margaery had just kissed her awake, she had to wonder.

“Now,” Margaery said, laughing a little breathlessly when they finally pulled apart, seeing stars, “I think we ought to send for a maester to look you over. I have great faith in my kissing ability to bring you back from the brink of death, but you understand.”

Sansa laughed. “I didn’t come back because you kissed me,” she said, but she was smiling, still. “I came back because I could hear you, just beyond my dreams. I could hear that you wanted me to return.”

And Margaery...didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so she just kissed Sansa again.

They were married.

Not quite legally, of course, as they could never have that, but it hardly mattered.

They were married in all of the ways that counted, and that was enough to make the feeling blooming in Margaery’s stomach and spreading through her - something rather marvelous.

She closed her eyes, and kissed Sansa again.

She meant this promise, more than she’d meant any of the vows she said to either of her first two husbands. Meant it more than she’d ever meant anything.

It made her feel weightless, made her almost forgot that they really ought to have a septon examine Sansa, now.

But Sansa was…Sansa was laughing, and her eyes were shining, and Margaery had thought she seemed a little hesitant before, but relief spread through her, at the look in Sansa’s eyes. The happiness, there.

She wanted this as much as Margaery did, Margaery realized.

“I love you,” Margaery whispered, and she meant it.

That feeling, of weightlessness in her stomach, grew, and Margaery thought, for a moment, that she might be the happiest woman in Westeros.

And then she realized that weightless feeling in her stomach wasn’t just happiness.

Wasn’t happiness at all, a moment later, when she felt the slick between her thighs, felt a stabbing at her groin.

“Sansa,” Margaery breathed, pressing a hand to her stomach, looking up at the other girl with wide eyes. “Sansa, my...my waters.”

The blood drained from Sansa’s face, at those words.

“The baby,” Margaery gasped out. “The baby’s coming.”


	40. King's Landing

“Open the doors. Now,” Garlan barked at the guards, as he stalked his way down to the Black Cell that held this ‘emissary’ from Dorne, the one that they had switched out with Tyene Sand at the last moment, the one who must have known that Dorne was coming to attack them.

He ignored the looks on the guards’ faces; by now, the news of his sister’s water braking should have spread even down here, he supposed, when she was giving birth to a king’s son, and no doubt the guards were wondering why her brother was not there to offer his support, was instead down here, trying to interrogate a political prisoner.

But Garlan would have much rather been up there, he thought, as he stepped into the emissary’s cell and crossed his arms over his chest, making sure that his sword was on full display. A lesser man would have taken it off before he came in, would have made sure that there weren’t any weapons his prisoner could take advantage of, but Garlan was fully confident in his ability to keep the sword at his side, even if the man in front of him, this false emissary, was clearly a fierce warrior by build alone.

“Lord Garlan,” the man said, cocking his head as Garlan motioned for the guards to shut the door behind him. “Lovely to see you, as always.”

Garlan rolled his eyes, tired of playing these games. His sister and his grandmother had both individually tasked him with figuring this man out, figuring out what the Dornish were up to, and so far he’d gotten very little out of the other man.

But, upstairs, his sister was giving birth to the heir to the Iron Throne, bastard child of a whore or not, and he was hardly going to let that child enter a world where his very life would be in danger from the fleet of Dornish ships standing outside.

No, Garlan was done playing games.

The sooner he could create a safer world for his nephew, could ensure that this man wasn’t part of some grand scheme to place Myrcella Baratheon on the Iron Throne, the sooner he could return to his own wife, his own children.

So he moved forward, ripping the sword free of its scabbard and pushing it against the Dornishman’s throat, throwing him against the far wall of the cell.

“Tell me plainly,” Garlan spat out, as he pressed his sword deeper into the flesh of the man’s throat, without causing a scratch…yet, “Who the fuck are you, and what are your people playing at, attacking us like this, so openly?”

The man smirked at him. “I cannot speak for the entirety of Dorne, my lord,” he said, the words taunting, and Garlan gritted his teeth at the man, pressed the blade deeper into his skin until it bled.

“I am…just an emissary,” the other man gasped out. “Tasked with the sole purpose of bringing peace.”

“Bullshit,” Garlan said, coldly. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

The other man raised a brow. “You think you frighten me, little lord?” He asked. “We know about you Highgarden lords. You never try to get your hands dirty. They say that your father spent the Rebellion getting fat outside of Storm’s End. You look just like him, you know.”

Garlan raised his chin. “Test me and we can see how frightening I can become,” he said, just as coldly as before. “I’m afraid that’s the only warning you’ll be getting, Friend, so I would speak a little more quickly, if I were you.”

“Trust me," Garlan said, through gritted teeth, “I would much rather be sitting with my sister as she gives birth to my nephew, but instead, I have to be here with you. So I will be getting what I want out of you, one way or another.”

The man swallowed, hard. “My lord, I really don’t know what it is you expect to get out of me, during these…sessions,” he gestured down to the knife at his throat. “Why, in the name of the gods, would I willingly come here if I knew that I would just become a hostage the moment my people attacked this place? What possible gain could that give me?”

Garlan’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I can’t begin to guess what you people will do for your fanatical vengeance on everyone who ever wronged you,” he snapped out, the sword pressing a little deeper into the Dornishman’s neck.

The Dornishman smirked. “‘You people’?” He echoed, sounding more amused than offended. Or, perhaps, as if he were proving a point. “You know, the only difference between my people and yours is that our lords and ladies actually know how to get the love of our own people, and you Tyrells have to fight to keep your own fellow lords in line, much less the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. I find it very ambitious of you to think you could even manage that, when you’ve barely held onto Highgarden, all these years. Who is it that Stannis Baratheon is married to? A Florent?”

Garlan gritted his teeth, but the man clearly wasn’t done, and Garlan had the sudden idea that the other man was giving away more than he realized, with these words.

“Our people are fanatical about our vengeance, it’s true,” the Dornishman continued, almost gleefully. “Unlike the rest of Westeros, we don’t take well to our women being raped and killed by barbaric soldiers without consequences. But you Tyrells…” he clicked his tongue. “You’ll just open your legs for anyone, so long as the promise of power comes with it. Ironic, isn’t that?”

Garlan’s hand slackened, where it grasped the knife.

He wasn’t fool enough to give away any more than that, of course, but he thought that he too, had already given away too much, in this conversation.

There was no way, he told himself. No way, by the gods, that the Dornish knew about what had happened to Margaery. Even if Lady Nym was some sort of spy, she could only guess, herself. She’d been unconscious, ill from her own assault, at the time.

No, they couldn’t possibly know. The connection this man had just made between Elia and Margaery…it was just circumstance, just chance, Garlan was convinced.

But perhaps they had suspected, he thought, as he saw the way the Dornishman’s eyes changed, at Garlan’s reaction.

Garlan tightened his grip on the sword, glaring at the other man. “Enough of this,” he spat out. “The fleet. They’re just…sitting out there. No demands, no attacks. What the fuck do they want?”

The Dornishman shrugged. “As I said, I couldn’t say,” he said. “I imagine, of course, that they want to ensure Prince Trystane’s release, but considering the amount of time they’ve had to come and get him, they don’t seem terribly concerned that you won’t make sure they can’t get to him.”

“And I’m sure you had no idea they would turn against us so quickly, after you agreed to take this posting at the last moment,” Garlan drawled.

The door opened then, and Garlan snapped at the guards outside that he’d asked to speak with the prisoner alone. They had no business interrupting him, not if Margaery hadn’t had the child, yet.

But it wasn’t the guards, interrupting.

Garlan went still, then, turning in genuine surprise at the sight of his grandmother entering the cell alongside him.

His grandmother had always been far too involved in the politics of their lives, but he had never seen her get her hands dirty quite like this. It felt rather strange, to see her wearing her best clothes in a place like this, looking so prim and proper in the grime of this cell.

She crossed her arms over her chest as Garlan eyed her.

“What are you doing down here, Grandmother?” He asked her, even if he knew it might be a bad idea to let on to the prisoner that he hadn’t expected her to come down here at all.

Olenna made a noise rather like amusement. “I thought I’m come and watch,” she told Garlan. “After all, you seem to be having a rather hard time with this particular prisoner.”

The Dornishman laughed. “You can’t get the job done, so Grandmother has come to take you to task for it?” He asked, laughing harder, now, despite the sword at his throat.

Garlan grimaced, but Olenna didn’t seem at all bothered by the other man’s confidence.

“What is your real name?” Olenna asked, of the man, this supposed ambassador from Dorne who had been meant to be one of the Sand Snakes, according to Arianne Martell’s messages before they had stopped so abruptly, where he stood on the other side of the door to a prison cell.

The man lifted his chin, looking annoyed. “I told you,” he smiled at her; it was a thin smile. “Lord Ryon Allyrion.”

Olenna’s own smile was equally thin. “So you’ve said,” she agreed. “And yet, I can’t help but think that if that were your true identity, you would be back in Dorne, arguing against the imprisonment of Doran Martell, who so generously gifted your wife’s family with the care and fostering of his son, once, and not here, championing…is it Arianne Martell, or her husband, these days?”

His face straightened out, a little, at those words, and this time, when Olenna smiled, she meant it. “You must think us all a bunch of foolish women,” she said, “to attempt to trick us with something like that, my lord. No one has seen any Dornishmen in such a long while, since you all so like to keep amongst yourselves, but I do believe that Lord Ryon came to King’s Landing for my granddaughter’s wedding.”

He gave her a long look. Then, “How long have you wondered such a thing?” Then, he smiled. It was not a nice smile. “My lady, I am exactly who I say I am. Just because my wife is a Yronwood does not mean that we hold anymore love for Doran Martell than any other House in Dorne, and there are few enough of those, these days. Times have changed, and much of Dorne with them.”

Olenna stared at him. She didn’t believe him for an instant. She did not recognize him as one of the party who had joined Oberyn Martell while he was here for her granddaughter’s wedding, after all, and she knew that Ryon Allyrion had been amongst them, even if her granddaughter seemed to have forgotten.

But then, it seemed to her as if her granddaughter had forgotten quite a few things, these days.

Then, “But you do admit that you are not an emissary, surely,” she said, coolly.

He lifted his chin. “My lord was…uncertain how I would be met, once I arrived in King’s Landing,” he told her. “He did not want to risk the safety of his dear cousin, Lady Tyene.”

Olenna sniffed. “Oh, because he cares so much about the Martell girls, from what I hear,” she muttered, flicking one of her fingers against the door of the man’s cell. “Or is it not true that Arianne Martell is currently languishing in a cell much like this one because her husband does not think her fit to rule the kingdom he helped her overtake?”

The smile vanished from “Ryon’s” face. He stared at her. Then, “You seem to have very good information compared to the rest of those in King’s Landing, dear lady,” he said, finally, which she figured was as much of an admission as she was going to get.

Olenna gave him a long look. “Your ships are outside,” she said. "Would they really risk the life of Ryon Allyrion? I doubt it. Not when much of Dorne is still so…uncertain about your current path.”

He gritted his teeth. “The rest of Dorne will know what our true place in the Seven Kingdoms is soon enough,” he told her, calmly. “They just need a little…push.”

She raised a brow. “Like the death of a popular lord in King’s Landing, at the hands of the Tyrells, when the Dornish were not even being violent in turn? I’m sure.”

He looked at her for a moment longer, sighed, seeming completely at ease with the way that Garlan’s sword was still at his throat.

“You are…right about Arianne Martell,” he said. “Beautiful girl, and certainly with far more ambition for the betterment of Dorne than her father ever had. But then, the Martells always were eager to bend the knee until they finally took all of Dorne as their own.”

She stared at him, realized who he was. Sighed. “And so you would follow Gerold Dayne, who thinks with his sword more than anything?”

“Gerold Dayne may not be a man of great vision, dear lady,” he said, coolly, “but he, at the very least, knows what it is that he wants. I cannot say the same of Princess Arianne, who has waffled back and forth between gaining her father’s approval, and gaining Dorne.”

Olenna swallowed hard. “And what is it that Gerold Dayne wants?”

He smiled. “What all men want. Power. And he means to get it, not to bend the knee before another boy king who seeks to subjugate Dorne forever. Your grandson is right about one thing. We never forget, and we’re tired of indignity after indignity being forced on us by belligerent children who have never stepped foot within Dorne. We will not accept your child bride anymore than we would her son.”

Olenna stared at him, raised her chin. “You mean to tell me that you will not bend the knee to the rightful King, when he is born?” She asked, calmly. “That you will uphold Joffrey’s bastard half sister, instead? I knew you Dornish were…carefree about things like legitimacy, but I would hardly think that it might agree with your principles, to uphold a Lannister girl as your princess.”

“Did you not know, my lady?” He tsked, and Garlan found that he could only stare. “Poor Joffrey Baratheon, in the final months of his life, sent out letters to all of those Houses he believed to be loyal to him still.” He licked his lips, biting back what was clearly a smile. Olenna loathed him a little more. “He warned that he had begun to suspect his beautiful young wife of wishing to kill him because she was no longer the woman he had fallen in love with, that he feared for his very life amongst so many flowers, and that the child his Queen carried could not be his own.”

Garlan stared.

Olenna paled, but recovered quickly enough. “Joffrey Baratheon was not so self aware,” she said, and Garlan hated how firm her voice sounded, as if she didn’t think it worth it at all to dispute the idea that Margaery had wanted her husband dead. “And I find it intriguing that only Dorne should come forth with this letter, especially when Cersei Lannister seems so eager for war with the both of our kingdoms, these days. When Stannis tried to prove the Lannister children’s illegitimacy, he sent it to ever House in the realm.”

The emissary smirked at her. “No, perhaps there is no letter in Joffrey’s hand, perhaps he was not so self aware,” he said. “But such a letter, while burnt by most of House Tyrell’s allies now, no doubt, and useless to Stannis Baratheon, would certainly call into great question the legitimacy of the heir that your granddaughter is giving birth to just now, wouldn’t it? And in the mean time, my lord has the next heir outfitted and ready to take her place as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, only declared illegitimate by said Queen’s family.”

Olenna sniffed, leaning forward. “Now, listen here. Dorne may be full of a bunch of pigheaded idiots who believe they can never be overtaken merely because it has never been done before, but you do not have the resources to fight a war against us and this new Targaryen boy,” she said, cutting right to the chase.

After all, Garlan had never known his grandmother not to get to the point of things quickly enough.

“Why pretend to ally with him only to turn your backs on him immediately?” She went on. “Do you not think that he will find it an insult, that you’ve offered him this bastard Lannister girl? Do you actually think he will accept your bent knee when he knows the only worth Myrcella Lannister has to you now is her death? He may be little more than a child himself, but Jon Connington was no fool.”

He smiled. “I never said we were turning our backs on him, merely that we don’t want to find ourselves scraping our knees before him. Myrcella may be married to a Martell Prince just now, but she will need a King if she is going to rule Westeros itself, and Gerold is…ambitious enough to realize that.”

Olenna stared. “A joke of a wife for a king who will never have her. And Arianne was the one who left her brother here, in King’s Landing,” she said, slowly.

He shrugged. “And I am sure that he has…encountered all sorts of beliefs contrary to the ones he grew up with about this place,” he said, sounding strangely apologetic. It made Olenna feel a bit sick. “It is a shame, that he will no doubt never see Dorne again, to set the matter straight in his own mind.”

She stared at him; so did Garlan.

It made a sick sort of sense, Garlan supposed; while in Dorne they did not care what one had between their legs when they inherited, with Arianne locked away, her supporters, or even the ones too frightened to back up Doran, might decide that following Gerold Dayne was superfluous if Trystane Martell returned.

It was just what was being done with Myrcella there right now, after all.

She gritted her teeth. “The boy is…quite safe here,” she reminded him. “Or Arianne Martell would not have trusted us to care for him.”

“Perhaps,” the prisoner allowed. “But are any of you quite safe, at the moment? With a Dornish fleet outside your doors and the risk that the child your dear granddaughter gives birth to being a girl, or worse, a bastard?”

He was smirking, as he said it. Garlan wanted nothing more than to knock that smirk right off of his face.

Instead, Olenna took a step back, calling for the guards. “Find Prince Trystane,” she gritted out as they approached, as the prisoner laughed, a warning that she might be too late already. “Make sure that you don’t let him out of your sight.”

Garlan nodded for them to do as she said, feeling a bit shaky.

The Dornishman smiled at her.

“So why do you not attack?” Olenna went on, merciless, after the guards had left. She shook her head. “You’ve made it clear you have no intention of following House Tyrell, but you have yet to attack us when we are certainly vulnerable enough. Could it be, you are wondering whether the child will be a boy or a girl? Whether perhaps the plan Arianne made with my granddaughter was not the worst one you’d ever heard?”

The man lifted his chin; Garlan knew that look. He knew this man wasn’t going to tell them anything else of substance.

But that hardly mattered, he supposed. They had enough, for now. Enough for Garlan to know what needed to be done, after all.

* * *

Tommen flinched again, at the sound of the full bellied scream that ripped its way past Margaery’s throat, out of the main room of the chambers that had once been Joffrey’s, and into the hallway where he stood not so far away from Sansa herself.

Sansa felt a stab of pity for him, at the flinch. She didn’t know why he was here at all, didn’t know if someone had insisted on his coming, or if he had come here on his own, or if he had simply come here because he had been with Alla Tyrell and she had insisted on being here.

She hardly thought this was the place for a child, especially one like Tommen, but she found that she was far too anxious to say anything about it, herself.

Margaery was having a baby.

Margaery, who had been pregnant for months, was finally having her child, and Sansa knew that shouldn’t have been a surprise, not when they’d all known this was coming for months, not when they’d all been preparing for it for longer than that, but still, it felt like one.

And every time Margaery screamed from behind those closed doors, Sansa felt like a part of her was breaking in two.

She should be in there, she thought, rather than out here. Should be in there, holding Margaery’s hand, at least showing her that someone near her was on her side, rather than leaving her to fend for herself with half a dozen maesters who were only being paid to do their job, who might immediately notice if the child wasn’t Joffrey’s, who might be under the pay of Cersei, rather than Olenna…

Before Sansa really understood what she was doing, she found herself pacing the room. Pacing, arms crossed over her chest, ignoring the knowing look that Alla was sending her way, ignoring the way the other girl seemed to look like she wanted to comfort Sansa, and didn’t quite know how, with so many people around.

But she didn’t understand, couldn’t really comfort Sansa if she tried, because she had no idea what this felt like. No idea what it felt like to exchange - vows - with Margaery, to know that this woman wanted her enough, loved her enough, to make a commitment like that, when Sansa knew what it had cost Margaery to say any of those things she had, let alone all of them together, only for Margaery to have Joffrey’s child, minutes after.

A living reminder of the man who had once stood between them.

Sansa bit back a sigh; she knew she shouldn’t think of it that way. After all, despite everything that had happened to get them to that point, this child had been their freedom from Joffrey for good. And she had agreed with Margaery that this child would be theirs, not Joffrey’s. Had truly believed that, when she said it.

And Margaery had just made it very clear to her that no one else would ever come between them again. Had even smiled when Sansa had said just that.

And somehow, without Sansa ever having had to tell it to her, Margaery had known exactly what it was that had always bothered Sansa about their relationship, the one thing that had eaten away at her for so long. Not that Margaery had lied to her the first time she’d told her that she loved her, not that Margaery was manipulative, for Sansa had known that within the first few moments of meeting her, not that she was a queen to people Sansa had once considered enemies.

No, it had always been Joffrey. Joffrey, with his hand rested so proprietarily on Margaery’s arm in public, as if he knew that she would always be his, Joffrey, coming into Margaery’s rooms seconds after Sansa had been stuffed into a closet after kissing Margaery senseless.

Joffrey, coming between them even in death.

Sometimes, in her dreams, when she had spent a day in King’s Landing very jealous of Joffrey’s proprietary hand on Margaery’s arm, Sansa would dream about killing him alongside Margaery, and she knew that it was wrong, that after the trauma that Margaery had suffered, Sansa should not wish that she could have been a part of it.

But still, her mind wondered if things wouldn’t have gone easier for Margaery if she had been, if they had planned that, together.

Her fantasies sometimes including seeing Joffrey’s blood all over the two of them. But the service had always been out in the godswood.

“Sansa?” Megga asked, jostling her when Sansa paced into the other girl.

Sansa bit back a flinch, forcing her mind back to the present just as Margaery let out another ear piercing scream.

“Are you sure you should be moving like that?” Megga asked, pointedly. “The maesters haven’t even looked you over yet, and, after how long you’ve been ill…”

“I’m fine,” Sansa interrupted her, crossing her arms over her chest. Megga raised a pointed eyebrow, and Sansa shrugged, hugging herself a little tighter now. “I will be.” A pause. “I’ll let the maesters look me over the moment we know she’s going to be all right. That the child’s going to be all right, too.”

Megga huffed, but didn’t bother to argue with her again; perhaps she knew how useless it would be.

Sansa couldn’t be on the other side of that door without an invitation, because, despite the vows that they had just whispered to one another, the maesters didn’t seem to consider them close enough for that, not when Sansa was the wife of a traitor, herself, and the daughter of more. But she damn well wasn’t moving, even if guards came to physically remove her, until she knew that Margaery and the child would be all right.

That was all that mattered, just now.

It had to be.

The hallway was full of women all waiting, with bated breath, and not just women, but several men, as well. Mace was among them, as was even Tommen, looking more and more anxious with every scream that emanated from behind Joffrey’s bedroom doors, though Sansa found that rather confusing.

What else she found confusing was the fact that Garlan, who always seemed so close with his sister, as indeed she always seemed so close with every one of her brothers, was not.

“It’s too early,” Alla hissed, from where she stood at Sansa’s side.

Sansa closed her eyes. If the other girl repeated those words again, as much as Sansa liked her, she might tear out the other girl’s tongue, she thought, with some annoyance.

But the maesters had insisted that Alla not be permitted to watch the birthing, being too young yet, whatever that meant, after everything they had all been through. Megga and Jenna Tyrell were in there, with Margaery, and Sansa hated them all a little more for it then she found Alla annoying, at the moment.

But it was not too early, Sansa tried to remind herself. Women had babes early all the time, after all, without anyone feeling the worse for it, or the babies being less likely to survive because of it, especially at this stage.

After all, Margaery had been pregnant for so long, at this point, it felt as if she’d been pregnant forever.

Lady Nym, where she stood with them, looking impassive in a way that Sansa knew had to be at least partially false, hummed. “Babes come early, sometimes,” she said, but Sansa could tell that she sounded nervous, as well, after spending so much time in the other girl’s company.

Sansa gritted her teeth. “She’s going to be fine,” she said, very softly. “She survived Joffrey, and she can survive this.”

She needed to believe that.

Alla bit her lip, and then whispered, “What if she doesn’t? What are we supposed to do then?”

Sansa swallowed hard, and didn’t answer, because she didn’t want to tell the other girl that if Margaery and the child did not survive this birthing, together, then it wouldn’t matter what happened, after that.

To any of them.

Because if something did happen, if they lost Margaery despite the maesters surrounding her if they lost the child as so many women did during their first pregnancy, there would be no mercy for any of them.

That would be the end.

Cersei Lannister would sweep back into King’s Landing with a vengeance, and make them all pay for daring to uphold someone else, instead of her and her son. Cersei Lannister would have her revenge, and Sansa did not think there would be a single person in the world who might spare them all from her.

And it wouldn’t matter, because at that point, Margaery would be gone, and so would her son, and that was not a future that Sansa wanted to contemplate, not at all.

“She will,” Sansa said, forcing herself not to look over in Tommen’s direction at all, still wishing someone would take him out of here.

“I would listen to her, if I were you,” a familiar voice said, though one that Sansa was rather surprised to hear.

She would have thought that Elinor would have gone back to Highgarden, by now.

She turned to face the other girl just as Elinor continued, “After all, this one cheated death today.”

Sansa rushed a little, not quite knowing why. Or, perhaps she did know that it was because of how she had been awoken. How she had awoken when Margaery had kissed her, and then, everything that had happened after…

Sansa shivered, and Elinor shot her a concerned look. “Didn’t you?” She asked, and then sighed, at the guilty look on Sansa’s face.

“She won’t see a maester yet,” Megga supplied, when Sansa would not. “Says she won’t go anywhere until she knows that Margaery’s all right.”

Elinor gave Sansa a long, searching look, and then shrugged. “I would believe her then, if I were you,” she pointed out. “This one’s rather stubborn, after all.”

But Sansa was already narrowing her eyes, trying desperately to focus on anything that wasn’t the sound of Margaery’s pained cries, coming from within a room that Sansa had heard very different screams coming from, not so many months before.

Because…Because she could remember, before she had gotten ill, how Elinor had approached her about leaving King’s Landing with her husband, about going back to Highgarden with Sansa’s permission, rather than Margaery’s or Olenna’s.

And Sansa didn’t know…after everything that had happened, after the amount of time that Sansa had been ill, whether she still clung to the same powers she’d had, before she had been poisoned. Whether she was still one of the most powerful women in King’s Landing, or whether her illness had ceded that permission to Olenna, or to Margaery, as the girl seemed so much more clear headed, now that Sansa was again awake.

She supposed it didn’t matter, just now. She hadn’t wanted all of that power, after all, hadn’t liked having that much authority over so many people, even if she was a lady in her own right. Had only done it because she had known what it had meant to Margaery, even if the other girl couldn’t claim her right at the moment.

And now, Margaery seemed back to the way she had been before, and Sansa…Sansa had married her.

Married her.

Sansa still couldn’t quite believe it.

Couldn’t believe that the two of them had decided to get married, couldn’t believe that Margaery had been the one to suggest it, either.

When Sansa was a little girl, she used to act out how she thought her wedding would be, to some glorious prince. Would think about all of the pretty dresses she would have to try on beforehand, would practice the vows she would have to give her husband one day. Vows of the Seven, as her mother had taught her that faith.

But her own wedding had been nothing like that. Nothing like that, and yet, somehow so much better than she had imagined it would be.

She wondered if there was finally hope for the two of them, after all.

“Let’s just hope that the Dornish don’t attack us while she’s having the baby,” Alla said, into the silence, and all the girls turned to glare at her, then. Alla blushed. “Well?” She said, carefully not looking over at Megga or Lady Nym. “It would be the perfect time, after all.”

Lady Nym rolled her eyes. “They won’t attack in broad daylight when they have the benefit of cover during the night,” she pointed out, and Alla blushed again, and Margaery screamed again, from inside those rooms.

“Is...is she going to be all right?” Tommen asked, nervously, and Sansa shut her eyes, sucked in several deep breaths, trying not to let her emotions overcome her.

Her emotions at what was going on inside that room, and the fact that despite what they had just done together in the woods, Sansa was not allowed to be with the woman who meant more to her than anything, just now.

Alla turned then, forcing a smile in Tommen’s direction, and Sansa tried to remind herself that they were both just children, not actually that far apart in age, as the girl told him, “She’ll be fine, my lord. She just does as every other mother has ever done.”

Dear gods, Sansa didn’t even understand why Tommen was here. He ought to be somewhere else, somewhere where he wasn’t a reminder of everything they were fighting against, where he wasn’t a reminder that if this child Margaery had was a girl, he had a far better claim to the throne.

She almost opened her mouth to say that, but didn’t quite get the chance.

A servant assisting with the birthing opened the door then, glancing nervously out at them, before her eyes lighted on Sansa. Sansa felt nervous, despite herself.

She knew that some women, in the throes of birthing, could say things that they weren’t meant to, that they shouldn’t.

But, in that case, Sansa supposed, it would be guards summoning her, not a servant.

“The Queen is asking for you, Lady Sansa,” she said, and her face was very pale, and Sansa tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter, that of course it didn’t matter, because Margaery was going to be fine.

Perhaps this particular serving girl had simply never witnessed a birthing before, for all that Sansa knew that couldn’t be the case, when she had been summoned to Margaery’s rooms almost immediately after Sansa and the maesters had moved her there for this purpose.

Sansa hadn’t, when she still lived in Winterfell, deemed too young to even witness Rickon’s by her mother, when he was born, though she remembered far too clearly her mother’s screams. It was the only reason she could think of for why she wasn’t shaking, now.

Sansa stepped forward instantly. “Me?” she asked.

The serving girl dipped her head, throwing the door open wider. “Come on, then,” she said, and Sansa grimaced, following her within the birthing chambers.

Sansa took a deep breath, glancing back at the other girls, at the women crowding around because they were either friends of Margaery’s, Sansa supposed, and couldn’t begrudge them that, or for the gossip of knowing immediately the sex of the child, or, perhaps, if it lived at all.

That information would be like gold, in the coming hours.

Sansa took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

The rooms, once Joffrey’s bedchambers, had been transformed since the last time that Sansa had been within them, into something like organized chaos. Servants were rushing about with heated, wet towels and with buckets, and Sansa grimaced when she noticed that some of the towels, white as they had once been, were not wet with water, but with blood.

Margaery’s blood.

Sansa blew out a breath, and followed the serving girl further.

“Is…is she all right?” She asked the girl, as they walked.

The serving girl glanced back at her, and then seemed to notice the look on Sansa’s face. Sansa didn’t know if she guessed they were close, or just thought that Sansa was nervous, but within moments, her face had transformed into something rather kinder.

“The maesters say she is doing fine,” she promised, and if her smile was a little wobbly, Sansa put that down to nervousness. “That, so far, as far as they can tell, everything is progressing as it should. They are a little nervous about the earliness of the pregnancy, but they see no reason why the child should not be born healthy, at this stage.”

Sansa blew out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding, nodding, swallowing hard. “Thank you,” she said, and walked the rest of the way into Margaery’s bedchamber with the other girl following behind her, this time.

The first thing that Sansa noticed was that Margaery was sitting upright on the bed, her legs spread apart, and Sansa thought that a little strange, thought she ought to be resting, if the baby had yet to come. But then, she supposed, she didn’t know about these things anymore than Alla did.

The maesters were all crowding around her, and Sansa thought immediately that she must be overwhelmed, to have so many men surrounding her in such a vulnerable position, after everything she’d been through. The servants were there, of course, but then, Margaery had learned, as a Queen, that servants were not there for her own protection.

Sansa moved forward almost unconsciously at the realization, wanting to shield Margaery from them all, if she could.

She knew she couldn’t, of course. Knew that there were some things she could never protect Margaery from.

Margaery didn’t seem to have noticed that Sansa had entered the room at all, her eyes squeezed shut, body clenched in a way that Sansa didn’t particularly like, grabbing hard to one of the wooden posts of the bed. The maesters exchanged glances, and Sansa wondered if the Grandmaester, practically leering as he was, had only been invited here because it would have been rude not to.

One of the servants picked up a wet cloth, moving forward as if to dab Margaery’s forehead, and Sansa realized then how much the other girl was sweating. Sansa reached out, taking the cloth from her with a quiet look, and pressing it against Margaery’s forehead, instead.

Margaery glanced up at her, eyes widening when she saw Sansa.

“You’re here,” she whispered, leaning into the cloth.

Sansa smiled at her. “Of course I am,” she said, and wished she had found a way to strong-arm herself into the room earlier than this, from the look of relief that crossed Margaery’s features.

“Sansa,” Margaery whispered, and her fingers were vice like around Sansa’s wrist, as she reached up to grab at it. Sansa flinched, glancing up nervously at the maesters, who gestured for her to keep going.

To keep distracting their Queen, for the now.

There would be no distracting her in a few moments, after all.

“Sansa, I can’t do this,” Margaery whispered, and for a moment, Sansa had a flash of deja vu, as she remembered the way that Margaery had reacted, as she stood outside the doors of the throne room, ready to tell the world that Joffrey Baratheon was dead, and told Sansa that she didn’t think she would be able to do that, either.

She was breathing in and out, in quick, uneven succession, breathing like she had just been running, and Sansa pressed her lips together nervously.

“Margaery,” she said, in exactly the same calm voice she had used then, “Listen to me.” Margaery’s body shined with sweat, her eyes wide as they flitted to meet Sansa’s. “You can do this. You’re the Queen Regent of Westeros. You can do whatever you like. This?” she laughed, gesturing down to Margaery’s round stomach. “This is easy.”

Margaery was panting, hard, as Sansa spoke. “I…”

“Your Grace, you must _push_ ,” one of the maesters said, impatiently.

Margaery let out a scream, and Sansa reached up with her free hand, brushing the sweat matted hair off of Margaery’s face, shushing her with quiet noises of comfort, as she didn’t know what else to do, just now.

Didn’t know how else to comfort her, just now, when she couldn’t do this for her, obviously, and nothing else would quite suffice.

Margaery was squeezing her hand so tightly that Sansa thought it might fall off if she squeezed it any harder. Sansa grimaced, but didn’t try to pull away.

Didn’t try to pull away even as the maesters reminded Margaery that Her Grace really did need to push.

Margaery screamed again, her whole body contorting tightly in a way that looked painful, her hand squeezing Sansa’s until it went white, and then one of the maesters was moving forward, pressing between her legs, and Sansa had to push down the urge to growl at him possessively.

“Very good, Your Grace,” the maester was saying, and Sansa thought he was one of the Tyrell maesters they had brought from Highgarden the moment they’d learned that Margaery was pregnant. “Very good, I can…I can see the head, Your Grace. It won’t be long, now.”

Margaery was panting, her legs spreading apart further, her eyes squeezed shut. “Sansa,” she panted out, and Sansa was pressing close again, resisting the sudden urge to kiss her in comfort, if nothing else.

Sansa nodded. “Margaery, don’t worry about anything else,” she said, because she could see already the way that Margaery’s brows were furrowing. “Just focus on this. Please.”

Margaery shook her head. “No,” she breathed. “Sansa, I need…”

Sansa pressed her lips together as she glanced around at the maesters, once more, all of them being careful to pretend they were not listening to a word their Regent was saying.

Sansa wondered how many of them had already been warned, had been paid off. She rather disliked the idea that Olenna’s meddling had gone that far, even if it did mean that Margaery might be safe to say what she liked.

“Please,” Margaery went on, half turning towards Sansa, still looking pained, “If…If I don’t…If things go wrong, promise me you’ll look after the baby, Sansa. Please.”

Sansa bit her lip, glanced around at the wide eyed looks of the maesters, many of them no doubt wondering why their Regent was offering her child to the protection of a traitor’s daughter.

“It won’t…it won’t matter,” Sansa told her, softly, the words both a promise and a reprimand. “You’ll be fine.”

And then Margaery let out another scream, and seemed to forget about Sansa entirely.

Sansa didn’t let go of her, of course, not when Margaery squeezed her hand again so tightly that she could no longer quite feel it, not when the maesters called for their Regent to push, not when she could look down and see half of a baby pressing between Margaery’s legs.

And then the rest of it came out, covered in blood and gunk, and Sansa wanted to grimace, but she couldn’t help but smile, as one of the maesters reached out with a warm blanket to scoop up the child, to wipe it clean.

Couldn’t help but smile as the baby disappeared underneath blankets, as the maesters all gathered around both it and their Regent, asking if she felt ill at all, if there was anything else that she thought she needed, pressing against her stomach, no doubt, to make sure that there wasn’t another child still in there, or that something was wrong.

The servants bustled about, gathering up the water again to clean Margaery and the baby, and Margaery flopped back against the bed, spent. One of the servants moved forward and covered Margaery in blankets once again, despite how sweaty she looked, at the moment.

Margaery’s death grip around Sansa’s fingers slackened.

One of the maesters gave the child a little pinch, and a piercing wail split the air.

Sansa laughed at the sound.

The baby was alive. More than that, it was awake, it was all right.

That horrid dream she’d had, the one that she had awoken from to find Margaery kissing her, had just been that, a dream. A horrible, silly dream that of course wasn’t true, anymore than the idea that Bran was part of a tree and saying she didn’t belong in the North was true, either, because Bran was dead.

This baby wasn’t.

This baby was fine, and she wasn’t going to have to comfort Margaery that she was going to lose the child, wasn’t going to have to listen to her sobs as she screamed for someone to give her her child.

The baby was fine.

Sansa’s eyes were shining before she even realized it.

They’d done it.

Well, Margaery far more than her, of course, but they’d done it. The baby had finally been born, the last tie to Joffrey gone with it, and they could finally breathe easy once again, Sansa thought.

The baby was born, and Joffrey was finally dead.

She glanced down at Margaery’s fluttering eyes, knew that she had just been through an ordeal, but wondered how she could even want to rest, after this.

The maester holding the child cleared his throat, then. “He looks very healthy, Your Grace,” he said, and Margaery’s eyes fluttered open once more, at those words.

“He?” She breathed, and Sansa’s breath caught in her throat as well, at the realization.

A boy.

Margaery had given birth to a boy. A boy, like they’d so desperately needed, if they were going to achieve what they wanted, if they were going to hang onto the Iron Throne.

A boy.

Sansa couldn’t help it; she did laugh, then.

They really had done it.

The maester nodded. “A healthy baby boy, Your Grace,” he told her, and then held out the child.

Margaery looked exhausted, lines around her face, eyes drooping and dark. She motioned for the maester to hand her child, swaddled as he was now, to Sansa, and Sansa’s breath caught in her throat as the confused looking doctor held the child out, across the bed, towards her.

She took him in her arms, feeling rather faint as she did so, as if she was going to drop him, he was so fragile in her arms. She could barely feel him, inside the blanket, he was so small, she thought, rather surprised by how small he was, even if she had known that newborns tended to be this small.

His tiny eyes were shut, but she didn’t think that he was sleeping, not from the little wail still piercing past his tiny throat. She cradled him against her chest, still feeling like she wasn’t quite holding him correctly, but none of the maesters had reached out to correct her, so she supposed she ought to be doing something right.

She licked her lips.

He was clean, now, his forehead wiped by the blanket or by a towel, she couldn’t quite remember.

He looked beautiful, like his mother. Tiny, bald, and perfect, his little fists clenched tightly around the edge of the blanket.

She didn’t see a hint of Joffrey in him.

Their child, like she’d told Margaery.

She did mean it.

She could almost believe it, now.

The baby finally stopped crying, as she shifted her grip around him, barely able to take her eyes off of him but aware enough to realize that Margaery ought to be one of the first people to hold her child, after all.

She glanced down, and saw that Margaery was staring up at the both of them, Sansa and the child in her arms, with something like a wistful smile on her face.

Sansa felt her breath disappear from her throat. “It…” she turned then, the child in her arms, and beamed at Margaery, who was staring up at her with wide, frightened eyes, seemingly disturbed by Sansa’s lack of a response. “It’s a boy, Margaery,” she repeated, though that was hardly necessary. It was not as if either of them would forget that, after all. “You’ve given birth to a strong son.”

“It’s a boy,” Margaery repeated in a whisper, voice hesitant. “A…boy.”

A boy.

They had planned for a boy, had so needed one, and Sansa had thought that with everything else they’d managed these days, that would be too much to ask for, surely.

Margaery sounded wonderfully shocked by the thought, even if she must have been well aware, as Sansa had been, how fucked they might have been if the child in Sansa’s arms had not been a boy.

Sansa nodded, feeling her eyes pricking with tears, because this child in her arms, wailing his first sounds into this world, was beautiful. Beautiful, and every inch his mother’s son, with auburn brown hair and pale skin, and for a moment, looking down at him, seeing this beautiful thing that Margaery had created out of so much pain, Sansa could almost believe that it would be worth it, that everything was going to be worth it, now.

“Do you…do you want to hold him?” Sansa asked, quietly, and Margaery bit her lip, hesitation written clearly across her face.

It felt strange, to Sansa, to be the one asking if Margaery wanted to hold her own child, but at the same time, when Margaery nodded, it felt horrible to let go of him, either, even if it was to press him into the arms of his own mother, as if she were letting go of her own child, even if it was to hand him over to his mother.

His other mother.

* * *

“Fuck,” Garlan said, as they stepped out into the hall, as more guards moved forward to replace the last ones, locking their prisoner away once more. “What the fuck was that?”

Olenna was leaning heavily on the cane that had been draped under her arm within the cell. She glanced over at her grandson, at the nervous, tight set of his shoulders, at the wide eyed look on his face.

She ought to have set Randyl Tarly to figuring out this Dornishman’s secrets, Olenna supposed.

He supposed that had merely been because of the interrogation.

“That,” Olenna said, far too calmly, “Was a man who knows he’s won, for now and has the right to gloat on it,” she said. “Well, that his people have.”

Her grandson shook his head, reaching up to rub at his face. “Fuck,” he repeated.

She swatted at him with her cane as they walked up the stairs out of the Black Cells. Olenna had a feeling she would not be back down here for a very long time to come.

“Stop saying that word,” she reprimanded him, ironically. “You sound like a commoner.”

Garlan rolled his eyes. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard worse from his grandmother often enough, after all.

Olenna heard another piercing scream, then, the sound of her granddaughter screaming halfway across the palace as she gave birth, the sound that Olenna had only barely been able to escape when she had gone down to the Black Cells.

Her granddaughter certainly had a set of lungs on her; she supposed that was why Baelish had felt the need to make up such an elaborate tale about Joffrey’s death, about Margaery being there, herself.

It wasn’t as if anyone could mistake that sound for other than it was.

Beside her, as they walked into one of the open, empty corridors, Garlan flinched. “Do you think that she…?”

Olenna harrumphed. “Women have been giving birth for thousands of years, Garlan,” she reminded her grandson. “Your own wife managed it just fine, and so will Margaery.”

He swallowed thickly. “And when she does…”

“When she does, we’ll deal with the next problem as we have to,” Olenna said, shrugging. “I’m sure that the Dornish have someone in the castle, to let them know the sex of the child right away.”

Garlan swallowed. “I don’t…understand that,” he said finally, slowly. “What exactly is their plan? You seem to have realized it, but I do not.”

Olenna hummed. “For all that they call themselves a people of passion and vengeance, they’re rather cautious,” she said, dismissively. “They’ll want to know the sex of the child before they decide we’re totally their enemies, when they also will need to contend with Aegon Targaryen.”

Garlan’s brows furrowed. “And they think that we’ll just forget the fleet outside our door?” He asked, coldly.

Olenna hummed. Her grandson was a good fighter, but sometimes, she thought, he could use a bit of Willas’ head for machinations. “They’ll attack us if it’s a boy,” she said, coolly. “Let Aegon Targaryen know that they can be useful to him, loyal. If it’s a girl, they won’t bother; we’re nothing, then.”

Garlan swallowed thickly. “I…”

Margaery let out another pained scream.

“Go to her, but if you care for your sister at all,” Olenna said, as she brushed past Garlan in the hallway, “You will say none of this to her. She already has enough to worry over, just now, and her mind should be on nothing but her child.”

Garlan grimaced; between him and Loras, they had been the least politic of her grandchildren, and she knew that he did not like to keep secrets from his sister considering how close they were, but she also knew that he would, in fact, do as she had asked of him.

It would have to be enough. After all, Margaery would find all of this out sooner or later. Better to spare her this for just a little while.

Olenna didn’t want anything distracting her from her duty, just now.

Garlan nodded, and started to walk towards Margaery’s chambers. Joffrey’s, and Olenna still didn’t understand that, why in the seven hells her granddaughter would insist on moving into the rooms where she had been raped by her own husband, where she had killed her own husband, when the duty of a regent hardly called for it.

Olenna followed her grandson at a slower pace; she didn’t know if her relationship with Margaery was repaired enough that Margaery would specifically ask for her to be there, when she did give birth, but she wanted to be nearby, all the same, at the very least.

“Elinor,” Olenna cried out as she noticed the girl hurrying, no doubt, for the birthing chambers, pushing past Garlan as she did so, looking rather discomfited. When the girl paused and turned to face her, rather wide eyed, Olenna almost felt badly about the way she had treated the girl, up until this point.

Elinor pulled up short, looking rather discomfited.

And well she might, Olenna thought, considering the last conversation they’d had, when she had reminded the other girl who she belonged to, when Elinor had told her that she fully intended on going back to Highgarden, the moment she got permission from either Margaery or Sansa.

Well, she was in for a bit of a surprise, Olenna thought, if she was still that foolish.

Olenna imagined the fact that the maesters had all stopped agreeing to continue her husband’s treatments had been lesson enough for Elinor, or if she would finally do as she was told, this time.

After all, the thing Olenna was about to ask of her was of the utmost importance.

Instead, she reached out and snatched Elinor’s wrist in an iron grip. “There is something I need you to do for me, my dear girl,” she said, and, even as Elinor attempted to pull away from her, “And if you do so, I will consider things between us…even, once more.”

Elinor stared at her, squinted. “I want to go home,” she said. “Margaery can offer me that. Sansa can offer me that, now that they say she’s awake again.”

Olenna harrumphed.

“But I rule in Highgarden, darling, you know that,” Olenna said, and, after a moment, Elinor gave her a miserable nod.

Olenna smiled. “Good girl. Now, about that favor you’re going to owe me…”

Elinor swallowed hard.

* * *

“What are you going to name him?” Megga asked, sounding more childlike than she ever had, to Sansa’s ears.

The other girls had been let into the birthing chambers the moment that the maesters had determined that Margaery was well enough to receive visitors for a little while, before she really did need to rest, all of Margaery’s ladies crowding around the bed to stare at the little wonder in Margaery’s arms.

The other ladies, the ones who had come for gossip, had not been allowed in. The maesters had claimed it was because Margaery could only stand so many visitors, just now, but Sansa wasn’t sure that was the case.

She’d seen Margaery whispering in their ears earlier, after all.

But Mace was here, even if the rest of the family did not seem to be, crowding around, his eyes bright with unshed tears as he stood at the other side of Margaery’s bed, staring down at the child in her arms as if it was the most perfect sight he’d seen.

Sansa rather understood the feeling.

Sansa had stepped back a little, to allow them room. This was Margaery’s victory, of course, and a little bit Sansa’s, but they were Margaery’s friends, these girls, as they were Sansa’s, and they deserved to celebrate with her a little, after all, when Sansa had heard how worried they were that the child would be a girl and that Cersei was going to see them all killed for their defiance against her.

The highness that Sansa felt, in that moment, started to fade, but not entirely.

After all, Margaery and the babe, sitting propped up by pillows on the bed, looked as pretty as a picture.

Glowing, Sansa would almost say, for all that Margery still looked exhausted.

But what the child would be called had contributed to that sudden reality spreading across Sansa, too.

Because the child in her arms, even if it had been born of pain and was beautiful, still must be a Lannister. And the best way to ensure that would be to name him something that sounded Baratheon, or Lannister, or...

Margaery licked her lips. “Nikoelas,” she said, softly, and Sansa’s brows furrowed in confusion. “His name is going to be Nikoelas.”

The child in Sansa’s arms gurgled loudly, as if he knew his mother was speaking of him, and the girls around Sansa laughed hesitantly at the sound.

“Nikoelas,” Alla repeated finally, dumbly. “Margaery...Your Grace, that is a very...Tyrell name,” she said.

Margaery hummed. “Yes, it is,” she said, her eyes fluttering.

And Sansa...Sansa knew she ought to be worried, that Margaery had not chosen a more fitting name, but a part of her was relieved, as well. Relieved that she did not have to look down at the child in her arms and think of him as a Lannister, or a Baratheon, when he was neither.

“The Regent needs her rest,” one of the maesters who had remained behind to ensure Margaery’s health announced, then.

He was ushering them all out of the room, then, and Mace reached down to squeeze his daughter’s shoulder, to whisper to her that he was proud of her.

She offered him a wan smile, and then turned to Sansa.

“You’ll take him, won’t you?” She asked, holding the child out to her. “I…I don’t think I could entrust anyone else with him, at the moment.”

Sansa smiled, stepping forward to take the child from her arms. “Of course,” she whispered, and, after glancing around to make sure that no one else was looking, kissed her forehead. “I’m proud of you, too.”

Margaery blushed, which was a rather curious thing, Sansa thought. Cute, though. Terribly cute.

Sansa took the child into her arms, glanced down at him now that he had a name. Smiled.

“Nikoelas,” she whispered, as she watched Mace step out of the room. “It’s a good name.”

Margaery nodded, tiredly. “For a Tyrell King,” she whispered, and Sansa bit her lip, then nodded, didn’t bother to ask if Margaery thought it was wise, because it didn’t matter, now.

Besides, the name rather fit him.

Sansa nodded again, promised that she would be back with Nikoelas the moment Margaery had the rest she needed, told her not to worry.

Stepped out into the hallway, glancing back once to see that Margaery’s eyes had already fluttered closed.

She glanced down at Nikoelas again, in her arms. He let out a sound that might have been a yawn, and Sansa laughed a little.

“Just like your mother,” she said, smiling.

The boy made a cooing sound, and Sansa’s smile widened.

“Nikoelas,” she said. “Do you like that name?”

“That’s the one she decided on?” A voice asked, and Sansa glanced up, saw that Elinor was one of the few people still milling in the hall. Sansa’s brows furrowed as she realized that Elinor hadn’t been there when Margaery had announced her choice in a name, though she’d been out in the hall, before that.

Sansa nodded.

“It’s a beautiful name,” Elinor said, smiling slightly. “I hope I didn’t steal Willas, from her.”

To be honest, when she thought about it, Sansa was a little surprised that Margaery hadn’t chosen to name her son Loras. But then, she wouldn’t want to draw attention to the closeness with her brothers, not after Cersei.

Nikoelas was a Tyrell name, but not too Tyrell.

“I don’t think so,” Sansa offered, softly. She wondered if she was glowing, too, from the look that Elinor was sending her way. “She seemed very certain.”

Elinor nodded. Then, “I can take the child,” Elinor said quietly, holding her arms out. “He needs to rest, too, after all, and he isn’t as tired as his dear mama, and they’ve set him up a rather adorable nursery. And you can stay with Margaery.”

Sansa had seen it; it was fit for a king, but rather too large, in her opinion, this nursery Joffrey had insisted on making up for his little prince.

She glanced back longingly toward the room she had just left, wondering how Elinor had known exactly what she wanted; to be there with Margaery when she awoke.

But Margaery had given the child to her, after all. Had asked her to hold onto him, had entrusted him to her. She didn’t think she ought to leave him, either.

She sighed; she knew Elinor after all, trusted her, as even Margaery did, even if she was pretending to be angry with her, lately.

Well, Sansa didn’t know if she still was, now. It had been some time that Sansa had been ill, after all.

And Sansa could have Elinor bring the child to them the moment Margaery was awake, once more.

Sansa bit her lip. Something deep within her told her she shouldn’t let go of this child, now that he was in her arms. That she should hold onto him as long as she could.

But instead, she placed him in Elinor’s arms.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the Margaery in her dreams, the one she had tried desperately to forget about from the moment she’d awoken, screaming for her baby, screaming to know where he was, while half a dozen women tried to hold her back.

Something was wrong.

But it was just a dream, she told herself. Whatever she thought about the rest of it, that horrifying conversation with her brother, Winterfell, the Iron Throne covered in ash…it had all just been some horrible dream, far too horrible to be true.

And Elinor…Elinor was one of the few people in King’s Landing Sansa knew she could trust.

The baby cooed, in Elinor’s arms.

Elinor, whom she would have thought would be long gone by now, back to Highgarden as she had begged of Margaery, or Sansa, as well.

Elinor smiled down at the child, and then up at Sansa. Her eyes were full of tears.

Sansa forced herself to smile back, to not think, right now, about why Elinor should be crying when this was such a happy moment.

She trusted Elinor, she reminded herself. Margaery trusted Elinor, and that should be enough for her. And Sansa really did want to be there when Margaery awoke, especially now that things had finally been settled between the two of them.

“I’ll take care of him, I promise,” Elinor cooed, looking down at the babe in her arms and not at Sansa at all.

Sansa felt the worry in her chest lift a little, at those words.

“You just take care of Margaery,” Elinor went on, and there was something thick in her words, as if she hadn’t quite let go…

Sansa nodded, if a bit shakily.

Elinor moved, to take the child somewhere he could rest without so many people about, of course.

Still, Sansa found herself calling out after the other girl, not quite sure why it mattered, in this moment, “Elinor?”

The girl turned back, raising a brow.

Sansa swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you leave? I thought…I thought you would, after…”

Elinor’s smile was wan. “The same reason you didn’t, when they thought that poison would take you, I’m sure,” she said, and Sansa’s brows furrowed, totally lost by whatever that meant.

Still, Elinor was smiling as she walked out of Margaery’s chambers with the child.

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut as something like a migraine hit her, with the sound of the door shutting after Elinor, as she heard the sound of Margaery screaming for her baby.

As, moments later, she heard the call to arms, that King’s Landing was under attack from the harbor.

* * *

“Where is he?” Were Margaery’s first words as she awoke, breasts aching, hands reaching automatically for a child who was not in them. She glanced around, at her ladies, all gathered around her bed with identical frowns, none of them meeting her gaze.

Something like panic twisted in Margaery’s stomach, something horrible and desperate. She tried to sit up, and pain shot through her spine.

“Your Grace, you should…” Alla began, but she hadn’t answered Margaery’s question, and Margaery couldn’t hear the happy noises of her son, which had lulled her back to sleep, earlier.

“Where is my baby?” She demanded again, and she didn’t know why she was crying, why the tears were spilling down her cheeks, why her stomach was tying itself in knots, didn’t know why none of her ladies would meet her eyes.

She did sit up again, this time, despite the pain it caused, glaring out at her ladies as she did so.

“Where is he?” She demanded, reaching down to throw the blankets off of her legs, because it suddenly felt too hot in here, with so many bodies that weren’t her son.

And she didn’t understand why none of them would answer her question.

“He’s gone, Your Grace,” Alla said, finally, and Margaery stared at her, not understanding the words, but understanding them enough for the panic within her to rise.

She blinked, stupidly, whispered soundlessly, “Gone?” As they all stared at her like they thought she was going to break apart at any moment.

She climbed to her feet, ignoring their startled cries as they all reached out for her, pushing them away as their hands touched her, because their hands burned just now, and her breasts ached, and she needed to find her son.

It was a feral, desperate feeling, this thing rising up within her, telling her that she needed to find her baby, and now.

No, no, no. No, something was wrong.

She’d felt him, in her arms, not so long ago, and nothing had been wrong, then. He’d been…strong, alive, in her arms.

Beautiful.

 _Gone_.

“ _Where_?” The word ripped out of her throat like a scream. Alla winced.

And then,

“Margaery,” she whispered, and then Sansa was there, taking Margaery in her arms and holding her tightly, pressing Margaery up against her, even though Margaery had thought she was the only one who understood how Margaery didn’t like to be touched, anymore, but-

Touching her son had not felt so bad.

He had been so soft, in her arms. So innocent, and Margaery had stared down at him in those moments and realized that she had been wrong to fear this boy, her child, while he was still in her womb.

He wasn’t anything like his father.

He was hers, and he was beautiful, and now…

“Sansa, where is my baby?” She asked, and only just barely managed to choke the words out, because she was crying so hard and the tears were wetting Sansa’s shirt, as Sansa pulled back for long enough to meet her eyes.

“Margaery…” Sansa took a deep breath, and dear gods, Margaery thought, not her, too. She couldn’t stand it if Sansa started refusing to answer her, too, she just couldn’t.

Sansa bit her lip, but she didn’t look away from Margaery’s gaze. “Margaery,” she said, and Margaery didn’t understand why they were all on pins and needles around her, why they all wouldn't just tell her the damned truth, “Margaery, something’s happened.”

Margaery swallowed hard, her heart skipping a beat. “No,” she whispered, hoarsely. “No, he was…he was healthy, in my arms. He was fine. He…”

She choked on her own tears, and stared at Sansa desperately, as the other girl’s face morphed, in front of her.

“No,” Sansa said, very softly. “He’s fine, Margaery. Nikoelas is _fine_.”

“Then where is he?” She cried out, and she didn’t care that she was screaming, didn’t care that Sansa flinched in front of her, because they had just promised themselves to each other, and now, Sansa wouldn’t even tell her where her baby was, this baby that they had sacrificed everything for, and Margaery didn’t understand why Sansa, of all people-

“Dorne is attacking us, Margaery,” Sansa said, and Margaery just blinked at her stupidly, because the two things didn’t connect, in her mind. She didn’t understand what politics had to do with her child, not when she had held him in her arms and he’d been perfect.

Sansa swallowed hard. “Your grandmother…she thought it best to take Nikoelas to Highgarden, where he would be safe, in case things go…badly, here. That way, there are two seats of power for the throne, and less likelihood of the Crown falling-”

Margaery stared at her, betrayed, barely able to comprehend the things she was hearing. “You…” she shook her head. “What? You…You let her take my baby away from us?”

And Sansa was blurring, before her eyes, but Margaery didn’t try to stop the tears, because dear gods, what was happening?

Why…why would Sansa agree to let them take her baby from her? She didn’t understand that. She had thought…Sansa loved her, and she had thought that love would extend to their child, too, had thought that Sansa would do anything to protect him…

“It’s for his own protection, Margaery,” Sansa said, but the words sounded feeble, Margaery decided, and her eyes shifted. Guilt. “The Crown isn’t…safe, right now, and Olenna thought-”

“My grandmother cares about one thing!” Margaery cried, and she could feel a vein beating against her neck, the way it had always done on Joffrey’s face when he got particularly furious, and she didn’t care, she didn’t care, as she struggled to her feet and Sansa got up with her, “She cares about the fucking stability of House Tyrell! She doesn’t care about us. She doesn’t care about my son. She just cares that House Tyrell stays on top, Sansa. But he’s _my_ fucking baby, not hers!”

She knew it to be true, for the first time since her grandmother had first taken Margaery into her arms and told her that her mother was a shallow little thing, and that Olenna would be taking over her education, now.

Had raised her as her own daughter, rather than her granddaughter, because finally, here was a child that Olenna could be proud of, a child that she wanted, a child that she could mould into whatever she liked.

And she was the matriarch of House Tyrell, so Alerie Hightower had sat back and let it happen, just as Olenna was expecting Margaery to do, now, as she did the same thing with Margaery’s son.

As she took him away from his mother, to raise him as the heir to the throne, and not as a little boy.

She reached up, wiping at her eyes, more and more aware of the dozens of nobles swarming around them, watching them in silence, and she tried not to care if she had said anything incriminating, anything about the baby being theirs, because damn them all.

She was their queen, and they shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be seeing her like this.

They had all stood by, and let Olenna take her baby away from her.

Sansa sniffed; it was only then that she realized Sansa had been crying, as well, that her eyes were puffy and red, just like her nose.

“Margaery…” she whispered, and Margaery just stared at her, because she didn’t understand how, out all of them, Sansa could sit back and let Olenna do this. Could try to justify it to Margaery, now, when her child had been ripped from her arms while she was sleeping, because surely Olenna knew that if she had been awake, she would never have let her take her baby away from her.

“He’ll come back,” Sansa promised. “She promised she would bring him back. When things are…when things are safe, and King’s Landing isn’t under siege, she’ll bring him back. She will. He’s the King.”

No, Margaery wanted to tell her, but didn’t, because Sansa clearly couldn’t see what she could. No, she wouldn’t. And there was guilt in Sansa's eyes, even as she uttered those reassurances, even as all of Margaery's ladies looked just as fucking guilty as she.

Instead, all she could get out was a terrified sob.

Her baby.

Her baby was gone, stolen from her while she had been sleeping, and this was every bit of the nightmares that had plagued her in the months leading up to her child’s delivery, save for that they were all worries about the wrong thing, then.

Her child had been stolen from her.

By her own damned family, claiming to do it for his own protection, but Margaery knew the truth. Knew that her grandmother had done it for the strategic value that it allowed, and nothing more.

That she knew keeping them together would be a mistake, either because it would leave them as open targets, or because it would make Margaery weak; Margaery didn’t care to figure out which, at the moment.

Her eyes blurred with tears that spilled down her cheeks, as she forgot how to breathe, as she thought of those long months where she had dreaded the thought of her child’s birth, of what he might come out as, all seeming rather silly, now.

Her child had been perfect, and she had only been able to see him for a few scant moments before her own family had stolen it from her, and she didn’t care to hear their reasons, just now.

King’s Landing would always be in some sort of trouble, because it was the seat of power in Westeros, and they had it. There would always be someone trying to take it from them, always some excuse for her son to remain in Highgarden, being raised by someone else, someone who had created Margaery, had created her ambitions, her drive to do whatever it took.

Olenna would always have a reason to keep him there, and Margaery would never get him back. Because he wasn’t Margaery’s child, anymore. He was the King, and the future of House Tyrell, and that was all that Olenna would ever see him as.

Margaery wouldn’t see him again, not until he was old enough to not know her as his mother, not until he, too, realized that everything Olenna taught her, every ambition, every want…

It wasn’t worth it.

The words rang hollowly in her ears, not the first time she had considered them, but the first time she realized they were real.

Here she was, finally the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and she couldn’t even keep her own child from being taken from her. Others ruled in her place, because the cost of what had happened to her had been too much, and even Sansa knew more about what it was to be a queen, now, than Margaery ever had.

None of it had been worth it, because if she’d just been a little less ambitious, she wouldn’t still be queen. She could have had Sansa, they could have had a child, a child who would be a real little girl or boy, who woudln’t be thought of only as the King, and they wouldn’t live in constant fear of someone taking the throne from them, something Margaery wasn’t even certain-

“Dorne is attacking us?” She whispered, the words finally piercing through, finally meaning something, in her mind, even as her breasts ached, a reminder that her son wasn’t here. She sniffed.

Sansa hesitated, and then nodded. “I…Yes,” she said. “Right now. But we need to have the maester look at you, Margaery, and you need to rest before you do anything. Come, lay down, please.”

She wrapped an arm around Margaery’s shoulders, led her back into her rooms.

Her ladies all still stood inside, none of them looking at her still, all of them looking so damned guilty, and Margaery didn’t look at any of them as she squinted at Sansa and whispered, “How long ago did they leave?”

How long ago had they stolen her baby from her, so that Olenna could raise him under her thumb, the same way she had Margaery and Willas, their mother a distant figure in their own lives?

How long had she been asleep, innocent in the knowledge that her son wasn’t even in the same building as she was?

How could she have been such a fool, to ever take her eyes off of him in the first place?

Sansa gave her a sympathetic look. “They’re long gone by now, Margaery. The moment Olenna saw the fleet beginning to attack us, she had them take him.”

Margaery swallowed; she couldn’t get her throat to work, couldn’t feel wetness there, and for a moment, she thought she might be choking. “I see,” she whispered, dully, and all of her ladies were almost facing away from them, now, as Sansa tucked her back into bed like a fragile little doll.

But Margaery fought against her quickly enough, realizing that she couldn’t just lay back down and be still, just now, not even for Sansa. Not with this going on.

She was a Regent, even if her grandmother had taken the child she was meant to serve as Regent for.

It was her duty to deal with this, and if she had no child to hold in her arms just now…

“I need…I need to go out there,” Margaery said, as Sansa tried to shush her, and Margaery didn’t understand why Sansa kept trying to shush her, kept acting like they weren’t on the same side here, when Margaery had thought they were.

Had always thought that they were.

She licked her lips. “I need to honor our agreement with Dorne, even if Arianne isn’t,” she gritted out. “I need to go out there.”

Sansa shushed her again. “It’s all right, Margaery,” she promised. “They’re taking care of it.”

But Margaery was already shaking her head, gripping Sansa so hard by the arms that the other girl flinched.

“Sansa Stark, I swear by all the old gods and the new, if you tie me down to this bed or try to keep me here while the Martells take my throne away from me after you let Olenna take my son, I will never forgive you for it.”

Sansa stared at her, eyes blown wide, and Margaery thought that was the moment when she realized; when she realized that Margaery was furious at Olenna, yes, but at her too, for standing by and doing nothing while Olenna took her child away, used this one event as an excuse to make sure that Margaery didn’t raise her own son.

Sansa took a step back, and then another, and Margaery climbed off of the bed.

Margaery almost stumbled, getting out of it, and Sansa was instantly there again, gripping her by the arm.

“All right,” Sansa said, swallowing thickly. “I will help you, but please, Margaery, take it easy.”

Margaery grit her teeth. “Sansa, I love you, but either help me now, or get out of my way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are over, and I'm...uhm...sorry? *Runs away*


	41. The North

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for contemplations of suicide, allusions to violent assault.

_“You didn’t heed my warning,” Bran said, and Arya sat up, from where she was laying on her side in the snow, in this strange little cave that her living self had never seen before. “You stayed.”_

_She groaned, reaching up to rub at her eyes. “This is just a dream,” she spat out, as she met Bran’s eyes, where he sat…in the tree, of the tree, Arya couldn’t say for certain. “You’re just a dream.”_

_His smile was razor sharp. “Oh, but you know that isn’t true, Sister,” he said, and she shivered at the coldness in his voice. “After all, you found Rickon.”_

_Arya lifted her head. “Wh…You know about that?” She said, only a moment later remembering that if he was just a part of her dreams, and not real at all, then of course he would know about that._

_After all, Rickon had been haunting her thoughts long before she fell asleep back at the inn._

_Bran’s smile turned sad, now. “Rickon has been…long in my thoughts,” he said, and he didn’t sound like Bran at all, at least, not hers. “I should never have sent him away. I thought…At the time, I thought I was protecting him, by sending him away. That was…wrong of me.”_

_Arya licked her lips, standing now. She moved a little closer to her brother, eying the tree that he seemed tethered to._

_She heard the sound of a crow, cawing loudly, which struck her as strange, in such a barren wasteland._

_“When did you do that?” She asked, swallowing hard, because even if this was a dream, she found she wanted to know the truth._

_He shook his head. “When I thought that I knew what my future was to be, and did not know what his was at all,” he said, which was not an answer at all._

_After all, Bran had told her what he thought her future was to be earlier, as well. Arya didn’t think his idea of Destiny ought to take._

_“He’s…” Arya swallowed hard, squatting down in front of her brother, in front of the tree. “He’s changed,” she whispered. “He…looked like an animal, down there. Not like himself, at all. Theon said…”_

_Bran’s lip curled, at the reminder of Theon, and that alone made Arya wonder._

_Made her wonder if her resolve that this was only a dream was true at all. She swallowed hard._

_“Theon said that Ramsay is a horrible prison guard,” she said, because she wouldn’t say ‘master,’ as Theon had called the other man, at the time. “That he’s cruel to his prisoners. That if Rickon has been with him this long, it’s likely that there’s…that there’s very little of our little brother left.”_

_She waited for some sort of reaction from Bran, anything._

_He swallowed hard; she thought she saw pain in his eyes._

_It vanished quickly enough._

_“You can’t stay here and worry about Rickon,” Bran said, softly. “You have to leave him here; he won’t survive, the journey you have to take. You know this, just as I do.”_

_Arya raised a brow. “And will I?” She asked, sardonically. “You’re asking me to go North, Beyond the Wall, and to murder my own brother.” She swallowed. “The Bran I knew would neverhave asked me such a thing. Ever.”_

_Bran lifted his chin. “I’m not the Bran you knew,” he said, as if it were just that simple. “And you’re not the Arya I knew. The only one of us who is still the same, who hasn’t died to her past, is Sansa, and even then, she’s not the sister I knew, either.”_

_Arya swallowed hard. She didn’t want to talk about Sansa, didn’t want to think about her, because every time she did, she thought about how she hadn’t gone to King’s Landing to free her, how she had killed…_

_“I won’t leave Rickon here,” Arya bit out each word carefully, so that there was no chance Bran would misunderstand. “He’s my brother, your brother. And I certainly won’t do it because you want me to kill Jon.”_

_Bran shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, in the end. “Then we’re all doomed,” he told her. “You, Sansa, Rickon. None of you will survive what is coming if you don’t go North and kill Jon.”_

_She stared at him, felt tears rushing down her cheeks without her even noticing. She reached up; her fingers came away wet. “Why?” She demanded. “Why would you ask this of me? Why would you do this?”_

_He swallowed hard. “I’m only trying to tell you the truth, Arya,” he whispered. “It isn’t my fault if you won’t believe it.”_

_She shook her head. “No,” she said, standing to her feet once more. “No, this place fucks with your mind. It does. When I was awake, I had resolve. I knew what I had to do, what the answer was. Fuck Destiny.”_

_It sounded so weak, here._

_Bran stared at her for a moment, and then he threw back his head and laughed. When he looked at her again, he, too, was crying._

_“You’re so selfish,” he told her, and Arya jerked, at his words. “You would consign all of us to death, would kill your own siblings, because you don’t want to do the one thing that could save them. Because you don’t like the idea of having a destiny.”_

_Arya shivered; she couldn’t stand the accusation in his tone, the anger there. Her mouth opened and closed, with no sound coming out. “I-”_

_“You were always like that,” Bran continued, the words biting more than the cold air, cruel. “Selfish. Only wanting what you wanted, with no regard to family, to duty.”_

_Arya shook her head, opened her mouth again. “No,” she whispered, harshly. “No, I was never…I loved my family. I would have…”_

_He laughed again. “Then go North, and prove it,” he snapped at her. “You’re the only one who can. The only one who can do this, who can stop what is coming, this unstoppable force that will destroy all of us, and not just us, Arya. Not just us, but everyone will die because of you. Because you couldn’t do what had to be done.” He lifted his chin. “Do you think you’re the only one who had to make sacrifices? Do you think I wanted this responsibility?” He gestured to the cave around them. “That I asked for it?”_

_Arya took a step back, and then another. “Stop talking,” she whispered._

_“You had a destiny, Arya,” Bran went on. “If you’d stayed at the House of Black and White, like you were supposed to, if you’d finished your training, instead of running away like a scared little girl the first time they asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, Jon would already be dead. We’d already be safe. But you had to run, like you always do.”_

_Arya felt her mouth growing dry. “Shut up,” she whispered, and her voice was shaking._

_“Tell me, Arya, why bother to learn to fight at all, to learn to kill, if you’re always just going to run from your problems?” Bran continued, merciless._

_She felt her fists clench, at her sides. “I wanted to get revenge on the people who did this to us,” she snapped. “The Lannisters, the Boltons, all of them are going to pay. That’s why I went there, not to kill my brother, not to steal more of my fucking family away from me, too!”_

_Bran made a noise of disgust. “And what have you done to achieve that?” He asked her, cocking his head. “Is Cersei Lannister dead? How about Joffrey, did he die at your hands? Ilyn Payne? The Mountain?” He scoffed. “You couldn’t even kill the Hound, when you had the chance.”_

_Arya swallowed hard. This was just a dream, she told herself. There was no way that the real Bran could know any of this._

_“You haven’t done anything to save your family,” he went on. “To get vengeance for them. Deep down, you’re still the terrified little girl who is going to watch more of your family die before you’re willing to step up and do what needs to be-”_

_“I said shut UP!” Arya screamed, the words ripping past her throat like open wounds._

_Bran stared at her for a moment, and then closed his mouth._

_Arya’s nails were digging so hard into her palms that little drops of blood had begun to fall into the snow._

_“You’re just a dream,” she whispered, into the silence the followed. “You’re not my brother, and I will not listen to you any longer.”_

_Bran met her eyes; his own were impossibly sad, fathomless. Arya looked away, finding that she couldn’t quite meet them._

_“Sansa didn’t listen to me, either,” he informed her, and Arya’s breath caught in her throat. “She came here, in her dreams, and didn’t listen to a word I tried to tell her, and even now, she’s suffering for it. Her…lover suffers for it. An innocent will suffer because of it.”_

_Arya shivered. “You can’t know that,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re making all of this up. You’re just my imagination, my guilt, for the fact that Ramsay Bolton is still standing proud in Winterfell and I am not, that my family still suffers when I should have done something about it by now. That’s all you are.”_

_Bran pressed his lips together. “I am the Three Eyed Raven,” he told her. “I See All, and I Know All.”_

_She shook her head, taking another step back. “Well, clearly you don’t know enough,” she said. “Not if you think I will ever kill my own broth-”_

_“I know that Nymeria won’t come to you,” Bran interrupted her, then, and Arya fell silent. “That you’ve been calling for her, from the moment you stepped into the North again, dreaming about her, and she won’t come to you.”_

_Arya hugged herself. “You can’t possibly know that-”_

_“Won’t, not can’t,” Bran continued. “She roams these woods like a wild thing,” he lifted his hands, gesturing around them. “A little bit like Rickon. It might be kinder to put her down.”_

_Arya was shaking, all over, though she wasn’t particularly cold. “What is_ wrong _with you?” She demanded, tears flinging themselves from her skin, crystalizing. “What_ happened _to you?”_

_Bran shook his head. “I grew up,” he said. “I saw the end of Time itself, and I grew up.”_

_Arya shook her head. “Do you know what I loved about my brother the most?” She asked him. “My Bran?”_

_He stared at her, silent._

_“I loved his hope, his…insatiable curiosity,” Arya said. “He used to climb the walls around WInterfell like they were nothing, like he could find every nook and cranny in our entire home before he was twelve summers old.”_

_Bran was shaking, now._

_“I loved that he never took ‘no,’ for an answer, even if sometimes it infuriated our parents,” Arya continued, and her voice was shaking as she said these things. “I loved that no matter how high a tower might be, how insurmountable, according to our mother, he would climb it, anyway, just to see if he could. That was courage. That was…hope. Hope that there was always a way.”_

_She met his eyes._

_“There’s always another way, Bran,” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened to you, but there is always a way out. You just have to_ look _for it. That’s what I learned at the House of Black and White. That’s what brought me home.”_

_He stared at her for a moment longer, and then sighed. “Arya…”_

_“I can see that my brother is still in there, somewhere,” Arya went on. “And this is the thing I want him to know. I need him to know that I’m not No One, any longer. I’m Arya Stark, and I’m home. I’m going to save Rickon, and then I’m going to save Winterfell. And then, when I’ve done that, I’m going to come North and find you. Save you from…whatever this is,” she gestured around them. “And we’ll figure out what to do from there.”_

_The tears were spilling down his cheeks. “You’re going to damn us all,” he whispered._

_She shook her head, moving closer, hesitant to touch him. “I’m going to save us,” she promised him. “And Jon. And Time itself, if that’s what it fucking takes to get my family back together again.”_

_She felt his tears slipping down onto the hands that were too afraid to touch him. She smiled, sadly, and leaned forward, kissing his ice cold forehead._

_And then, her world shattered._

_“But you won’t,” he whispered. “That isn’t your destiny. Your destiny is to kill Jon so that a Dragon can save us all from what is coming.”_

_She shook her head, pulled back, straightened up. “I told you, Bran, I’m getting my family back together. That includes Jon. He’s our brother, and one day, you’ll remember why that matters more than anything else. More than war, and sides. More than vengeance.”_

_Bran’s eyes glistened as the world twisted around her. “He’s not our brother, Arya,” he whispered, and her world turned on its head._

_She could hear the wind howling, outside their cave. “I…what?”_

_“He’s our cousin,” Bran went on, merciless. “He’s the bastard son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen,” Bran said, the words uttered like a curse, and Arya flinched, not because of that, but because she could hear the Truth in Bran’s words, just as they had been there when he had spoken of Destiny, of being the Three Eyed Raven._

_Her world shattered._

“Arya!” Theon was shaking her, and Arya threw him off, watched as he fell off of the bed and onto the floor, grimacing a little.

It was an ingrained reaction, at this point.

He lifted his hands from where he fell on the floor, clearly trying to tell her that he wasn’t a threat, and Arya forced herself to breathe, again.

“You were crying out, again,” he said, softly, as if talking to a wounded animal. She didn’t like the comparison, not after everything that he’d been through and she had not. “I thought it best to wake you.”

Well, she didn’t think he’d ever try to wake her again by putting his hands on her, so that was something.

Arya sat up a little, wiping at her eyes, trying to pretend that she hadn’t also been crying in her sleep, too.

“I was…” she paused then, realizing that she didn’t owe an explanation to Theon, of all people. She’d heard his nightmares often enough, after all.

He wasn’t quite looking at her, just now, anyway.

She wondered if it was because she had thrown him across the room, or because of how she had looked when he watched her kill Myranda, earlier.

It was going to have to stop now, though, if they had a prayer of pulling off the plan that had formulated in her mind as they made their way back to the inn.

And, as they walked back to the inn, as the innkeeper took one look at them and decided not to ask a single question, as they made their way back to their room, a plan began to formulate itself in Arya’s mind, as to how she was going to do exactly that.

The village people hated their lives under Ramsay.

Arya could tell that easily enough, just from the short amount of time that she’d spent back in the North, from the old innkeeper who didn’t seem to care that a lady heard her speak her mind, to the boys who lingered outside the village, watching her and Theon come back from Winterfell as if they knew exactly where she had been and why.

The North had always been a bit like that. Distrustful, cold, its people having weathered enough to know whether one was good or bad, inherently.

Arya was inherently bad; she knew that, at this point, after everything that she had done. Her soul was black, in a way that she could never wipe clean, and the people of the North somehow knew that, even if Theon only seemed to just be figuring it out.

They knew she was bad, but she still hoped that she could gain their trust, anyway. But she was smart enough to know that she would never gain it alone.

“Theon,” she said, tiredly, from where she sat on the bed beside him, “There’s going to be more people that I kill than just Myranda, before this is over.”

He had to understand that, if he was going to remain by her side. She hadn’t asked him to, after all, but she would not abide his judging her for killing again, in the future, not when Ramsay Bolton remained the Lord of Winterfell.

Theon, leaning away from her already, shuddered. “Arya…”

“You’re going to have to make your peace with that,” she continued, “If you want to stay by my side.” She licked her lips. “I understand if it…disturbed you, to see me like that earlier, but you’re going to see it again, and I can’t have the people who eventually follow us seeing you look at me like that.”

“Followers?” He echoed, clearly focusing on that so that he did not have to respond to the rest of it, beyond the small nod that he gave her.

Arya swallowed hard, not really wanting to have to focus on that part, herself. “You stayed here, for a while,” she said, slowly. “The villagers. They hate Ramsay, don’t they?”

He swallowed.

“I’ve seen a little bit of it so far,” Arya said, shrugging her shoulders. “That the soldiers are disliked, that they take what they like.”

And she doubted it was just the inn’s food, either. She knew enough about soldiers, these days, to be able to tell that.

“Ramsay himself, though, his men are terribly loyal to him,” she went on, when Theon was silent. “Even if the people do hate him.”

Theon grimaced. “They’re terrified of him,” he whispered, hoarsely. Arya raised a brow. “All of them. The people, the soldiers. He does things…the way that he acts, when he has control and wants someone to know it…He’s terrifying.”

His voice shook, on that last word.

She had known that whatever it was that had happened to Theon, that had changed him into this creature known as Reek…whatever it was, it was horrifying, because he wasn’t the boy she remembered, not at all.

Gods, he wasn’t anything like she remembered, the confident, cocky boy who thought he could have any woman, who laughed at Robb’s side more often than Jon did, who thought himself a Stark first and foremost.

But the things he had finally told her, things about this madman, Ramsay, who had forced him to grovel at his feet and call him master…Gods, she almost regretted asking what had happened to him, because of this man.

But those things…she shuddered, and wondered how many of those experiences had been shared by her youngest brother, the baby in their family.

Wondered how much Rickon had suffered because she hadn’t come back for him, because no one had.

She got up, then, moving around the bed to kneel in front of Theon and take his hands into hers.

“I’m going to take back my home, Theon,” she whispered. “I meant that. And Ramsay Bolton is going to die for ever thinking that he could lay his hands on Winterfell, or on you, when your repentance was owed to me. To my family.”

Theon shivered.

“And we’re going to start,” Arya went on, “By sending the North a message. By reminding them what they’ve forgotten. Who they are.”

And perhaps, in the process, she could move towards reminding Bran, as well, even if that was only a dream.

She tried not to think about the rest of that dream, about the horrible things that Bran had whispered to her, a Bran who must be real because her own mind could never imagine up such a fate for her brother, a Bran who had told her that Jon was not her brother at all, but the son of-

A dream, her mind repeated.

For now, it could only be a dream.

Especially because she wasn’t about to heed that warning.

She was going to start with Rickon. With the last of the Starks in Winterfell.

Theon took one look at her, and swore softly under his breath. Arya forced a smile.

* * *

Arya knew exactly what she had to do, now. How she could fix this, perhaps the only way that she really could.

Bran hadn’t meant it, in that terrifying dream, to give her a hint on how she needed to move forward, she realized that. He had been trying to talk her out of it, had been trying to convince her to take the path he wanted her to.

But Arya was tired of men telling her how they thought she needed to use her gifts, how she needed to use her future. Where her path would take her.

The Kindly Man had tried; he had tricked her for so long that Arya had found herself believing his every word, his lies about the Many Faced God, the Faceless God, as he had turned out to be.

She reached into her pocket where she crouched behind one of the trees outside of Winterfell, pulling out the golden coin that she had refused to spend since she had resolved to leave Braavos for good. She turned it over in her hands, once, and then twice, her resolve hardening the longer she looked at it.

She shoved it back into her pocket, and straightened to her feet as she finally found what she was looking for, two soldiers walking towards the woods, one of them already reaching to open his trousers and piss against the tree that Arya was hiding behind.

The other was pulling out a flask, drinking from it, and Arya rolled her eyes at the sight, remembered that her father would have had such a man discharged from his own armies if he had caught him drinking on the job.

Well, Arya was going to discharge him in quite a different way, she supposed.

“You think anyone’ll notice if I sneak down to the village again?” The man holding the flask asked, then, his sword shifting against his leg. Arya watched the movement carefully.

The other man rolled his eyes. “Why?” He asked, not sounding particularly interested in the answer. “So you can fuck that fisherman’s cunt daughter again?”

The first man smirked. “You’ve no idea how it feels to have such a tight cunt, I imagine…”

“You know, if you keep sneaking off while you’re supposed to be on duty, someone might actually take the villagers’ concerns about their daughters all being raped by our men seriously,” the second man muttered, pulling his cock free as he moved towards the tree.

Arya held her breath.

A snort. “You think our lord gives a shit about that?”He asked. “How many village girls has he taken?”

“Taken, but never returned,” the second said, and Arya grimaced as he started to piss, as she held herself incredibly still on the other side of the tree. “They’ve no proof what he does to them, in that case.”

A snort. “And that makes it better? Besides, I don’t think he’s even fucking them, whatever it is he’s doing to them. Our fearless leader’s more interested in…other things. This girl, you’ve no idea, the sound of her scream when I finally-”

Arya pounced.

The two men had no idea what was happening to them, not until it was too late.

She cut off the first’s cock; she felt no remorse about that, not after what they had just said, not after what Theon had told her Ramsay had done to him, had done to the girl wearing Arya’s name. He screamed, the sound bloodcurdling, before Arya slit his throat and he fell to his knees, still grasping at his junk.

The second soldier had the time to rip his sword free; he was a brute of a man, and she could just imagine him standing over some poor village girl while her father watched, while she cried and her father could do so very little about it-

He died rather less quickly.

When it was done, Arya was standing over the both of their corpses, watching the breath leave them both, the rush that settled over her too heady to make her feel uncomfortable at first, while she panted and sheathed Needle again.

She would regret it, later. Would wonder what sort of person she was becoming, that she could feel something so heady at the sight of two men she’d killed, two men who weren’t even on her list.

She would dream about Shae, and the Merling Queen.

She would seem them, before she dreamt about them.

When she was well and truly aware again, Arya reached for their uniforms.

It wouldn’t be a wonderful disguise, of course; she doubted that Ramsay Bolton had women in his army, unless they were being passed around by the soldiers, and she was still rather too short to pass for a man.

But it would work in a pinch, which was all she really needed, at the moment.

And, just that easily, Arya Stark walked right through the main doors into her home, into Winterfell, such as it was now, even if she was no longer certain that was her home.

She had considered going in as a servant, and was rather glad that she hadn’t, at this point, not with the things she had overheard those men saying. She was no stranger to the idea that soldiers often took what they wanted, from servants and the poor most of all, but this had simply sounded easier, in the long run.

She walked right past the main guards, the helmet she had pulled down to obscure her hair, half her face, doing its work as she gave them a brief nod, and they barely acknowledged her.

Walked right past them, into the courtyard of Winterfell, the courtyard she had been looking down on earlier, the other day when they had come here, but there was something different about standing in it, now.

Something different about standing on the hard, sodden ground, and knowing how many deaths had occurred here. Knowing how it had changed since Winterfell had once belonged to her brother, her father.

She glanced up at the parapets, wondered where Theon had hung the bodies of the boys he had claimed were her brothers, once.

And then she shook herself, reminded herself that wasn’t why she was here, couldn’t be why she was here, after all.

She was here for her double, and for her brother, and she wasn’t leaving without them, certainly not because she had gotten herself distracted with something as unimportant as feelings, not now, not now that the dream she’d had with Bran had finally told her what she needed to do, even if it wasn’t what Destiny wanted of her.

She marched forward with purpose, knowing from her time as No One that people generally left you alone if they thought that you had a purpose, that you shouldn’t be trifled with. It was only when you hesitated that people wondered about you.

Arya wasn’t going to give them the chance.

Theon had told her that her plan was suicidal, but Arya didn’t think it was. She thought it might have been if he had insisted on coming with her, as he had tried to. But she had done stupider things, as No One.

So she walked, at first thinking she ought to go to her old rooms, because this girl was wearing her name, and no one else’s, but she knew immediately that was the wrong choice.

This Ramsay Bolton did the unholy, fed a woman Theon claimed he’d slept with many times to the dogs.

He would want to fuck Arya Stark in the Lady of Winterfell’s own chambers, as abhorrent as Arya found the thought.

So that was where she went. She didn’t encounter many on the way there, either; apparently, this Lady was not the most sociable of women.

That suited Arya just fine.

She didn’t hesitate when she knocked on the door, banged on it insistently until the door opened, and a serving girl popped her head out, eyes widening at the sight of Arya, before she quickly schooled her expression and lowered her head.

“Again?” She asked, and there was something almost…pained, in her expression, the word a quiet whisper. She glanced over her shoulder, not opening the door all of the way, before turning back to Arya. “Her ladyship has still to…recover, from the last time. His lordship must understand that…”

Arya cleared her throat.

“His lordship wishes the company of his wife,” Arya said, in the deepest voice she could manage. It was helpful, some of what she had learned as No One. Almost worth the memories; the serving girl, a meek, mousy little creature, didn’t even seem to second guess her response. “Now.”

The serving girl blinked up at her for a moment, before lowering her gaze once more, but not before her face went curiously blank.

Perhaps Arya ought to have thought more about that, perhaps she shouldn’t have taken to heart the girl’s sincere questioning of Lady Arya’s health.

She didn’t. Perhaps she wasn’t thinking straight, as Theon had accused her of, now that she finally had a plan. A purpose, after leaving the House of Black and White. Perhaps she was too excited to see what was coming next.

She would only regret it, later.

The girl stepped aside with a little curtsey, and Arya paused, gave her a long look, wondered if she was some creature kidnapped from the village as well, as Arya didn’t recognize her from when she had once lived in Winterfell, or whether this girl had been brought from the Bolton castle.

In any case, it didn’t matter, even if the mousy look on the girl’s face made Arya feel physically ill.

She wasn’t the one that Arya was here for.

Arya Stark, as the girl wearing her name was called, was on the bed as Arya stepped inside, as the serving girl rushed away as quickly as she could manage, and Arya didn’t have the time to think about whether she had bought Arya’s story or not, whether it seemed believable that a guard would have come for Lord Bolton’s wife, and not the lord himself, or some other servant.

Instead, she found herself contemplating the room, the girl sitting on the bed, her legs huddled up against her chest, her eyes squeezed shut, as if she already knew what was coming.

This was not Arya’s bedchamber, but her mother’s. She wondered if Ramsay Bolton fucked his little wife in her own mother’s chambers, and something about the idea seemed absolutely abhorrent to her, even if these were the chambers of the Lady of Winterfell.

She almost didn’t recognize them as her mother’s rooms, that was how much Winterfell had changed from the last time that Arya had been here. It was like a specter of the home she had once known.

And the girl sitting on the bed was yet another ghost from that life, one that she both recognized, and didn’t, and Arya’s heart leapt into her throat.

“Jeyne,” Arya breathed out, coming to a pause.

Jeyne Poole, sitting huddled on the bed, let out a whimper.

Gods, she was going to kill Theon for leaving this out, for telling her that Ramsay Bolton’s new wife was just some random girl, some girl she wouldn’t recognize, as if they didn’t both know this girl.

As if they hadn’t both grown up with her, as surely as they had with Sansa. As if the sight of her, here, wouldn’t throw Arya completely off kilter.

Because Theon…Reek…he hadn’t told her this. Hadn’t told her that the girl masquerading in Winterfell, wearing her face, was Jeyne Poole.

Dear gods, she’d assumed, from the way he’d said it, that they’d just found some girl to look like her, but not Jeyne. Jeyne had been in King’s Landing, with Sansa, the last that Arya had known about it. As scared as Sansa, no doubt, but there, in relative safety as Sansa’s handmaiden, all the same.

Except, now she was here, staring up at Arya with wide, frightened eyes that had seen far too much for her age.

Well, Arya supposed they all had, at this point. Seen too much, done too much, for the ages that they were, to ever go back to the way things had been before, back when Arya had rolled her eyes at Jeyne and Sansa’s antics, every time they made fun of her for acting so “like a boy.”

She stared, hands shaking unconsciously at her sides.

There was blood on Jeyne’s white gown, and she assumed that there was something meaningful in that, that Ramsay had wanted her wearing white, when he soiled it. He seemed like that sort of sadist.

There was a bruise blossoming on Jeyne’s cheek, when she finally looked up enough for Arya to see the rest of her face. It looked like a shadow, against her cheek, reminded Arya of what she was doing here.

Arya took a step forward, hesitant to even do that.

After the things that Theon had told her about Ramsay, about what he did to those he considered his playthings, she didn’t want to frighten Jeyne, but she wasn’t about to leave her here, either, not now that she knew who she was.

Jeyne flinched back.

Arya raised her hands, pained that a girl she hadn’t…particularly liked, but who had been such a part of her childhood, of her place in this home, should be so frightened of her. Didn’t like it at all, not when she was Arya to Jeyne, and not No One. 

“I…I’m not here to hurt you,” she whispered, even though she had been.

Jeyne whimpered. “Arya?” She said, and she said it with no confidence at all in her voice, like she thought she was staring up at a ghost.

Arya grimaced. “It’s me,” she said, lifting her hands a little higher, taking a step closer. “It really is me, Jeyne. I swear.”

Jeyne shook her head, vehemently, and then flinched, obviously in pain. “No,” she breathed. “No, it’s your ghost, come back to haunt me for daring to take your place. Well, I’m sorry. I never wanted…”

She paused, then, noticing Needle, tied to Arya’s side.

Her eyes lifted to meet Arya’s face once more.

“You’re real,” she said, and her voice was dead, no longer full of the stammering terror of a moment ago, which seemed like a strange reaction, to Arya.

Arya nodded, slowly, swallowing hard. “Are you…can you walk?” She asked, not entirely certain the other girl could, from the looks of her.

Jeyne stared at her, a moment longer. Then, “How are you here?” She asked, which didn’t really answer Arya’s question at all.

Arya shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she told Jeyne. “But I am. And I’ve come to take you and Rickon out of this place.”

A single tear dripped down Jeyne’s cheek. She swallowed hard, her eyes going back down to look at Needle, again.

Then, through blistered lips, “Do it,” Jeyne whispered, and Arya reeled back from her, horrified bye the look of resignation in Jeyne’s eyes, the look that almost was like…longing, as if she thought the only way she was ever going to leave this place was at the end of Needle’s point, Arya could hear that much in her voice.

“Do it,” Jeyne repeated, hoarsely, almost leaning into the knife that Arya held against her throat, inviting it. Her eyes were swimming, or maybe those were Arya’s. “Arya, please. Set me free.”

Arya stumbled back from her, remembering at the last moment to breathe, pulling in several gasping breaths as she tried to figure out what this meant, that Jeyne had been walking around, bruised and battered and far too thin for someone living in the North to stay warm, wearing her face as Ramsay Bolton’s wife.

It reminded her, horrifically, of the Merling Queen, right before she had killed her. She had hoped never to see that look in the face of one of her enemies again.

Except…Jeyne wasn’t an enemy. She had been Sansa’s friend, and never Arya’s, but she wasn’t an enemy. She had grown up beside Arya, and whatever was happening now, whatever had led to her masquerading around wearing Arya’s face…she knew it couldn’t be Jeyne’s fault.

It was ironic, Arya thought. All of this time, she had been learning how to become No One, learning to how to wear the faces of others so that she could kill without being Arya Stark, and all of this time, someone had been walking around with her face, never having to be trained in the art at all.

She supposed ironic was the wrong word for it.

And for all that Jeyne had been walking around all of this time wearing Arya’s face and using her name, she didn’t look at all like her. Looked even less like Arya, she thought, than she had before, back when Arya had found her so irritating.

To start with, she was all skin and bones. So thin, that Arya could see every bone in her face, in her hands were they had stopped struggling against Arya. Her face was haggard; she looked like a woman who had seen fifty summers, rather than closer to twenty.

Her hair, once so dark like every Northern girl’s, was grey now, just like an old woman’s.

There were scars on every part of her body that was visible.

Theon hadn’t told Arya who she was, hadn’t told her she was Jeyne and that of course he would know her, but he had told her that she had been Ramsay’s plaything, almost this entire time. That he had used her, had sometimes forced Theon to watch as he used her.

And from the looks of it, Jeyne had suffered just as badly as Theon, maybe even worse, though in a different way.

That way seemed to reflect in her eyes, as they met Arya’s. Arya flinched back, from the sheer power of it.

She didn’t reach for Needle.

Despite the longing in Jeyne’s eyes, Arya wasn’t sure that she could give her that, not after they had grown up together. She hadn’t even been able to kill Theon, when she’d thought he’d killed her brothers, and this was…different.

Jeyne had never done anything to her.

Jeyne was asking for a mercy killing, the way her father used to put down one of the horses when they got ill. The very thought made Arya ill.

The Merling Queen had wanted the same thing, but she hadn’t asked for it.

This…

Arya swallowed hard. “Jeyne, I…”

Jeyne let out a wet laugh, hugging her knees, still not moving from her position on the bed. “You can’t do it, can you?” She asked, cocking her head at Arya. She let out a wet laugh. “For a moment there, I thought maybe you could.”

Arya stared at her, wondered if Jeyne had seen something of No One in her. But even then, it had been a mercy killing that had convinced Arya to leave the House of Black and White.

She shivered.

Jeyne stared at her for a moment longer, and then slowly spread out her legs, on the bed. They weren’t covered, and Arya thought she must be cold.

They were covered in bruises, all of different colors, different times, too, if Arya had to hazard a guess.

The last time Arya had seen Jeyne, she had still been in King’s Landing, with Sansa. A prisoner, yes, but she’d been fine. Alive.

She pulled the helmet off of her head, let it clatter to the floor. Jeyne flinched again.

“Does Sansa know?” She demanded hoarsely, not sure why that was the first question to pop into her head, and not about where Rickon was, as she’d meant to ask the false Lady Arya when she decided to come here at all, how to get to him, whether Ramsay Bolton gave enough of a shit about his wife that she might use her as a hostage. “What happened to you?”

Jeyne stared at her for several long moments, and then shook her head, swallowing hard. “I…Lord Baelish took me away from her, when Ned Stark was…I’m sorry,” she gasped out, when she saw the way that Arya’s face twisted. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Arya shook her head, still terribly confused by all of this. By how Jeyne Poole had ended up wearing her name, in Winterfell, by why Jeyne might be apologizing to her, now, when it was quite clear what Jeyne had suffered in the years since Arya had left her in King’s Landing.

Arya thought about Tyrion Lannister, married to her sister for years in King’s Landing, and fought back a flinch.

“What happened to you? How did you get to be here?” She demanded, the words coming out more harshly than she’d intended them to, truly.

Because she’d known that Petyr Baelish still served the Crown, served the Lannisters, and for that, surely, he deserved to die, but this didn’t make sense.

Why would the Lannisters want a false Arya to marry Ramsay Bolton? Why would they care, when they had already forced her sister to marry the Imp?

“They wanted a Stark in Winterfell,” Jeyne said, and the words trembled as they pushed their way past her chapped lips. She looked like she hadn’t drank any water in days. “There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. They wanted…they wanted to validate the Boltons taking Winterfell, so they brought me here, instead. Had me say I was you and marry Ramsay, but he knows…he knows who I’m not…”

She broke off again, and those were her tears, and not Arya’s.

Arya swallowed hard, her stomach twisting as she asked the question she had really come here to ask. “What about Rickon? He’s a Stark. I saw him…earlier.”

Jeyne’s lower lip trembled. “He’s not…” she took a careful breath, and then another. “He wasn’t here, originally. They…found him. He’d been sent away, hidden on some isle for his protection, but he was more beast than man, when they brought him here. Ramsay…he laughed, when he saw him. Said he looked like a wildling, so he ought to be treated like one.”

Arya swallowed again, her mind wanting to reject every word Jeyne had just said, but finding that she couldn't. “But he’s…”

“No one knows he’s here,” Jeyne went on, as if, now that she had gotten started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. “No one knows. Ramsay thought that would be easier, for when the Lannisters eventually betrayed him, or when the Tyrells do. They already took the Baratheon girl; if they intended to be allies forever, they would have left her here. When they do, he’s going to bring out Rickon and claim he’s his Regent. Claim that the Lannisters treated him falsely when they married him to me, not really a Stark at all. And Rickon, he’s…too far gone, to ever protest.”

She seemed to know a disturbing amount about Ramsay’s plans, for a creature that Ramsay had only ever brutalized, according to Theon and the evidence before her.

Arya stared at her; her own lips were trembling now, she could feel them. “I don’t…I don’t believe you,” she whispered. “He’s not gone. He can’t be.”

He couldn’t be.

That would mean they had already lost. That Bran was right, and that everything she was doing here was only delaying the inevitable.

She wouldn’t accept the reality where that was true. She couldn’t. Not after everything she had sacrificed to come back home, to find her family again.

Jeyne shook her head, eyes glistening. “I’m sorry, Arya,” she whispered, and something like relief spread over her, as she said Arya’s name. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him for you. I’m sorry…” she trailed off again, blinking hard. “I didn’t try as hard as I should have. I thought he was an animal too, when he arrived here. He’s…he’s still there, sometimes. Sometimes, I even think he’s still Rickon. But after everything that’s been done to him, everything Ramsay has done to him…”

She trailed off then, reaching up with her fist to cover her mouth. “Oh gods, Arya. I…I tried to help him, you know? The first few weeks he was here, I tried, I really did.” Her eyes glistened with tears, one spilling down her cheek.

“I was going to make sure that Ramsay didn’t lay a hand on him, that he was too distracted with me. But he…” she was shaking, now. “Ramsay let me know what he thought of that. What he thought of my…what he called ‘disobedience.’ The more I tried to stand against him, the more he hurt Rickon, or Walda, or the child. Arya…”

“It’s all right,” Arya said, not meeting her eyes, because she knew then Jeyne would see the truth in them, the irrational blame, when Theon had already told her the things Ramsay was capable of. “It’s not your fault if you tried.”

Jeyne sniffed. “I didn’t try hard enough,” she said, and the tears followed, streaming down her face.

Arya took a careful breath, reached out, touched her shoulder. Jeyne flinched back at the touch, clearly uncomfortable with being touched at all, and not just because it was Arya, and Arya flinched too, though for an entirely different reason.

In her head, she could hear the Kindly Man, his hand on her shoulder, his whisper in her ear, that if she just closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the Many Faced God, she would find freedom. She would find the freedom necessary for her revenge.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking into the resigned eyes of the Merling Queen, not Jeyne, at all.

Jeyne’s eyes were wide, her lips parted. “Kill me, Arya,” she whispered, and, despite the tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked more resolved than she had since Arya had found her. “End this, for me. Please. Set me free.”

Her voice trembled; she was begging.

It was the same thing that the Merling Queen’s eyes had asked her, in the end.

Arya’s hands shook. She closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly, as she thought about what Shae had looked like, straddled underneath her in the bed, not yet awake, having no idea what her fate was going to be.

She reached for Needle, pulled it free of its scabbard, watched Jeyne’s eyes follow the movement with something like relish.

And then Shae had opened her eyes, had known exactly who Arya was, even in those first few moments when she was still wiping the sleep from her eyes.

And the knife had dropped from Arya’s fingers, at the recognition there. At the empathy in that look, as Shae said she looked just as exactly as Sansa had described her.

Jeyne didn’t exactly burst into tears.

Instead, she nodded, and climbed off the bed, got down on her knees in front of Arya, and Arya felt her heart climb up into her throat at the horrifying prospect that Jeyne was about to beg her to kill her.

She didn’t.

Instead, she picked up the knife and angled it towards her heart, herself. Pressed the blade against the bare skin revealed by the gown she was wearing, licked her lips.

And Arya could only stare.

Because suicide…suicide was abhorrent, to Westerosi. It meant they would only meet the Stranger, in death, and never have a chance for the Mother’s Mercy, and while Arya had long since given up the shackles of the Faith, had seen enough people commit suicide in Braavos by one means or another…there was something altogether horrifying about it, with Arya standing by and doing nothing to stop it, even knowing what Jeyne might have suffered.

Her lips parted.

“Wait…” she whispered, but Jeyne had already punctured skin. A drop of blood already dripped down onto to her white gown.

Arya started to move, to stop her, even not altogether sure that she should.

“Now, little wife,” a voice said, from the doorway, “Are you really going to deprive me of your company like…that? What a disappointment.”

The breath left Jeyne. Needle trembled in her hands.

Arya tensed, horrified that she hadn’t even noticed someone behind her, in the open doorway. She whirled around, found Ramsay Bolton standing in the doorway, the mousy looking serving girl standing behind him, shaking. Her gaze lifted to meet Arya’s, and then dropped again, guiltily.

Ramsay wasn’t focused on Arya at all, though, but still on Jeyne. He didn’t move forward, and yet something about his presence, now that Arya knew he was here, seemed to fill the whole room.

“Put the knife down, Wife,” Ramsay said, and, despite everything she’d heard about him, everything Theon had told her, everything she had seen on Jeyne’s body since walking into this room, it struck Arya that there was something imminently reasonable about him.

Still, her fingers itched for her blade, annoyed that it wasn’t in her hands, now, when she needed it, but in Jeyne’s, whose fate had been decided the moment Ramsay walked into the room.

Jeyne’s fingers trembled, the tremble spreading out to her hands, too. She swallowed hard, two tears slipping down two cheeks.

“You’re j-just going to hurt me, if I do,” she whispered. “At least this way, I’ll finally be f-free.”

Ramsay let out a laugh; clearly, there was no love lost there, for all that he seemed to be trying to convince his wife not to kill herself.

“Ah, but now you have a choice before you, pet. If you put the knife down, I’ll only hurt you tonight. I might even give you a reprieve, tomorrow night. I have a feeling I’ll be quite…tied up. But if you do kill yourself, instead of being a good girl and putting the knife down, I’ll have your skin flayed off your dead corpse and fed to those dogs you fear so much,” he said, as another tear dripped down Jeyne’s face. Arya flinched. “And then I’ll pass your corpse around, or at least, what remains of it, to those dogs, see if they’ll fuck you from beyond the grave. I bet you’d be more entertaining for them than you’ve been for me, recently. Hells, I bet this one would find that amusing.”

He gestured to Arya.

Arya flinched again. “What the fuck makes you think that?” She asked, finally finding her voice.

Moving in front of Jeyne.

The girl whimpered, behind her, and she heard the knife clatter to the ground.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well,” Ramsay Bolton said, as if he hadn’t known who she was, when he clearly had, where he was leaning against the doorway, and Arya cursed herself for not having heard him earlier, for not having noticed him when she had been trained, once, to do exactly that. “What a touching reunion this is, Wife.”

Jeyne let out a petrified whimper, huddling down further against the wall, her eyes no longer even seeming to notice Arya now, focused solely on Ramsay. She shuddered, though Arya didn’t think for a moment that it was because she was cold.

Arya lifted her chin, stood fully in the presence of this man who thought he could just take what didn’t belong to him. Theon, Jeyne, her home, her brother.

None of them were his.

He glanced between them. “And I only meant that surely, I have done you a great disservice, by marrying a girl who pretended to be you. I should only think you would want to punish her for that impudence. I wonder, would a septon say I was married to both of you, or none of you, Arya Stark, my dear wife?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OUAT says screw canon, this Jon’s still a bastard. #EliaMartelldeservedbetter, show!Rhaegar is trash, I’m not sorry.


	42. King's Landing

She’d had dreams about her child turning into Joffrey, in the beginning. Either because he secretly really was Joffrey’s son, impossible though that might have been, or because Margaery didn’t pay him the attention she ought to, or because she paid him too much attention, rather like Cersei had with Joffrey. Because she spoiled him, because she neglected him, because she wasn’t the type of woman to make a real mother, just as her mother hadn’t been.

That had been in the beginning, in the first few months after Joffrey had died, and they had terrified Margaery. Had made her wonder if the blood sacrifice she’d made - killing her own husband - was even worth it, or if she had made a terrible mistake. If this child whom she had thought would be her deliverance was only going to end up turning into something worse, something more painful than grinning and bearing it by Joffrey’s side might ever have been.

She’d been having those dreams until the moment Sansa drank poison and collapsed, in front of her.

Now, her dreams were different. Margaery wasn’t sure if it was because Sansa’s collapse had forced her to confront her own reality, to take back control in a way that she’d not been forced to, when Sansa had been there to do what she needed to, for her.

But she much preferred the dreams she was having now.

When she had fallen asleep after giving birth to a son - her son - Margaery had dreamt about their future together, the three of them, even if she had known that dream likely wasn't attainable, even the part of it that had existed on the Iron Throne. In this dream, her child wasn’t wicked, wasn’t Joffrey reborn, wasn’t some creature that she regretted working so hard to make, to bring into existence.

He was beautiful, and he was sweet, and he called Sansa his ‘mother,’ in her dream, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And Sansa had been there, every step of the way, smiling at their son, telling him that he would make a great king, that she would never leave his side. being the mother that a part of Margaery had always feared she could never be herself, to any child she did have, any child that was a pawn for House Tyrell to retain the Iron Throne. And somehow, because of that, Margaery had been able to be a mother, herself, as well. Had been able to hold her child and know that he was hers, and hers alone, and that nothing was going to stand in their way. Not Joffrey's bloodline, not her family's meddling, not Littlefinger.

It had been beautiful.

They had been a family, a real one, because she and Sansa had exchanged vows, even if that wasn’t something they could tell anyone really, and Nikoelas had been their son long before that, as well.

And when Margaery had awoken, Sansa had given their child away to Elinor, who’d proven, in these past few months, that, her fault or not, her loyalty belonged to Olenna, not to Margaery or Sansa. That it had to, even if she didn’t want it to.

And oh gods, despite the way she’d blown up on Sansa, she knew it wasn’t Sansa’s fault, this thing that had happened. She knew that Sansa would never have willingly taken Margaery's child away from her, of course she wouldn't have. She'd been furious, because she'd just woken up from an extremely taxing birthing to find that her baby was gone, and that Sansa didn't look at all concerned about it, as she ought to have been, because it made her fear...made her fear that the Sansa who existed in her dreams didn't really exist at all, outside of them. Didn't really want to have this child with her, didn't really want to play mother to a child who might have been Joffrey's son, and who certainly wasn't hers, either way.

Margaery knew that wasn't the case. Knew Sansa cared. Knew that she wouldn’t have realized what had happened to Nikoelas until it was too late, that he had been taken from them, or she would have done her damnedest to make sure that no one did. Would certainly never have done so without telling Margaery, which was more than Margaery could say for her own relations.

But she'd awoken to find that her baby was missing, and that no one would look her in the eyes, all of these ladies who were supposed to be her friends, her confidantes, and, worst of all, neither would Sansa.

For a few, horrifying moments, she'd thought her baby had died while she slept, that she hadn't even been awake to witness his last moments, and that had torn loose something feral, something wild, within Margaery that she hadn't even known existed until she met Sansa, until she killed her own husband.

And still, Margaery didn’t know what it was, this anger bubbling up inside of her, begging to be let out at the nearest opportunity, to the nearest person she might find to blame, and of course that nearest person would be Sansa, even if it wasn’t her fault.

Even if it was Olenna's fault, her own grandmother, who had taken her baby from her, a baby that Margaery had never really wanted, had feared for so many months, but now he was gone before Margaery could even know him, could even hold him for more than a few moments, in her arms.

Olenna was a mother; she may not have been the sort of mother Margaery had wanted, when she had insisted on taking over Margaery’s education, Margaery’s rearing, but she was a mother.

Surely, she understood what this would do to Margaery, taking her baby away from her like this, even in such dire circumstances, without even giving her the chance to say goodbye to him, to tell him that she loved him, this small creature who had just come out of her but whom Margaery would already die for.

She had to understand what that would do to Margaery.

And perhaps it was that anger, finding a better focus than Sansa just now, that was pushing Margaery to come to the conclusion she was, as she marched towards the throne room, a conclusion to fix this terrible mess with the Martells once and for all, in quite the way she was thinking to do it.

Perhaps she would have come to a completely different arrangement with the Dornish ambassador, if she wasn’t furious with her grandmother.

But they all had to make sacrifices, and here, in this moment, it felt like Olenna Tyrell wasn’t making enough of them.

Sansa and the others, they wouldn’t understand why this was a sacrifice for Olenna more than Margaery, in this moment. They might even try to claim that she was making a mistake, especially as she hadn’t even bothered to consult her Hand, much less her Small Council, before coming to such a drastic decision, and so soon after giving birth, clearly still in a fragile condition.

Well, perhaps Margaery was just exhausted.

She finally had what she wanted, and she was tired of having to deal with these Martells, who could never have what they wanted, not really, not now that the Tyrells had stolen both justice and revenge from them.

But perhaps there was a way to make it safe for her son to sleep in Westeros for a little while longer.

After all, in recent weeks, besides those lovely dreams that now might never come true, of her and Sansa and her son living happily together, Margaery had also been dreaming about dragons.

“Margaery, slow down,” Sansa said, taking her arm, pulling her to a stop. Margaery tripped, would have fallen if Sansa wasn’t there to grab her. Her insides ached; she remembered the maesters telling her that she was going to have to spend a good deal of time resting, after she gave birth to the child, Regent of the Seven Kingdoms or not. She doubted they would have been pleased to see her running halfway across the palace after doing so, and her insides certainly weren't thanking her, either.

But that didn't matter. If she didn't do this, and now, she wouldn't have a future in which to rest. It wouldn't matter that her child had been spirited away from her, because, even if he might be safe in Highgarden, reared by relatives meaning to control him, Margaery would never see him again.

Not with a Dornish fleet sitting outside their doors.

A part of her wanted to be surprised by the betrayal; she knew that Arianne was no longer in control of Dorne, or at least, she suspected as much, but even if she had been, Margaery would have expected something like this eventually. After all, their agreement of peace with one another had only extended so far as Joffrey's death, and the Lannisters' ruin. Call her mad, but what Euron Greyjoy had done to the Rock sounded rather like ruin, to her.

“Margaery. Please.”

Sansa was still talking.

And gods, Margaery wanted to turn around and talk to her, wanted to sit down and sleep for another three days, but she didn't have _time_ for this. None of them did. She would have thought that Sansa, of all people, would understand that. 

Margaery spun on her anyway, lips parting slightly. “I…”

She wondered if she looked as she had the night Joffrey had raped her, half mad and disheveled, running towards the throne room to make her announcement as she had then, if that accounted for the look on Sansa’s face, the worry there.

“I need you to send for Lord Randyl,” she said, and Sansa flinched a little, perhaps at the lack of emotion in her voice, Margaery wasn’t certain. Perhaps it was because this was the first thing that Margaery had said to her since she had yelled at her earlier, and Margaery was sorry for that. Sorry for the fact that Sansa still looked something like a kicked puppy, after the harsh words that Margaery had said to her earlier.

She would apologize for that, the moment they had time alone together again, but she couldn’t think about it, now.

Dorne was attacking them, and Margaery needed to be King’s Landing’s godsbedamned Regent now, especially without her son here.

“And the rest of the Small Council,” Margaery went on, without pausing to think. “And…find me a shawl, would you?”

She was only now realizing that the Small Council might not take her seriously at all if she made the decision she was about to make in her nightclothes, much less would the Dornish ambassador.

Sansa stared at her for a moment longer, worrying her lower lip. “I…Fine,” she agreed. “Just…please tell me we’ll be all right. Tell me _you’re_ all right. I...”

Margaery licked her lips, pausing, staring down at her hand, where Sansa reached for it. “I…I really need you to do this for me, Sansa,” she said. “Please. I can find my own way to the throne room, but I need you to do these things for me, now.”

Sansa stared at her for a moment longer, before sighing as she seemed to realize that Margaery wasn't about to budge on this, and dropping her hand. “Of course,” she said, and there was something cold in her voice as she said it, like she was speaking to her queen and not her _wife_ , and Margaery felt a spike of guilt.

 _Later_ , she told herself.

They would deal with it later, when she had the time to properly explain herself.

And then Sansa was turning and walking away, and the nervous Kingsguard who had followed her from the birthing chamber, still looking a little shocked that she was out of bed after what had just happened at all, trotted after Margaery after only a moment’s hesitation.

As they made it towards the throne room, Margaery lifted her hand, pausing to look at the man. “I need you to get the Dornish emissary, the one they sent instead of Tyene Sand, out of the Black Cells and bring him before,” she said, lips pursing as she gave it some thought. “He’ll have been endowed with permission to negotiate with me, I’m certain. And if anyone tries to keep him there, you’ll say you have my orders, not my grandmother’s. And send someone to get Prince Trystane. He’ll need to be here as well, I’m certain.”

In fact, she was rather certain that the emissary was going to insist on it.

The man swallowed, dipped into a bow. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, looking only slightly nervous about leaving her alone, before he turned and trotted off.

She watched him go only for a moment, and then stepped out into the throne room, where a gaggle of nobles had already gathered, either to watch her demise or to celebrate when she presented them with her son.

Gods, she finally understood why Joffrey had never looked on them with anything but loathing.

She wondered what her grandmother had been thinking, even if she was trying to protect the boy, spiriting him away before Margaery had even had the chance to present him to the court. They might suspect that she had not even had a son.

And then Margaery realized that there were so many nobles already gathered here because Olenna, or Garlan or Mace, had already presented her son, before spiriting him away, because she was right, and Olenna wouldn't have been foolish enough to do that, to not present him.

He’d already been presented, and then Olenna had likely spirited him away directly after that.

Margaery could see the truth of her assumption in the eyes of the nobles, as they all turned and looked at her, clearly surprised to see her here at all.

She swallowed hard, walked up to the Iron Throne, and sat in it without a word to anyone, holding up her hand as any of the nobles tried to move towards her to offer their congratulations, the traitors.

None of them had bothered to come and wake her when her son was presented to them, after all.

_Nikoelas Baratheon, First of His Name._

She closed her eyes, opened them again.

The Iron Throne was no longer uncomfortable to sit on, these days. On the contrary, it felt as if the chair that she had once wondered how Joffrey could sit such long hours in it for, seemed to meld itself to her form.

She could remember how Joffrey had dreamt of dragons, in the months before his death, how he had confided as much to her, terrified at the prospect. How he had been one of the few people on the Small Council concerned with the Targaryen girl to the East, and everyone had dismissed him, and now, Margaery was dreaming of dragons.

She wondered if this chair, seeming to fit her so nicely now, was cursed.

She sat up straight, clapped her hands together, even though she already had the attention of her nobles.

The door opened, and Sansa stepped in, carrying a shawl and followed by her father, and Randyl Tarly. The rest of the Small Council slunk in after them, grown men summoned by a little girl.

She wondered if they would still think her mad, after what she was about to do.

No doubt, it would only cement their opinion of her.

Mace looked guilty, and well he might, Margaery thought. She wondered if he had known in advance of her grandmother’s plan, or only just heard of it, himself.

She was tired of him laying down and taking whatever her grandmother demanded of him, as much as her own grandchildren; she looked away from him quickly enough.

Well, she thought, after this, after what she was about to do, the thought not quite the half-formed one she figured the court would think it was for her, the moment it was announced, but rather something she'd been worrying herself over since she'd left Dorne, he might finally realize that it was time to take a side. Or, he might decide that his own daughter was rather mad.

She had a horrible feeling that it might be the latter. After all, she knew how much he loathed the Dornish.

“Lord Randyl,” she said, forcing a smile. “As my newly appointed Hand, I do regret that I did not have the opportunity to speak with you before this, as we do not have the time to speak of it now. I hope that you will not take it as a slight against you.”

He glanced at his other Council members, and then cleared his throat. “Your Grace, whatever it is, I understand that the delivery of your son, for which I offer my congratulations, should come first in all things, as he is our King.”

Margaery cocked a brow. “Indeed,” she said. “I thank you for your understanding.” A heavy pause. “I hope you shall be as understanding, in a moment.”

She doubted any of them would. The sanctity of her son's very throne was about to be put the test, after all. 

Randyl blinked at her, clearly bemused as the rest of the Small Council was, save for Varys, who always seemed to now things before they happened. She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t seem as confused as the rest, even if the knit of his brow hinted that he didn’t approve of what she was about to do.

Well, fuck him.

She didn’t trust him these days as much as she used to; he shouldn’t have expected her to ask his permission.

Or anyone’s, for that matter. She was truly a Regent now, in the way she hadn’t been before, only pregnant with the future heir.

She had to do what she thought best for all of the Seven Realms, now. No matter what she was advised about it, or wasn’t.

And then the main doors were opening, and the guards were dragging in this emissary that had been sent to them, from Dorne, and Margaery straightened up and told herself that she would deal with her Small Council when they called her mad, later.

Right now, she had a war to stop.

She was almost surprised that no one from the fleet had turned up to make a deal with her now, and so, she was going to have to simply push things forward herself.

That was what she had done when she killed her husband, after all, and if she could do that, surely she could do something as equally unholy to the traditions of Westeros as this.

She supposed that she had thought it would be Arianne, coming here to dishonor the deal that they had made together. Arianne had seemed to have such an understanding for what her people wanted, and Margaery had just assumed that she would not lose control of Dorne so easily. She was rather disappointed that she had; she'd like Arianne, after all, and Gerold Dayne was an unknown element, even if there was one thing that Margaery knew about the Dornish which just might save all of them, now.

Might save King's Landing, if nothing else.

But the man standing before her was someone she recognized, the one that Arianne had married, and not Arianne.

But perhaps she had simply sent him here to do her dirty work, Margaery thought, just as Olenna had sent others to take her child away from her while she slept, and all of the way to Highgarden.

“Ser Gulian Qorgyle,” she said, cocking her head at him. “You look like your brother. He accompanied Prince Oberyn here to King’s Landing, I do believe, for my wedding, and I never forget a face. A bit younger than you, and a bit kinder, I do have to say. If you had sent him in your stead, I might have believed you to actually be an ambassador.”

He gritted his teeth, clearly annoyed to have been found out.

Margaery raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that Arianne Martell, who has always been a friend to these parts, would quite appreciate the ships that have been ordered back here, to box us in like rats. I cannot imagine, in fact, that she even gave the order.”

It didn't matter whether she had or not, she wanted to point out, but didn't. After all, it was his turn to start naming terms.

Gulian Qorgyle raised his chin. “Lord Regent Gerold Dayne rules Dorne now, in the name of my wife, who has…taken ill,” he said, and it was the way he said it which made Margaery shiver, made her wonder if Arianne was not dead in a ditch somewhere, never to be found by her subjects.

But another part of her almost felt relief, at that, at knowing that the other woman hadn’t turned on her fully, even if she had misjudged Arianne’s ability to keep the peace, there.

Hah. As if it mattered, now.

“Well, then,” she said, rubbing at her still swollen stomach, trying not to notice the number of eyes on them, wondering why she had insisted on coming here so soon after giving birth, wondering if she had finally, truly lost her mind, as they had all been wondering for far too long, to her mind. Her breasts ached; she'd barely had enough time to have a servant bind them, before insisting on coming here; Sansa had at least won that argument, if not the one about seeing a maester, first. “You understand my confusion; your princess and I had an…arrangement, one that I thought her husband would honor, even...filling in for her.”

His men, all released from their prison as he had been, at her command, much though her father had tried to protest it, not yet knowing what she did about her child, about what Olenna had done, shifted around him, but it seemed that even shame was not enough to be bring this man down.

This man whom Margaery felt an irrational sense of hatred towards, in this moment; she understood him wanting to attack King’s Landing, knew that Dorne had been on the precipice of that very thing, and couldn’t hate him for that.

But she could hate him for the fact that his attack had taken her child away from her.

Gulian slowly grinned. “The Princess has changed her mind, seen sense, I suppose you could say. Seen that the Tyrells are no more our friends than the Lannisters are, not when they usurp the throne from the true Heir, Myrcella Baratheon, First of Her Name.”

Margaery stared at him, even as her heart skipped a beat. No. No, because that would mean someone else had found out, and they had been so careful, and she couldn’t handle the world believing her son to be a bastard when he was a halfway across the Seven Kingdoms by now…

Then, she realized. They didn't know. This had merely been Arianne's plot from the beginning. She'd been all but told as much, by Arianne herself, when she'd been in Dorne, and then, later, by Nym, when Nym had extracted her price from Margaery, for her loyal service.

She snorted.

The hall was silent, clearly as surprised by her outburst as the emissary himself.

“You’re mistaken,” she said. “Yet again. My son, Nikoelas, is the true heir to my husband, as his son.”

“Your son was not born until long after the King’s death,” Gulian said, calmly, and she knew that he didn’t believe his words at all, knew, just by looking into his eyes, that he truly didn’t care. “There is…some confusion, in the law, about whether or not he should even be considered in the line of succession.”

Some confusion, she interpreted that to mean, as to whether or not he was even her son.

“Dorne believes that, at the time of the King’s death, his oldest sibling became the rightful heir,” Gulian went on, and his men nodded sagely, around him, as if they believed the words anymore than he did. “And even if he were born during it, we have…proof that this child might not even belong to Joffrey Baratheon.”

Margaery bit back a snort; how delightfully ironic, she thought, that politics in these kingdoms simply always seemed to go in circles. She remembered reading with some amusement the letters that Stannis Baratheon had sent out when he decided to name himself king, that the children birthed by Cersei Lannister were not his brother’s.

Loras had certainly been amused by those letters, as if they would ever give the realms the wish to rally behind a man as dour as Stannis Baratheon. As if legitimacy really mattered.

Even when they had all been burned, those letters, people had believed them. And then, when Mace Tyrell claimed Joffrey was only a bastard, half the realm had believed him.

Even if no other House in the Seven Kingdoms had received this “letter,” someone would believe it.

The thought made her more annoyed than she wanted to admit.

Margaery opened her mouth to respond, and then saw another figure stepping into the throne room, and everything she had been about to say vanished as quickly as it had come, her mind going blank with nothing but a fiery fury that made her want to leap down off her chair, aches and pains or not, and grab the first sword one of her nearest Kingsguard possessed.

She froze, staring.

Because there was no way, by the gods, that _Olenna Tyrell_ had the audacity to come stand before Margaery in the throne room, after she had stolen away Margaery’s son. Had the audacity, for that matter, to remain in King’s Landing at all, after she had done so.

Margaery stared.

Olenna dipped her head, and stared right back, not a shred of guilt in the other woman’s eyes.

Margaery lifted her chin, told herself this wasn’t about Dorne, not really. Wasn’t about Olenna, even.

Right now, she was doing whatever she had to do to save her kingdom. And she knew of exactly one way to do that, at the moment. One way to save thousands of people, one way to save her own people, her own family, for all that some of them might have turned against her. One thing that she had been contemplating for some time now, but had been rather too horrified to bother trying, not when there were other options, not when Dorne had been peaceful, so far.

There weren't other options, now. They had lost the Lannisters because of Euron Greyjoy. They had lost the Dornish, clearly. They were about to be fighting a defensive war against one of the last true claimants to the Targaryen name.

Margaery had to do what she thought best. She had to be the Regent she had been hiding herself away from since her husband's death. Olenna was right; life and death would always be in her hands, so long as she followed this path before her. This path she had chosen, when she married Joffrey, of her own free will, a choice few other brides in Westeros were given.

The man before her, under Gerold’s orders, didn't care whether Myrcella was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne or not, was just voicing Dorne’s excuse, after all, the way that his attack had just given Olenna an excuse to take her son from her.

But still, Margaery’s eyes were flinty, as they took in the sight of Olenna, there, after she had sent Margaery’s son away to be raised by strangers.

Yes, looking at the other woman, she knew exactly how to salvage this situation, to keep them from going to war, and to keep Dorne happy, all at the same time. It was what she'd been planning to do, when she summoned the emissary, but it made a small, resentful part of her rather gleeful to know that it would piss off her grandmother, as well, this thing she was about to do.

And perhaps that, more than her indecision over whether this was the right thing to do or not, was what prompted her next words, knowing that they were the only way to get peace in this situation while also knowing they would make Olenna as furious as she felt at the other woman, for taking her son from her.

“His oldest male sibling, if that were the case,” Margaery ground out. “Who, I dare say, isn’t Myrcella, and has, in fact, bent the knee to my child. And all of this moot, anyway, because my husband publicly acknowledged his heir to be my child. My male son.”

She was shaking, with her anger. Or perhaps because she needed to sleep.

Margaery forced her arms to settle. She didn’t have the time for weakness, not just now.

Wouldn’t show weakness before so many people who just wanted to see that very thing.

“We are not so certain that he was correct. And in any case, there is still...confusion, by Dornish laws,” Gulian said, with another shrug. “Myrcella Baratheon is her brother’s oldest sibling, and therefore the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.” A deliberate pause. “Your Grace.”

“You still haven’t answered the question of my husband acknowledging my son as the heir,” Margaery said, dryly. "And, we are not Dorne, as you well know."

Gulian lifted his chin. “I think the fact most important here, Your Grace, is that a large part of your fleet is halfway across Westeros, and not here, while I am.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “We could go in circles about this issue for many years, good ser,” she told him, as calmly as she could manage, “And I suspect that we would never come to an agreement.”

The crowd began to murmur, before her. He raised an eyebrow, looking confused that she would even admit to such.

“But you must understand my position,” Margaery went on. “Your people have laid siege to King’s Landing, unprovoked, while your prince and you yourself are here as my prisoners. Surely you do not mean to follow us in death, so. What is your price?”

She suspected she already knew the answer, as she'd known it from the moment she had sent for him after waking to learn that her whole world had gone to the seven hells after seeming so wonderful not so long before she'd fallen asleep; the one thing she could offer Dorne that would make them stand down, forget the name Myrcella Baratheon, or Lannister, or whatever they decided to call her after all of this was over.

The one thing that would truly punish her grandmother, as well, but that, surely, was of lesser importance.

And yes, despite her resentment at her grandmother, she did regret the choice she was about to make, the offer. She didn’t much like the idea of children coming to harm under her decisions; that was why she had wanted Tommen here, why she was happy that Sansa had managed to get Shireen here, after the horrid rumors she had heard about Ramsay Bolton. Why she had agreed to Nym's plan, in the first place.

Myrcella, from all that Margaery had ever heard or seen of her, seemed a sweet young girl, not deserving of a brother like Joffrey, happy in her marriage to a boy as precocious and compassionate as Trystane Martell. She was sweet, like Tommen, and not like the rest of her wretched family, and if Margaery could, she would do what she could to protect her.

But she had to protect her family, too, and there were far more lives at stake, right now, than simply Myrcella’s. And Margaery did not flatter herself in thinking that, after she had saved them, she might still have the time to save Myrcella.

Oh, she would make an effort, of course, but she would do what she had to do, just as she had that day in the Sept of Baelor.

There would always be blood on a monarch’s hands.

“When I was a little girl,” she said, and took notice of the way he rolled his eyes, at the words, “I learned from my maesters about how Dorne has never really been overtaken by foreigners. Even the Targaryens, with their dragons, were unable to subdue your proud people.”

Gulian stared at her. “I think I understand the history of my proud people far more than a Tyrell,” he gritted out, and out of the corner of her eye, Margaery could already see Randyl Tarly reaching yet again for his sword.

She held out a hand, waylaying him. “Perhaps,” she agreed. “But it does make me wonder, if so, why you should so easily forget Dorne’s recent history, when you are so proud of its past.” She leaned forward. “Tell me, does it make you feel powerful, make you feel…free, to champion the cause of Tywin Lannister’s bastard granddaughter? This man who allowed the rape and murder of your Princess, who loathed your people? Who humiliated you, over and over?”

Silence.

The soldiers behind Gulian shifted on their feet.

She pitied Myrcella now, she did; the moment the Dornish realized they had no use of her, Margaery could not guarantee the girl’s safety, not the way that she could Tommen’s, now that he was under her roof. She would be torn apart for it, would no longer even be useful as a pawn, but more useful dead, and Margaery did not want that, truly. She was just a child, just like Tommen, Shireen...Margaery's own son.

But they would take Margaery’s deal, she’d known that from the moment she woke up and realized they were under attack, that her son was taken from her.

It was what they wanted more than anything, and they would see Myrcella as a hindrance to that. Some might even see her as a threat.

She didn’t have another choice, at the moment. Not with a Dornish fleet sitting outside her doors, and the Dornish themselves using the girl against her as she had feared Cersei would use Tommen against her if she did not get the boy under her control. Not with her son being taken at this very moment on the road to Highgarden by someone who wasn’t even her grandmother, who couldn't guarantee his safety.

Not with the Dornish fleet controlled by warmongers. Not with the amount of time she was less certain by the moment that they had.

And she had to get her son back. Had to, even if she could not get him back to King’s Landing, ensure that this world was safe for him.

She didn’t know him, and already, she was willing to kill for him. She wondered what that said about her.

But she saw from the spark in Gulian’s eyes that she had his attention, already.

Margaery smiled. “I thought not,” she said, coolly. “But I understand that Dorne has little enough choice, at the moment. The Targaryens have hardly been friends either to Elia Martell, may she rest in peace, or any of the rest of you, in recent years, by forcing you to serve their Mad King when they kept Elia Martell prisoner in these very walls. And I know of your hatred in particular for House Tyrell, so I will not ask you to befriend me because of that,” she said, and Gulian grunted. “But I still think that we might be able to come to some sort of…arrangement, more than beneficial for us both, and one that Aegon Targaryen, nor any other Targaryen, will not offer your people.”

He stared at her. “That’s the problem with you Tyrells,” he said, finally. “You always have something pretty to say, even if you never back it up. You always think that things can be ended without a war. With pretty words, and words alone.”

Margaery’s smile was sad, as she thought about Highgarden, the place that had once been her home and now would imprison her child from her. “No,” she said, softly. “Not all of us.”

He stared at her. “I suppose I would be remiss in my duties as an emissary if I did not hear what you had to say,” he said, finally, grudgingly, but she could tell that it was just a show; she had piqued his interest. Just as her father and her grandmother were looking more and more alarmed, he was looking more interested. He knew what she was about to offer, after all, surely, with the words she had already said.

She smiled, and resolutely did not look at Lady Nym, where the other woman was glaring daggers at her from the corner of the throne room, where she stood behind Trystane, whose eyes had gone very wide, as if he knew already, as Lady Nym seemed to, what Margaery was about to suggest, and to a Dorne controlled by Gerold Dayne, of all people.

This was not how Lady Nym had wanted it to go, she knew, when Margaery finally fulfilled her promise to the other woman. Not when it would only put Trystane in danger, even if he was still here, not when it would make him less disposed to like the Crown, with Myrcella in danger, as well. Not when it guaranteed House Martell very little, with a Dayne in charge of Dorne at the moment.

Their eyes met; Margaery looked away, turned back to the emissary, was a little unsettled to see that he had been looking at Trystane and Nym, as well, that he had no doubt caught the look that had passed between the two of them.

Lady Nym would just have to understand, Margaery thought, perhaps a little desperately, that this was the only choice Margaery could make, in this moment, against a kingdom she could not win a war against.

Besides, she was offering Nym what it was she had wanted all along, simply under the wrong king. Perhaps, later, there would be a way to salvage this.

Olenna, where she stood near the back of the throne room, took an actual step forward, then, as if she thought that she alone could put a stop to what Margaery had already put in motion, just as she'd had Margaery's son taken away from her, and that fueled enough of Margaery's fury, just then, to keep her going, because how dare she.

How dare she still remain here, after taking Margaery's son, when it was quite possible that Margaery might never see him again, clearly believing there was a chance they might not win against the Dornish fleet, if it did come to blows. How dare she try to lecture Margaery on keeping Dorne under their thumb with just a look, when she had spent a lifetime trying to keep House Tyrell under hers.

Margaery cleared her throat.

“It is simple enough. It is my true belief, as the Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, that Dorne, which has never truly been overtaken by anyone, should not be forced to bow itself before the Iron Throne, whoever sits on it, when they were the only kingdom that made a choice to join the Seven Kingdoms.”

The sounds of muttering, of shocked gasps, around her grew, and she could already see the horrified looks on the faces of her Small Council, the look of absolute fury on Olenna's, as if Olenna thought that Margaery was doing this only to punish her and not because she thought it was going to save their ungrateful lives, but it was Gulian’s wide eyes that let her know she was making the right decision, just now.

She thought she heard someone, someone who might have been Sansa, murmur, "Margaery, what are you doing?" but she ignored that, too.

He was the only one who mattered, in this moment, and they both knew it, if the way his eyes were shining was any indication.

“As the current Regent of that throne, I am prepared to once again grant Dorne its...uncontested independence. Dorne will once again be a Free Kingdom, in every meaning to he word, bowing the knee to no one and owing allegiance to none. So long as my son is on the Iron Throne. You will once again be the proud nation you once were, with no one to tell you how to lead that nation.”

There was the sound of a thump from the other end of the room; Lady Nym had dropped to one knee. Trystane had gone white.

Gulian kept staring at her. Then, he coughed. He stared at her; she could tell that he had been surprised, despite her earlier hints, by her offer, as the murmurs in the throne room indicated everyone else was, as well.

Oh, she had no doubt that, besides the Dornish in the room, everyone else was furious with her, but she couldn't bring herself to care about their ungratefulness. She was doing this to save them from another taxing war she doubted the Reach could win alone, after all. 

“And, in exchange?” Gulian asked, after several moments more of silence. His voice seemed loud in the shocked room, booming out when it had not, before.

He knew, already, what it was she would ask in return, after all. 

She smiled, even if a part of her knew what she was about to say might be a terrible idea, might be truly alienating someone who might not have been the threat she believed he was, Joffrey believed the Targaryens had been. “Well, I highly doubt that Aegon Targaryen will offer you the same courtesy I have. As I understand it, he is very...eager to experience the culture of his mother’s people, something he won’t be able to do if you shut your gates to him for good. I will ask that you stop pursuing an alliance with him, or with any other dragon, or any other who seeks to steal this throne from me.” She lifted her chin, to mask her uncertainty. “Is that...acceptable to your lord?"

Gulian stared.

If this were an emissary for Arianne, the cousin of Aegon Targaryen, Margaery would not have been so sure of her odds.

As it was, she thought she might just get almost everything she wanted out of this.

It was a rather heady feeling, after having just had her son stolen from her. But it did very little for the unease still gathering in her chest, for the pain between her legs.

Mace stepped forward then, and Margaery gritted her teeth as he began to speak. “You must forgive my daughter,” he said, slowly, staring at her as if he didn’t recognize her at all. “She has just undergone the rigors of child birthing, and does not know what she…”

Margaery lifted her chin. “Do you accept my offer in the name of your new lord, Ser Gulian, or must we hang you from the ramparts for your fleet to see that we will not offer them surrender?” She interrupted her father.

Gulian glanced at Mace, swallowing hard.

Gods, she could see how much he wanted it.

“Don’t look at him,” Margaery snapped, and his eyes flew back to hers. “Look at me.”

He cleared his throat. “Ah…begging your pardon, Your Grace, for I am...very certain that my lord should be...very interested in such an offer from the Throne, but I do wonder if, legally, you have the power to make such an offer at all, Regent or no.”

Margaery’s smile was flint. “Of course,” she said. “You will want to look over such legalities with the maesters. But in the mean time, I do hope you’ll understand when I have to insist that your fleet…stands down.”

He opened his mouth, and she was sure enough that she would have the answer she sought, though he never did voice words to it.

Because just when he was about to speak, the whole castle…shook, right down to its very foundations.

Margaery cried out in surprise as she was slammed into the side of her chair, eyes wide as she saw half the nobles stumble, which…shouldn’t have been possible. Shouldn’t have been possible, because they were in a fucking castle in the middle of King’s Landing, and something had just caused it to shake down to its foundations, and the ground still felt like it was shaking.

Oh, gods.

Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong, and it wasn't just that her cunt felt like it was burning, nor that her breasts ached. Whatever this was, everyone else had just felt it, too.

She blinked as panic swelled, glancing around, because whatever this was, it wasn’t just in her head. Gulian had fallen forward where he was standing, a little weaker because of the time that he’d spent in the Black Cells, even if it wasn’t very long at all, and that told her what she needed to.

Yes, that had really happened.

She swallowed hard, reaching down to place a hand on her stomach, wondering if perhaps she had been too hasty, in being angry with her grandmother, for getting her son out of the city. Perhaps it had been warranted.

And then Randyl Tarly was moving forward, pulling his sword free of its scabbard and pressing it against Gulian’s throat.

“Why are your people attacking now?” He demanded, as the ground still shook beneath their feet. “We are speaking with you, are we not?”

Gulian raised his chin, but despite this, Margaery could see the worry in his eyes. Her own gut twisted in terror, at the realization.

This wasn’t the Dornish, she realized. The Dornish fleet wasn’t supposed to attack them, was clearly waiting for some sort of signal from this man himself, as she had suspected, and Gulian was…scared.

Because of course he’d known this was going to happen, of course he would have arranged to either be out of the city if there was an attack, or would have arranged to order the attack himself.

But he would never have been in the throne room when the Keep was being attacked.

Margaery felt something like fear in her chest, at that thought, felt her stomach twist as she wondered what the fuck that could mean, when the Lannister fleet was destroyed and surely she would have known if the Targaryen boy had already reached them, when he’d been so intent on parley, before, and her Small Council didn't seem to believe he had the real troops to take them on, alone.

And then, as the ground kept shaking and her fingers clawed at the arms of the Iron Throne, as she looked up and met Sansa's eyes, saw the terror in them as the girl stumbled, grasping out blindly towards Margaery for balance, she knew, even if she didn’t.

Margaery felt rather glad that her child had already left her belly, for the amount of vomit clawing up her throat.

She glanced away from Sansa and her wide eyed terror, then, met her grandmother’s eyes, saw the look in them, the fear, there, that this might actually be the end.

She wondered if that same fear had been felt by anyone in the Rock, before Euron Greyjoy destroyed the Lannister fleet and much of Lannisport, or if they’d never even had the chance to be surprised by his attack, as all reports seemed to claim.

_“Euron Greyjoy sailed into Lannisport, unopposed, and...took the Lannister fleet. And…destroyed Lannisport, Your Grace.”_

_“…All of it?”_

_“How the fuck did they manage to get from the Reach to the Westerlands, overnight, without any of us noticing?”_

_“He...destroyed the most powerful family in Westeros’ fleet...in a single battle?”_

Margaery swallowed hard, glanced towards her father, where he stood near Randyl, putting an arm out to stop the other man from his attack on Gulian. He shook his head, subtly, but he looked frightened.

This wasn’t them.

Which meant that at least one of her nightmares was about to become true.

After a few moments more, the castle seemed to stop shaking, but that roiling feeling in Margaery's gut, if anything, was only growing worse.

“What…the fuck was that?” Mace demanded, into the silence. Margaery was rather glad that someone was able to ask the question.

He didn’t get an answer, not before another loud crash had the castle shaking yet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, y'all! I am...sorry for the cliffhanger. :)


	43. King's Landing

Sansa was almost regretting having awoken from her coma at all.

In the short time that she had been asleep, and - judging by the fact that Margaery had just given birth, it could not be more than a few weeks - it seemed that everything had gone to the seven hells, in her absence.

And she wasn’t arrogant enough to think that it had something to do with her being ill, not when Margaery seemed far too accustomed to being back on the Iron Throne these days, but she thought it might have to do something with the fact that Baelish was nowhere to be seen, not since she had awoken.

The castle shook again, and Sansa locked eyes with Margaery as she was thrown forward, saw the fear in the other girl’s eyes, felt that same fear rumbling up in her own chest.

No, not now. Not after everything that they had already suffered together, not now.

It just - it wasn’t fair, and she knew how ironic such a statement should be, coming from her, after everything else that stupid, Iron Throne had made her suffer without once asking her opinion on the matter, but she still felt it. That feeling that it wasn’t fair, that these things ought to be fair, because she had certainly suffered enough to expect a little fairness from the world.

That was why she ought to have stayed in her coma.

Or well, no, she was not. Regretting waking up, she thought. She was very glad that Cersei Lannister, of all people, hadn’t managed to kill her, but everything that had happened since, save for Margaery asking her to marry her, felt like a shitshow. So much worse than the things she had been dreaming about while in her coma, or almost.

She’d dreamt about the baby, about everything happening exactly as it had, though in her dreams, muddled when she awoke, confused by Margaery’s lips against hers, by everything Margaery had said to her before the excitement of her giving birth had distracted Sansa further, she’d thought the baby would be killed.

Instead, Olenna had taken it away. Had asked Elinor to take Nikoelas from Sansa, and had taken him away, and Sansa had known something was wrong, but had merely thought it was because of her terrifying dreams, becoming more and more clear to her as Elinor had walked away from her.

She didn’t remember dreaming about this, though.

Or, no - she closed her eyes, and saw the Iron Throne, covered in ash, King’s Landing something like a distant memory at the back of her mind - and shuddered, a shudder which had nothing at all to do with the fact that the world was spinning and exploding around her.

Perhaps she had dreamt of this. Or, if not this attack in particular, then at least what followed it.

The end.

The end of one chapter, at least, because there had appeared to be very little left of King’s Landing, alongside the ash covering that throne.

Sansa reached out for the first thing she could, the moment she felt the castle shake beneath her feet. It was a good thing she did, she supposed; there were two more shakes of the entire building, after that, and for a moment, Sansa wondered if this was it.

If this was finally it, the moment where all of their sins caught up with them, where they lost their lives because they had dared to reach too far, to reach for something which had never belonged to them in the first place, had married one another when it was against the laws of the Seven, when they thought they could get their happy ending, for once, for just a little while, at least.

She took a deep breath, only realizing after the commotion had finally seemed to stop what it was she had reached out towards; her hand was clasped around one of the spokes of the Iron Throne.

Sansa stared.

Mace was swearing, softly, under his breath, over and over, clearly a sign that whatever this was, it hadn’t been planned by the Tyrells in order to persuade the Dornish to back off, in order to convince them that the Tyrells still had the upper hand here, as a part of Sansa had almost wondered.

That was worse, though; whatever this was, whoever it was, it wasn’t the Tyrells or the Dornish, which meant that it was someone else. Someone…

Sansa pressed her lips together, only then remembering to let go of the Iron Throne.

When she glanced up, Gulian Qorgyle, as Margaery seemed convinced he was now, was staring at her. He met her eyes, then, his own jotted down to where she was holding onto the Iron Throne; she looked away first.

Margaery, still sitting on the throne, in front of her now, glanced at Randyl when the rocking seemed to finally come to a stop, and gave him a nod. The man was already moving towards the door, to figure out what that had been before she had finished the motion.

Sansa glanced nervously towards Margaery, felt a spike of guilt, before Margaery cleared her throat, and motioned for the Dornish emissary.

She almost couldn't believe what Margaery had done, not moments before. What she had offered the Dornish. Couldn’t believe that Margaery had thought it, much less said it, couldn’t believe that she would deem that a necessary way of fixing things.

Perhaps things were more terrible than Sansa had thought.

Though, she supposed, if the castle hadn’t literally started shaking as it had, perhaps the others would have looked as shocked by Margaery’s proposal to the Dornishman as Sansa currently felt.

She had offered him independence. Had offered Dorne independence, if only they would help get rid of the Targaryen boy and then leave King’s Landing the seven hells alone, something that Arianne Martell would never have agreed to, something that most certainly Lady Nym had not stuck around King’s Landing so long for.

Sansa had the sudden, strange premonition that she might never speak with Margaery again, not before it was too late, with the way that the castle was shaking around them, with the faint cries she could hear coming from beyond the castle, towards the harbor, but the rocking had stopped, by then.

Sansa didn’t know a lot about the things that had happened, since she had fallen ill. She knew that Cersei Lannister was likely the person who had poisoned her, from Margaery, just as the maesters had come, as Margaery had whispered to her not to take anything they gave her without testing it first, and that Cersei was gone, now.

She didn’t know about Euron Greyjoy.

Gulian stepped forward, but Margaery didn’t say anything to him, just stared at him for a long moment, before she finally sighed, nodded, clearly believing this wasn’t him, at the very least.

They stayed in silence then, the throne room so quiet Sansa hated it, hated that she could hear the shifting of her own gown when she moved even the slightest bit, hated how worried she was about Margaery right now, about the fact that Margaery would even suggest something like giving Dorne independence after she had just delivered her child.

She understood why, of course; it wasn’t as if they were going to come to any sort of agreement with Dorne otherwise, not with Aegon Targaryen here, but to just…give up Dorne like this…

Things must be going worse than she’d thought.

Sansa swallowed hard, wondering what else she had missed while she had been stuck in such a deep sleep. She knew about Aegon, but if he was already attacking King’s Landing…perhaps she had been asleep longer than she’d thought.

She heard the sound of screams only because the room was so silent, she thought, and though they were not so close to the harbor in this room, she heard the sound of a great ship being sunk rather loudly, too.

She closed her eyes.

Not the Dornish attacking King’s Landing, then. Not with the look of fear on Gulian’s face, not with the looks of fear on everyone else’s, as if they knew enough to know that this wasn’t the Dornish, but someone - something - far worse.

The great doors to the hall flew open then, and Sansa jumped a little as one of the heralds came running in, covered in blood, followed not too far behind by Randyl Tarly, once more. Not his own, she realized, though it did take her a moment to do so.

He was holding something, also covered in blood, under his arm, as he skittered to a stop before the throne, three members of the Kingsguard moving forward to make sure that he did not get closer to their Regent.

Gulian stared.

So did everyone else.

“What is the meaning of this?” Margaery demanded, as Sansa’s heart hammered in her chest. “Have the Dornish attacked? Or is this…someone else?”

It clearly wasn’t the Dornish, Sansa thought, but didn’t say a word, just stared at the blood on the herald.

She didn’t say a word about the fear in Margaery’s voice, either.

Perhaps it was just because she had been asleep for so long, but the sight of the blood unsettled Sansa more than she wanted to admit.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the Iron Throne again, covered in ash.

Sansa shuddered.

She had thought they were just dreams, when she had first awoken. Nightmares, not bound to come true, only meant to torment her while she couldn’t awake from them.

And then, the one about Margaery’s child, about her _son_ , had happened, right before Sansa’s eyes, word for word.

It had been horrifying, watching that dream play out before her as if she hadn’t known exactly what she was going to say next because she had already dreamed of herself saying it, had already known how Margaery would react the moment Alla told her that the baby had been taken away because the Dornish were attacking.

And yes, in the dream, she had thought the child was going to die, from the dream, had thought that of course it wasn’t real, which was why she had been more than a little pleased when the babe had been borne, alive and well.

But somehow, it only made the guilt she felt worse, to know that she could have prevented what had happened, somehow, because she’d had warning, and she hadn’t done it. Had instead just…let it happen, because she thought the baby had been born, so he would be fine. The dream wasn’t real.

The guilt that followed it certainly was.

The messenger swallowed hard, bowing. “I…Your Grace…” he stammered out. Then, “It was not the Dornish who did this, Your Grace,” he informed her, and Margaery blinked at him, as Sansa felt her stomach twisting itself in knots, now.

“It…He…” the messenger cleared his throat. “He…”

Margaery glared at the man. Sansa still couldn’t quite believe that she’d just given birth, not mere hours before, from how she was acting just now, but she was certainly impatient, rather more pale than she ought to be, glaring down at the herald. “Who, then?”

The herald swallowed hard, glancing over at Gulian and his camp, and then at Trystane and Lady Nym.

“I have been instructed to inform Your Grace that…that King Euron of House Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands and in the North, extends his…greetings to the Regent,” he said, and his voice was shaking as he moved closer, as Sansa noticed that he was holding something. Her eyes narrowed, and she gagged as she realized what it was, half turned, where she stood behind the Iron Throne. “And…asks for a meeting with Your Grace. As a…show of his good will, he has sunk half of the Dornish fleet in the harbor.”

Gulian Qorgyle sucked in a horrified breath.

The herald cleared his throat, clearly not finished with his message yet. Sansa wondered how bad it was out there, that he looked so frightened.

Half the Dornish fleet.

King Euron.

Good gods.

“But if…If Your Grace does not consent to a meeting, his…Lord…that is, King…that is, Euron Greyjoy says he will being sinking Tyrell ships until there are none left, and then he will offer the Dornish the same…opportunity for a meeting.”

Sansa shivered; there was nothing but truth in the herald’s eyes; whatever he had seen out in the harbor, he clearly believed the threat to be real.

Or, at the very least, believed the threat to himself to be quite real.

Margaery straightened on the Iron Throne, and Sansa could not tell if she was uncomfortable or genuinely afraid. “And…is his threat…legitimate?” She demanded. “The Dornish fleet…is it…” she glanced over at Gulian, cleared her throat. “Truly gone?”

But she said it like she already believed the herald.

The herald cleared his throat, glancing down. “Yes, Your Grace. I do believe…his threat is legitimate. There is…that is to say, he has some sort of…thing, in the waters of the harbor. It…I saw it with my own eyes, from the parapets. The…thing, it destroyed half of the fleet in less than a few minutes, Your Grace. They…never stood a chance.”

Gulian let out a sound that might have been horror, even if he had been shaken with the rest of them. “So much of it?” He echoed, but Sansa had already figured that part out.

Sansa stared.

 _King_ Euron. Well.

Euron Greyjoy was coming.

Euron Greyjoy, whom she didn’t know much about, save that he’d been raiding the coastlines of the Reach recently, and that, evidently, he’d become an even greater threat than that, according to what Margaery had said about Lannisport, though that seemed distinctly impossible.

She’d almost forgotten that the Greyjoys were claiming the North, now, but that was hardly the most pertinent part of the message.

Dear gods.

She’d been asleep only a few weeks, she’d thought. It felt as if everything had gone to the Seven Hells, int hat time.

The herald swallowed hard, as he dropped, suddenly, the package in his hands.

“He also…” he swallowed thickly, and she wondered just how Euron Greyjoy had intimated these things to him. “He also wished me to tell you that this is the head of the man who…headed the Dornish fleet against you, Your Grace. He means it as a…sign of his goodwill, giving it to you.”

His voice was shaking.

A sign of goodwill.

Sansa would have laughed, if she weren’t suddenly so terrified, and the moment she had that thought, she wondered where it had come from.

She wondered if this madman Euron Greyjoy had a sense of humor. She’d never much appreciated Joffrey’s.

Margaery eyed him sharply. “He wants a meeting?” She asked, cocking her head. “Cersei Lannister asked him for a meeting, and he burned her fleet into the sea only afterwards. Why would he request a meeting with us when he’s clearly capable of taking on our fleet, here and now?”

Sansa jerked, where she stood.

Euron Greyjoy had _burned the Lannister fleet_.

Somehow, they’d forgotten to mention that, when she’d awoken.

Randyl, where he stood near the Iron Throne, shrugged. “He did say that he came in good will, Your Grace, saving us from the Dornish.”

Margaery had been saving them from the Dornish, Sansa thought, rather mulishly, even if she could understand why Randyl did not see it that way. After all, he, like Mace and Olenna and even Lady Nym, probably were almost grateful for the attack. Probably thought that Euron Greyjoy was even now saving Margaery from making the horrible mistake of giving a kingdom that wanted no part of them its own independence.

She licked her lips, still not entirely certain what she thought of it herself, wondering if Margaery was only doing it because she was furious over what had happened to her son, because she wanted to find the quickest possible way to get rid of the Dornish, and had instantly thought of this.

In a way, she supposed she even understood why Randyl and Mace looked so relieved. From their perspective, and - a part of her whispered, it was true - Margaery had just gone through the painful ordeal of childbirth, to wake up and find that her child had been spirited away. She wasn’t thinking straight, that was obvious from the fury practically radiating off of her as she made that deal with the Dornish ambassador.

No doubt they hoped she would forget the deal she had been in the midst of offering, now that someone else was here to contend with.

But then, she supposed she understood why they might think that. After all, Euron was attacking the Dornish, their enemies, at the moment. Rescuing them from a siege.

Still, that didn’t feel right. Didn’t explain why the castle was shaking, why Margaery was sitting straight backed and as pale as ivory, on the Iron Throne. Why this didn’t feel anything like a rescue, not at all.

But for a military man, Randyl seemed to have forgotten that Euron had included the Dornish in on his invitation, or rather, demand, as well, if the Tyrells did refuse his offer.

Then again, she doubted it had occurred to him that Margaery might refuse such an offer, not in her current position.

Margaery pursed her lips.

“And does he…say what it is that he wants from this meeting?” She asked finally, when the silence of the throne room had grown quite thick. At the very least, it seemed that Euron had decided to stop destroying ships in the harbor, but only just.

Sansa could still hear the keening wails, the sounds of horrified screams, even if the shaking had stopped, all of the way from here.

The thing, the herald had said, no bothering to specify what it was he had seen, and Margaery, strangely enough, hadn’t asked. Neither, she noticed, had anyone else.

But it had wiped out half of a fleet in, in _minutes_.

That wasn’t possible.

The herald cleared his throat. “Peace, he says. Or, the chance for an alliance.”

“An alliance,” Margaery scoffed, throwing her hands down on the arms of the throne. Sansa thought she was acting rather…brazen for someone who had just been threatened with something that could wipe out half of a fleet in minutes, but she knew better than to try to step in, just now, as indeed, even Randyl Tarly seemed to realize. “As if we could say no.” She sighed, turning to Gulian. “Well? Will you see him alongside me, or not?”

She asked the question rather drolly; it was not as if Gulian could refuse, after all. Not when the last half of his fleet was at stake, his rescue from this place as surely as Euron Greyjoy was, strangely, impossibly, about to become theirs.

No, Sansa thought. No, there was something very wrong about this. The Greyjoys didn’t venture this far south, and surely they…

Gulian stared at her for a long, hard moment. And then he did just that. Refuse, that is.

Sansa was beginning to wonder if Gerold Dayne was going to regret not sending Lady Tyene here, in his stead.

“Treachery!” Gulian shouted, raising his hand to jab a finger in Margaery’s direction. “You’ve made false promises, witch, only to make a deal with Euron Greyjoy behind our backs!”

Sansa sucked in a breath, stepped away from the Iron Throne.

Margaery shook her head, paling slightly. “No,” she breathed. “No, that wasn’t us. We didn’t call him here, he is no friend of ours. I am just as surprised by his presence as you are, and you will notice that he threatens our ships just as he does yours.”

Sansa supposed she understood the adamance in Margaery’s voice.

He would have agreed with her offer, would have taken it gladly, Sansa thought, horrifying though Margaery’s offer had been, if not for this, and Euron had interrupted that. Had interrupted it by attacking a Dornish ship, and threatening to attack the Tyrells, as well. By shaking the very ground they stood on.

She had seen it in his eyes; he had wanted to take the offer, as much for the independence it would offer Dorne as the scandalized looks on every Tyrell face in the throne room.

“Isn’t he?” Gulian sneered, instead. “Then why is he here?”

Margaery shook her head. “I swear to you, I do not know,” she informed him. “Last we heard, he had made an enemy of us by attacking Casterly Rock, and just as we had attempted a shaky alliance with the Lannisters, and then took his prisoners and disappeared. So no, I cannot tell you what he is doing here, now, but I can say he is not here at our invitation, nor would we have invited him, of all people, here, after he has lain waste to the Reach’s villages these past few months, so mercilessly.”

Gulian stared at her, for a long moment, and Margaery held her breath.

Sansa slowly blew out her own, and couldn’t much help it if she was staring, if Olenna, the woman who had taken Margaery’s son away without a word to either Margaery or Sansa, which had just been cruel, Sansa couldn’t help but think, because…Gods.

Margaery was still trying to do it. Was still trying to strike a deal with the Martells, even while they were supposedly under attack by Euron Greyjoy.

“However,” Margaery continued, undeterred, thinking fast, unwilling to let go of this chance now that she had it, Sansa thought, horrified and fascinated at the same time, “I’m sure you recognize the tight position this puts you in. I suppose you’ll want to rethink my offer.”

Gulian stared at her incredulously; so did half the court. “I will hear nothing more from you, Your Grace, until Euron Greyjoy comes before us himself and confirms what you have said,” he snapped at her.

Margaery swallowed hard.

Sansa supposed that was only fair, though she didn’t attempt to warn the man that she very much doubted Euron Greyjoy was interested in speaking with them at all. He hadn’t been interested in speaking with any noble as he pillaged his way along the Reach coasts, and certainly had stopped to negotiate before laying waste to Casterly Rock, apparently.

* * *

He walked into the Great Hall of King’s Landing, unchallenged, at the head of a troop of pirates, the worst sort of men, she’d always been told as a child, for all that Theon had lived amongst them. But Theon had been different, or so she had thought, up until the day he had laughed at everything her father had ever given him and killed her two youngest brothers for no reason other than that he wanted Winterfell for his own family.

In any case, there was nothing about Euron Greyjoy that suggested for a single instant he was anything Theon, not the purposeful way he walked, not the glint in his one eye, not the darkness that seemed to follow him like a heady cloak, not the men walking along in silence behind him, obedient to a fault.

There was something about him, indeed, which made Sansa shudder just looking at him too closely, from his blue lips to the eyepatch covering his eye, from his regal gait to that look in his uncovered eye, like he had seen all of this before and knew how it would play out, knew how he would go about slaughtering every single person in this room, if he needed to, and with ease.

Besides the Dornish emissary, the nobles swept back as Euron neared as though he carried the plague with him.

Sansa shuddered, hugging herself, glancing over at Margaery as Euron swept to a halt before the Iron Throne, raising a single eyebrow in the direction of Qorgyle, as if he ought to know that he was merely in the way, now.

The Dornishman looked as though he would like nothing more than to lunge at the other man, and, perhaps anticipating this, Randyl Tarly moved to intercept Euron.

“You cannot bring your weapons into this place,” he said, coldly, holding out an expectant hand.

Euron Greyjoy looked…amused, by this, but he did not protest, as he pulled his sword free of its sheathe and handed it over.

He didn’t look at all threatened by the lack of a weapon; rather to the contrary. Sansa blinked.

It took Margaery several long moments to come back to herself, as the terrified, blood-soaked herald introduced the man who could only be Euron Greyjoy to the hall, Sansa noticed, and her eyes narrowed as she glanced between Margaery and Euron, because Margaery was almost looking at the man like…

Like she knew him, somehow.

Sansa’s eyes narrowed, because as far as anyone knew, Euron Greyjoy had been something of an enigma, a plague to foreign shores, far from the Seven Kingdoms, for most, if not all, of both their lives, after being exiled by his own brother.

And yet.

And yet, Margaery’s face had grown pale at the sight of him, and she reached up, almost unconsciously, Sansa thought, to feel at her hair, which was just beginning to grow out past her elbows again.

And Sansa could smell the madness on him, even from here, so the fact that Margaery was looking at him like that, like she recognized him, made her rather uncomfortable, as well.

“Lord…King Euron,” Margaery said, deciding on the title at the last minute, and Sansa turned sharply, at the phrasing, as did half of the court, including Gulian Qorgyle, Sansa noticed, who looked furious at the admission.

She wasn’t going to lie, half of the things Margaery had said since coming into the throne room had shocked Sansa, more than she cared to admit, not the least of which was the idea that Margaery would be willing to give up Dorne in order to hold onto the Iron Throne, because the moment any other kingdom heard about that…

She shuddered.

But Sansa supposed there was little else Margaery could do, when Euron Greyjoy had already demonstrated his willingness to kill anyone who stood in his way.

The least they could do was humor him, while they tried to hear him out.

“W…Welcome to King’s Landing,” Margaery said, and her voice wobbled a little as she said it. She did not bother with further pleasantries, did not bother to pretend she was happy to see him, and Sansa was at least relieved for that.

She didn’t think the Dornish emissary would have appreciated any more concessions, on her part, to a man who had brought them a Dornish sailor’s head as a sign of goodwill.

Gods, what had happened? Sansa couldn’t help but wonder. Less than a few hours ago, Margaery had been giving birth to the son that was meant to save them, and now, they were in the shit once again.

A few hours ago, she and Margaery had been exchanging wedding vows. Now, they were dealing with Dornish fleets and madmen.

Gulian Qorgyle cleared his throat, rather loudly, and his face had gone an unflattering shade of pink. Euron ignored him entirely.

So did everyone else.

Sansa swallowed hard; it was a strange shift, from just moments ago, and her head was spinning. Gods, politics in King’s Landing were always…horrible, but this was a new level.

But then again, the promise that Margaery had just made to the Dornish, whether under duress or not, was not one that she could simply take back, either.

Sansa found herself almost relieved that she wasn’t the one forced to deal with all of this, at the moment, even if her primary purpose for weeks before she had been poisoned was to help shield Margaery from this very thing.

She wondered if that was selfish of her, and then shook her head, forced herself not to think on it.

Margaery needed her to act sharp, even if she wasn’t the one dealing with this, at the moment. From the look on Margaery’s face, she wasn’t going to last much longer, and Sansa didn’t expect that she would, not when she had just given birth and dear gods, she ought to have been in bed, being looked over by the maesters, at the very least.

And still…Sansa was worried. Not just about that, but what had just happened a moment ago, with the Dornish and with the promises that she had just made to them. Sansa didn’t know if those promises were truly the best way to save them, even if she understood why Margaery had decided that, didn’t know if it was revenge against Olenna for what had happened to her son, if Margaery wasn’t thinking clearly at all.

Euron eyed the Regent with his one good eye, the other buried beneath a black eyepatch that only served to make him seem even more menacing, somehow. Sansa was glad that he didn’t move any closer to them.

“Is it…all right for you to refer to me as such, Your Grace, when you, too, claim to be Queen here?”

His voice wasn’t what Sansa was expecting; she’d thought it would be lower, more terrifying, somehow, matching the rest of him. It sounded distinctly…normal, which was perhaps the more unnerving, even if there was a lilt to it that Sansa didn’t particularly like. He sounded more…curious than anything, and Sansa didn’t like the ease with which he stood in the middle of the throne room, watching Margaery like a hawk.

Or a snake.

Margaery’s smile was thin. “I am Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, for my son,” she said, and then her brows furrowed. “You are, from what I understand, claiming Regency over the Iron Isles, not over all of Westeros. I merely wished to extend you…a courtesy, considering what you have done today.”

She strayed away from referring to it as a rescue from the Dornish fleet, Sansa noticed; hells, she strayed away from specifying what it was at all.

After all, none of them knew.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then smiled. It was a very charming smile, for all that it was subtle and looked strange on his face, Sansa thought.

“And the North, Your Grace,” he corrected her, and somehow, his eye sought out Sansa’s, in the crowd. “As is my due, after my nephew took it, for all that he failed to hang onto it. Something that will be remedied soon.”

He said it with such certainty, Sansa shuddered.

Euron’s eye moved away from her, scanning the crowd of uneasy nobles again before it returned to Margaery.

Her smile looked rather forced, now. “It is the Crown’s position that the North belongs to Sansa, of House Stark, who is married to Lord Tyrion Lannister, as the oldest living child of her father, and…who has bent the knee to the Crown, even if we would be willing to make some concessions about the Iron Islands.”

Mace Tyrell cleared his throat. Loudly; Sansa resisted the urge to shake her head again.

Gods, she knew that there weren’t a lot of choices available to them at the moment, but did Margaery have to give away half of the Seven Kingdoms while she was at it?

Euron’s good eye swept up and down Margaery’s form, then, in a way that clearly made her uncomfortable, for all that she hid it well, and very much made Sansa uncomfortable.

Then, it turned to Sansa, and she liked that look even less than Margaery had, she thought.

“I’d be happy to fight her for…it,” he said slowly, the emphasis he placed on that last word not lost on anyone, Sansa had to think, as his eyes finally returned to Margaery’s face, “If you’d like that. Regent.”

He said it, Sansa realized with something approaching horror, as if he found the idea arousing. Worse than that, he said it as if he somehow _knew_. Knew about what was between them.

Dear gods, how did everyone always know?

Sansa had never even met this man in her life.

Margaery, dear gods, blushed. Sansa closed her eyes.

“Sansa is a dear friend,” she said. “Why should I want to see her hurt by someone as powerful as the King of the Iron Isles?”

Her voice was laced with sarcasm; she didn’t sound like someone afraid of what he might do to her, if he found her voice too condescending.

Sansa thought that might be a mistake.

Euron pressed his lips together, and then shrugged. “Your Grace,” he said. “I am sure that my presence here must be...perplexing, to you. Especially after what my men did to the Westerlands.”

He said it without a hint of remorse in his voice, for what must have been thousands of lives gone, if the looks on the faces around her were any indication. Sansa still didn’t know exactly what had happened, but, as no one was speaking of Cersei anymore, and she wasn’t here, Sansa thought she might have a good idea of what she had missed.

Especially given the fearful way that everyone seemed to be reacting to a man Sansa had thought long banished, or, according to legend more than anything, squabbling for power against his niece in Dorne.

Euron smirked. “I am not here for that same purpose, I do assure you. I would have thought that obvious, with my…sign of goodwill, today.”

Sign of goodwill.

Wiping out half of the Dornish fleet with something that the herald had seen, but couldn’t even describe, he’d been so fucking terrified. That was the sign of goodwill he was speaking of.

Sansa shivered.

And worse, Euron said it as if he was just dying for Margaery to ask what he meant by that, and Sansa didn’t like the way that shifted the dynamic in the room one bit.

Margaery eyed Sansa, and then folded her hands in her lap. “And why is it that did you decide to do that?” she asked. “I understand that you have issued no ultimatum to the Lannisters, nor do you seem interested in destroying their armies further.”

Euron shrugged, the movement languid, far too easy going for what they were talking about.

“I suppose I wanted to see what might happen,” he said, and Margaery stiffened a little, in her chair.

Sansa grimaced; just what they needed, another madman.

And he was mad; Sansa could see that very clearly, not just from the look in his eyes or the way that he was smirking at Margaery like she was a piece of meat he’d like to…not devour, she thought, but destroy, but there was something else about him, about the way that he was…even standing there, that made her instinctively want to step back.

She forced herself to remain still, forced herself to keep watching Margaery, because even with the pained expression on her face, and the way that she kept reaching down to press at her womb, it was easier than looking too long at Euron Greyjoy.

Euron smiled again, that ever strange smile. “I don’t like when women reach above their stations. Cersei Lannister has no claim to the Iron Throne, now that Your Grace has successfully given birth to a son.” He smirked. “I suppose it was a way of my offering you my congratulations, by the way.”

Margaery eyed him sharply, clearly not liking the thought that his destruction in Lannisport was yet another sign of goodwill towards Margaery.

“T-Thank you,” she said, slowly, because that hadn’t even been formally announced yet, not beyond the Great Hall. Even if the Dornish had already found out about it and decided to attack them because of it, they’d had agents here; Euron Greyjoy should not have known.

“I don’t suppose that I might see him,” Euron said, almost conversationally, far too relaxed surrounded by Kingsguard and Tyrell men alike. But then, his fleet was still out in the harbor, its reputation speaking for itself, evidently. “This child to whom we’re all meant to bend the knee.”

He said it like he’d be morbidly interested in watching the skin be flayed off the boys back, and perhaps he hadn’t meant that, but Sansa found herself almost relieved that Nikoelas was already gone, even if the thought was accompanied by another spike of guilt for her own part in that.

Margaery licked her lips; Sansa was a little surprised that she was able to hide her own revulsion, at his tone. Sansa certainly wouldn’t have been able to, not when he was talking about a newborn child.

“It has been decided that his presence is…better suited, in Highgarden,” She forced a smile; it was cold as ice. “I’m sure you can understand why.”

Euron hummed, glancing over at Gulian Qorgyle. “Yes, I suppose so,” he drawled. “Politics can be such a tricky business. Even in families.” He turned back to Margaery. “But I’m here to give you yet another gift,” Euron said, finally, dipping into a little bow. “My fleets, in an even exchange.”

Margaery raised an eyebrow, suspicion dripping off of her. “Why would you do that, when you could just take King’s Landing in a fight, if you wished? You’ve just made it very clear how easy you would find the endeavor.”

A long pause; Sansa got the feeling Euron Greyjoy was enjoying keeping all of them on pins and needles, like this.

“I understand that you need a new Hand of the Queen,” Euron said.

Margaery blinked at him. “Its…Hand of the King, actually, and you must have not heard, during your time on the road. Lord Baelish has indeed been replaced; Lord Randyl Tarly has been appointed to the position.”

Euron snorted. “And a shit one, at that,” he said, spitting to the side. “If he couldn’t keep you from dying a bloody death, at the hands of the Dornish, who barely have a fleet of their own.”

Randyl stiffened, hand going to his sword again. He looked furious.

Margaery raised a hand, indicating for him not to interrupt them. Sansa wondered how a many as proud as Euron Greyjoy felt about that, but he didn’t bother to act against her, either.

Margaery raised a brow. “Do you…think you could do better?” she asked, cocking her head at him. “You seem quite certain that I should want you, just because you did not go crawling to a woman who has no chance of winning this war, and because you enjoy destroying fleets.”

Tommen, where he stood in the crowd, flinched, and a part of Sansa felt badly for bringing him here at all.

But then, that had not been her doing, anymore than it had been her idea for him to listen in on Margaery’s birthing.

Sansa felt as if her head was spinning more than it had during the last negotiation she had just witnessed.

Euron smirked. “No,” he said, finally. “I am more suited to leading armies than leading old men in long talks that ultimately go nowhere. I find it far more…distinctive in its purpose. That is why my fleet is sitting in the harbor, and the Dornish fleet is halved, and yours uselessly is in the Reach. Or the Lannisters’ is sitting uselessly in Lannisport. Burnt to a crisp.”

Olenna looked annoyed, at those words.

Margaery lifted her chin. “Speak plainly to me, _King_ Euron. What is it that you want, to approach me like this now? I cannot deny that your actions have…not indirectly benefited me. But I couldn’t keep you from King’s Landing if you wanted, now, and you did not approach us after you destroyed the Lannisters’ fleet, some of whom we called allies, at the time. Family.”

He smiled at her. “Allies?” He echoed. “How…intriguing.” Then, not one for pleasantries, Sansa imagined, “I would not name an ally of anyone who actively sought a coup against me. It breeds only further betrayal.”

Margaery swallowed hard.

Euron leaned forward, as if he didn’t think the entire Thorne room was watching them, listening intently. As if this were merely a…private conversation, between the two of them. For a moment, Sansa was almost convinced that it was.

“I want the Crown’s unconditional permission to lay waste to any part of Westeros that currently challenges the Crown,” he said, and his voice sent shivers up Sansa’s spine, the…absolute desire in those words, that hadn’t been there moments ago, when he’d been flirting with Margaery.

He sounded as if the idea was more…exciting to him than a woman might be, she thought, and that was how she knew he was a dangerous man, indeed.

“Dorne, the Westerlands. The North. The Riverlands. Anyone who stands against you. I want the Crown’s tacit agreement to do…whatever it is I wish to whomever stands in my way,” he went on, when Margaery was silent. “More than that. Your…blessing. I want to be the reason half of the Seven Kingdoms either bend the knee to Your Grace, or no longer have knees.” He smirked. “And…if Your Grace should refuse me, I shall simply have to lay waste to yours.”

Fucking hells.

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut, forced herself to remember to breathe, because at the moment, she didn’t feel entirely capable of that.

Margaery eyed him, her expression more impassive than Sansa was sure she actually felt, though she was as white as a sheet.

Because this was…this was worse, she felt suddenly, than anything they had dealt with before this. This was worse than Joffrey’s madness; at least with him, Sansa had almost known what to expect.

Euron spoke of destroying whole kingdoms with the ease of someone who knew he would have no qualms about doing exactly that. And there was no good option between the two of them, not for Margaery, not when there was no one coming to save them, just now.

Her own people, everyone here, perhaps, in exchange for everyone else in Westeros.

And Sansa…knew that none of this was anything like what she wanted, because Margaery had always wanted the Seven Kingdoms to love her. They already did, some of them, but those that did not remembered what had happened at the Sept, blamed her for it, here in King’s Landing, and Sansa knew how that still ate away at her.

She wouldn’t want further bloodshed on her hands.

But she was also fighting a war, or would be, soon, on two fronts, and, if she refused Euron, on three, Sansa thought, swallowing hard as her stomach twisted.

And that wasn’t a war Sansa was entirely convinced they could win, not when he had just destroyed half of a fleet that had just been a threat to them, too.

Euron Greyjoy had just made it more than clear that Margaery had no real choice in this deal, either. She would be his puppet queen, allowing his wanton destruction with a smile, or she would be the next one he destroyed, and Sansa doubted he would shed a tear over that.

She swallowed thickly; when she closed her eyes, she saw the Iron Throne, once again covered in ash.

She hadn’t seen Margaery, in the future. She’d seen it when Margaery had given birth, had seen her child taken away, but everything else…

Everything else had been about a future Sansa very much wasn’t sure she wanted to see come to pass.

Dear gods, this hadn’t been what they wanted. None of this was.

“ _Why_?” Margaery finally asked, genuinely perplexed and apparently no longer willing to play games about it.

Sansa supposed she understood why; Euron Greyjoy did not seem like the sort of man who wanted or needed a puppet queen, who cared much about politics at all, as he had just all but said. He could just as easily destroy them and decide to take King’s Landing for himself, if he liked.

But he wasn’t.

He smiled at the Regent; it was not a nice smile. It showed his teeth, and Sansa thought they looked like knives, for a moment. She blinked, and the image was gone, but the feelings were not.

“Let’s just say I think I have a…vested interest in it. Your Grace.”

Which wasn’t an answer, not at all.

Margaery shook her head. “And should I rule over ashes alone?” She asked, primly. “I’m sure you understand that I’ve no interest in hiring an attack dog to bully my son’s subjects into submission. I am merely their humble servant, not their executioner. I’m afraid that your offer in fact, offers me very little in return.”

Sansa sighed, a little relieved by the response, even if she had a bad feeling about what might happen to…all of them, if Margaery dared to refuse him, just now.

But she had known that Margaery wouldn’t agree to a thing like that, that she wouldn’t agree to let so many of her people be slaughtered by a madman who clearly had designs on her, as well, for whatever purpose, though that was still unclear.

Euron shrugged, looking her over again. “You seem perfectly capable of making children, Your Grace,” he told her. “I’m sure you could find the strength to...repopulate those places, if necessary. Or, if they submit, you will not need to worry about that at all.”

Margaery pursed her lips, disgust flitting across her features. “I already have an army, King Euron,” Margaery reminded him, and Sansa shook her head, wanted to hiss at the other girl that that was the wrong answer, that she should have spent enough time as Joffrey’s wife to know that.

He snorted, spreading his arms wide. “Where, Your Grace?” He asked her, sounding amused. “In the Reach, where it does you no good? In the Westerlands, where Cersei Lannister has been defying you all of this time, without my help to put her down?”

Margaery looked annoyed. “And why should I believe that the moment you have half of the Seven Kingdoms under heel, you wouldn’t then turn on me?” Her eyes narrowed at him; and Sansa knew she didn’t like this, but dear gods, she couldn’t even believe the other woman was even acting as if she were considering it. Considering any of this.

Their lives for the loss of everyone else’s.

That wasn’t the sort of Queen that Margaery was. That wasn’t the sort of woman that Margaery was.

“You’ve already demonstrated just in the last five minutes that you’d do so if it suited you, so don’t try to lie to me,” Margaery went on.

Euron smiled at her. “Honesty is a good thing to have, in alliances, it’s true. And, well,” he drawled, slowly, “I’m rather a stranger to the ways of court these days, myself, but aren’t these things, when there is doubt on both sides, usually solved with a marriage?”

Sansa closed her eyes, sucking in a breath and hoping that none of her own distress showed on her face.

Margaery cleared her throat. “Good ser, you must understand, I am…still in very deep mourning for my husband, King Joffrey, may he rest in peace. And the whole of my devotion must now belong to my son. Marriage is not even a consideration for me, just now.”

Euron gave her a look that could only be a smirk. “Yes, I imagine you…mourn him night and day, Your Grace.”

Margaery stiffened, and Sansa shot her a look. Gods, they couldn’t afford for her to give such things away, now.

Euron smirked at her, a little wider, now. “But I understand that these things can be…difficult to decide on, in a moment’s notice. Especially for a mother.”

Margaery closed her eyes.

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek until she felt blood flooding into her mouth.

“So,” Euron went on, in a perfectly reasonable voice, “I shall give you the time you…deserve to consider the matter, of course, as any good husband might.” He smirked, licked his lips, slowly, like a predator. “However many hours you may require. For every hour that you refuse me, I shall…” he paused for a moment, and Sansa felt her back stiffening, “Sink another Tyrell ship in the harbor. I am an impatient man, after all.”

He obviously wasn’t expecting an answer.

Margaery’s mouth parted, slightly. “You would hold my own men hostage against me, so that you can force me to agree to allow you to kill my own subjects on a whim?”

He gave her an exaggerated bow. “As I say, Your Grace, you have as many hours as you need to come to a decision. I can promise you that I would make for an…” he looked down her body again. “Appreciative enough husband, if that is of any concern. But do remember that you do not have unlimited ships, in your harbor.”

And with that, he turned and marched out of the throne room, the heralds moving out of his way as his own men pushed open the doors for him, as he pulled his weapons back with ease, on his way back.

Randyl Tarly looked like he wanted to cut the man down, right then and there.

He didn’t, and perhaps that had something to do with the shock that Margaery still sat in, on the Iron Throne, not giving the order that he was perhaps hoping for.

The doors shut with a bang, behind him.

Margaery closed her eyes; Sansa thought she saw a tear escape. Her own gut twisted in sympathy.

Silence reigned.

Sansa was quite sure that, like her, none of them knew what to say, how to even react to something like this ultimatum.

And then, Margaery cleared her throat, lifted her head. “Assemble my Small Council,” she called out, “in the Small Council chambers. And get me Grandmaester Pycelle. I…have need of him.”

And Sansa…wanted to go to her, wanted to make sure that she was all right, but she found that she didn’t quite dare, not when servants moved forward to help Margaery off the throne, when it became clear, after a moment or two, that she was incapable of doing it herself, not after she had just given birth and then been exposed to this shock.

But Euron Greyjoy had all but implied he knew the truth about them, and Sansa knew they had been acting too dangerously about their own relationship, lately.

And, worse than that, she wasn’t quite sure that she could face the other woman, at the moment. She had let Olenna take Margaery’s son away from them, but Margaery…Margaery was about to agree to a marriage, to save their own people.

A marriage, with someone who wasn’t Sansa, because the world couldn’t know about their relationship, about the vows that they had just whispered to one another, before everything had been shot to hell like this.

Sansa shuddered.

No, none of this was all right. They had fought so long and hard for all of this, and she couldn’t stand the thought that once again, they were about to lose everything. Were about to find out that all of their fighting had been for nothing at all.

So instead, and perhaps the movement was on a whim more than anything else, Sansa found herself going up to the parapets. She knew that the Small Council would not be ready to speak on anything useful until Margaery herself showed up, and if she was going to see a maester, that might be some time.

And she knew that she ought to be there anyway, but they had never respected her when Margaery had been less than a Regent, and she doubted they would listen to her now.

And, worse than that, she wasn’t sure she had anything of use to say, about any of this. Not just now, when her head was still spinning, when she wasn’t even entirely certain what had just happened.

So, instead, she made her way up to the outer walls, found herself staring down at the harbor as she watched Euron Greyjoy get back into his…monstrous looking ships, ships that didn’t look like they had been built by any earthly being. Perhaps it was a whim, to come up here, or something else, the knowledge that, at least for a few more moments, she might not be bothered, up here.

She squinted at the ships that Euron Greyjoy had brought into the harbor.

Half of the harbor was already a pool of destruction, the ships that the Dornish had brought cut to ribbons all about, pieces of wood floating in the harbor alongside pieces of human flesh, and little else. The other Dornish ships had already begun their retreat, clearly realizing that whoever it was they were fighting, even if they didn’t entirely know, it wasn’t worth the hassle of fighting…whatever It was.

This thing that had destroyed half of the Dornish fleet already.

Sansa swallowed hard, as her eyes turned to the Greyjoy ships. To the things that they were, because a part of her was not entirely certain that they were ships, not these things, tall and sleek and like something out a dark fairy tale more than a fleet in and of itself. Even from here, they looked more sinister than any fleet of ships had a right to be.

And then she saw the bodies, hanging off the bow of the ships like figureheads, but these were not made of wood.

No, they were made of bone.

Sansa could see them, their corpses mostly skeleton with bits of flesh and cloth on it, now, from where she stood on the parapets. She thought she might be sick.

They couldn’t agree to let a man like this have his way with the Seven Kingdoms, with anyone who opposed them, Sansa thought. He was a monster, that was clear enough, even if he had, for some insane, unclear reason, reached out to do what almost felt like helping them.

But Margaery was right, in that, unlike with Dorne, they weren’t exactly in a position to say no.

Sansa wasn’t certain how long she stood there, staring down at those disturbing ships, until a servant came and tentatively told her that the Regent was with the Small Council and her presence was required.

It was only because Sansa was already standing on the parapets, looking out, that she saw the first Tyrell ship fall.

And she saw exactly what it was that had destroyed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that anyone cares, but I found a fancast of Euron Greyjoy as Mads Mikkelson on Tumblr the other day, and…y’all, I feel robbed. I mean, I already felt robbed, but… 
> 
> https://thebluelemontree.tumblr.com/post/185684457935/winterfellsrose-asoiaf-meme-313-non-pov


	44. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a little while since my last update! It's been a crazy couple of weeks, I moved, and I really didn't realize how long it's been, haha, because I definitely didn't mean to leave you guys on such a mean cliffhanger!  
> ...I say, as I leave you with another one. At least it's a longer chapter? *Runs away*

_Gendry cleared his throat, as he tentatively took the seat next to Olenna Tyrell. He was nervous about the question he was about to ask, but he knew she already knew that, so he supposed there was no harm in showing that nervousness to her._

_“I…I was wondering if it might be possible for me to go to King’s Landing, my lady,” he said, carefully, aware that he did not really have the standing to ask anything of her._

_After all, after she had let him out of his prison cell, she had been far more kind to him than he had ever expected. Than he would have thought she needed to be, to get…whatever it was that she wanted out of him._

_“Queen Margaery was…a boon companion, in our travels together, and I would like to see her again,” he went on, when Olenna answered this only with silence, nervous as his words all but tripped over each other._

_He knew that she was the one insisting he see the maesters, daily, to learn what he was certain every child noble knew, but he was, in truth, feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole experience._

_Even if he had been born a nobleman’s legitimate son, and not the illegitimate one of a king, he doubted that he would ever have made a very good scholar._

_And some part of him thought Olenna Tyrell already knew that, that she’d known that from the moment she had first come down to his prison cell and told him she finally believed his admittedly strange story, and that he was now under her protection, rather than her imprisonment._

_He couldn’t say that for sure, of course, and certainly couldn’t say what it was she wanted of him now, but he thought she knew more of him than she let on, all the same._

_Well, she certainly had known about him being the bastard son of a king, something that Gendry himself was still trying to wrap his mind about._

_The bastard son of a king, him, a boy from Flea Bottom who had lost his mother before he ever really got to know her, who had never heard anything about the father who had left them alone, who had perhaps arranged it so that he could get his apprenticeship, according to the oblique references of his master, but had done nothing when his mother had fallen ill._

_He was still disturbed, every time he thought about it. Thought about the fact that Robert Baratheon, a man as famous for his prestige in battle as he was for his ways with women, was his father._

_When he was a boy, he used to imagine that his father would come back one day, would realize, though he’d already lost his chance with Gendry’s mother, that he had made a mistake. That he would be, if not a nobleman, than a farmer, or a good country man who had never meant to leave Gendry’s mother in the first place._

_He would come back, and he would take Gendry away from the shit infested streets of Flea Bottom, and that would have been enough, for Gendry._

_Now, knowing that his father was a king…Gendry shook his head, grimacing slightly as he realized that Olenna was still watching him, something far too knowing in her eyes, at his question._

_He blushed, as he realized that perhaps she thought he and her granddaughter had-_

_“Tell me, boy,” Olenna said, and her words were all but a rasp; she was sick, he’d recognized it the moment she first let him out of his cell and forced him to eat with her, though no one else seemed to._

_He supposed he could understand why; they all seemed terrified of her, these nobles, after all._

_But there was no denying, for someone who had seen this exact illness often enough amongst the elderly and amongst those whose time had simply come too early, that she was, in fact, ill. Not when he had seen it in his own mother, far before her time._

_“Margaery and you, you said that you were…companions,” she went on, and he choked a little, on his drink._

_“I…I was never inappropriate with the Queen, my lady,” he told her, and Olenna looked amused, as if she thought his denials charming._

_After a moment, she simply snorted. “No, I suppose she wouldn’t have,” she said, which only served to make Gendry blush all the more. Then, leaning forward, studying him now, Olenna asked, “How have you enjoyed your time in Highgarden, boy?”_

_It was the first time she’d bothered to ask him anything like that. He’d gotten the impression that she didn’t much care what he felt about his stay in Highgarden, so long as he didn’t try to leave on his own._

_He swallowed thickly, unwilling to tell her, when she had been kind enough to let him out of his cell in the first place, that he didn’t like it here._

_It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the place; on the contrary, it felt like there was something wrong with him, walking these fine halls as if he belonged in them, passing by servants who once would never have bothered to look twice at him._

_Now, they looked at him like they didn’t quite understand how they were meant to react to him, and Gendry supposed that was a fair enough reaction._

_He didn’t know how he was supposed to react to any of this._

_He licked his lips, trying hard to think of a response to her question that wouldn’t be a lie but wouldn’t make him sound ungrateful, either. He’d spent enough time around her lately to know that she would know he was lying._

_He forced a smile. “It’s…very fine, my lady,” he told her. “I just…I didn’t mean anything, by wanting to see Margaery-”_

_“Queen Regent Margaery,” Olenna interrupted him then, her voice gone cold the way it sometimes did, when he slipped up around her._

_He swallowed hard, and decided against telling the lady that he had spent days in a cold, cramped hold with Margaery, on that pirate ship, and had given up on calling her anything but her name, by the end of it._

_He knew Olenna was curious, about that time they’d spent on the ship. Knew that she wanted to know more about it, though, for whatever reason, perhaps this decorum that the nobles clung to so tightly, she never had._

_He grimaced slightly, just thinking about it._

_His time with…with Arya, had been informative, about the way that nobles thought. Oh, she’d never been anything like a real lady in his eyes, not even after he realized who she was, but there had still been that air of arrogance about her, when she was pretending to be nothing more than a common boy, when she yelled at the other boys without thinking that one as small as her never would have done such a thing on her own accord, as a peasant._

_It had been amusing, and a little embarrassing, once he’d finally learned the truth about her. He kept remembering things that Arya had done, things that he ought to have realized sooner, the way she acted, the way she talked, sometimes._

_Gods, even her accent._

_But with Margaery, things had been different. She’d…scared him, sometimes, much in the same way that Olenna scared him, most of the time that he was alone with her. Scared him with the way she’d tried to deal with the pirate captain they were held by, scared him with the way she looked at him, sometimes, as if she were trying to weigh whether or not to cast aside their friendship and save herself._

_Scared him with how easily she had managed to manipulate that pirate captain, in the end. Made him wonder whether the way she’d been treating him, all along, was nothing more than another, harder to notice manipulation._

_After meeting her grandmother, he was almost more certain of this._

_“You don’t strike me as a king,” Olenna said suddenly, totally unprompted, Gendry thought, a little desperately, and there was something about the way she said it, something about the way that her tone clashed with her words, that had Gendry lifting his head, then, narrowing his eyes at her._

_He still didn’t understand these court games, but the way she’d said that, it had almost been as if…as if she were challenging him._

_As if she wanted him to act like a king._

_He squinted at her._

_Nothing she’d said or done since she had let him out of her cells had indicated she had any interest in championing his claim to the throne, scant though it was. He was only a bastard, after all._

_But so was Joffrey Baratheon, a little voice whispered, at the back of his head, and Gendry shivered._

_That was…probably false, and didn’t matter, in any case._

_Gendry had no interest in the throne, even if he had been eligible for it, even if Olenna would have wanted him on it._

_And of course she wouldn’t have, not when her own granddaughter had been named the Queen Regent. That made no sense, none at all._

_And he wondered, wondered about all of those times that she’d had him learning things from the maesters that a simple nobleman’s bastard would never need to know, not truly, about the way that the court worked, about the history of the kings in King’s Landing, about the laws of the Seven Kingdoms, how they differed in Dorne compared to the North._

_He shivered, though it was anything but cold, in these rooms. Swallowed hard, as he stared at her._

_“I…I’m only the bastard son of one, my lady,” he reminded her, and Olenna harrumphed, at those words._

_He felt his insides twist._

_Suddenly, he found himself almost wishing that he had said he was inappropriate with Margaery, on that pirate ship. Somehow, he got the impression that it would have been safer to submit to punishment for daring to touch a queen than whatever it was Olenna actually had planned for him._

_Olenna hummed. “Tell me, boy,” she said, “in all of your studies so far, have you come across your father’s rebellion, yet?”_

_Gendry swallowed thickly, suddenly not wanting to answer that question. He licked his lips; but he knew that the maesters sent daily reports to her, about what they taught him, about how his studies were progressing._

_Slowly, he nodded._

_Olenna all but smiled at him, her earlier animosity lost, or so it would seem. “And did you know much about it, before?”_

_He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting that, contrary to what all of the nobles seemed to believe, the smallfolk were not completely in the dark about the way the world worked._

_Instead, he said, “I knew about Lyanna Stark,” he said, slowly, careful with his words these days in a way that he had never been quite so worried about, before all of this, “and about the Mad King, and the things that he did to the smallfolk, and to the nobles, because he was mad. I knew that my…that Robert Baratheon slew Prince Rhaegar on the field of battle, and they named him king, when it was over.”_

_When the Mad King was killed, too._

_Olenna harrumphed. “Your father…” she seemed to be chasing her words just as carefully as Gendry was, and he didn’t like that he knew that, these days. “Your father was not a good king,” she said, and Gendry flinched. Olenna didn’t look at all sympathetic. “Though I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that he never faced an uprising the way that the Mad King did. His reign was relatively peaceful. Quiet, which is what every good leader wants.”_

_He didn’t understand why she was telling him any of this, but Gendry didn’t dare voice that thought aloud._

_"Though I suppose by that time, people were tired of such things.” She squinted at Gendry, and he almost felt as if she were suggesting… “Then again, that only ever lasts so long. Hence why Stannis Baratheon was able to declare his brother’s children bastards, and plunge us all into another civil war.”_

_Gendry swallowed hard, and decided against pointing out that, not a few months ago, it had been widely reported across the realm that Mace Tyrell had made the same accusation against Joffrey Baratheon._

_His…brother._

_Olenna didn't seem to notice the hypocrisy of her statement, however. Perhaps she truly believed that Joffrey Baratheon was the rightful king, before he’d…died. Gendry couldn’t say._

_“But there is something to be said about your father,” Olenna continued, “and that is that he was a warrior. A damn good one.”_

_Gods, he had spent weeks locked in the hold with Margaery Tyrell, and still, it struck him as strange when highborn women swore._

_Still, Gendry blinked at her, confused about where this conversation was going at all._

_“When he rose up against the Mad King, he did so because he saw the injustice the Mad King’s reign wrought on the people,” Olenna continued, as if he’d asked._

_This wasn’t the same story the maesters had told him, after all. Oh, they’d spoken of his…father, of how Robert Baratheon had risen against the Mad King after the Starks had been burned alive, after Lyanna Stark had been stolen away by the prince, but not quite in the simplistic, intense way that Olenna presented things, now._

_It had been far more about politics, then, than about the right thing._

_He didn’t bother pointing that out to Olenna. He knew the woman had a purpose for everything that she did, these days. There was some reason she was saying these things, and he just had to figure out what it was._

_“When he slew Rhaegar Targaryen at the Trident, when he helped the Lannisters fight off the Greyjoy Rebellion, he was a warrior of renown,” Olenna went on. “For all the things he may have been accused of as a king, he was never accused of being a coward.”_

_Gendry licked his lips; somehow, despite the fact that not a hint of it showed on her face, he thought she was accusing him of being a coward, though._

_He didn’t understand what that meant, but it still made him feel uncomfortable, all the same._

_She leaned forward, then, across the table they were both sitting at, though the servants had been sent away at the beginning of this conversation and neither one of them had touched the food, so far._

_It struck him as such a waste of food, he, who was used to going without, but Gendry couldn’t bring himself to touch any of it, fine food though it was._

_Olenna studied him for a long moment, and then she said, “You will start training by Dickon Tarly’s instructions,” she said. “His father has raised a warrior, as well, and I think there is much you could learn from him.”_

_Gendry’s jaw ticked. He didn’t bother to tell her that he had been practicing with a sword ever since he was a young boy, that, as a blacksmith, there was sometimes little enough else for him to do, and he’d snatched up swords and begun practicing with them the way he saw the noblemen do, when they came to collect their swords._

_He doubted he was any good compared to a warrior, but somehow, he got the impression that he would be, soon enough._

_And he still didn’t know what it was Olenna wanted of him._

_It occurred to him to just ask her, here and now. To demand answers, about what it was she wanted from him, about why she cared about his relationship with Margaery, or about the fact that he was a Baratheon when surely, that only endangered her own granddaughter’s hold on power, at the moment._

_He remembered when he and Margaery had parted ways, when she had gone on to Dorne, and he couldn’t understand why._

_Why she would deliberately go to a place that loathed Tyrells, and loathed Joffrey Baratheon, as well._

_He’d wanted to go with her, to make sure that she was safe, but she hadn’t wanted that. Had seemed amiable enough, but hadn’t wanted him by her side, any more than he wanted to go and become entrenched in politics, himself._

_A part of him had almost invited her to come with him, to give up a life of machinations and schemes, but he knew that, while Arya might have accepted such an offer if he’d just pushed her a little harder, Margaery never would have._

_She was born for this sort of life._

_He only hoped that he wasn’t going to die for it._

_They’d been friends enough, on that pirate ship, but they’d both been trying to survive, then. Margaery was the Regent now, and even if her grandmother seemed weirdly interested in the idea of him fighting, he doubted that Margaery would appreciate the…competition._

_She certainly hadn’t appreciated it when he had tried to save her from the pirate, in the only way that he knew how, by taking on that responsibility for her. He doubted she would appreciate anything like this._

_But he didn’t say anything of this to Olenna, didn’t point out that, while Dickon Tarly looked like a capable enough warrior and certainly seemed to be handling things on the coast with even more pirates that Gendry had to wonder might be the ones he and Margaery had encountered, Dickon Tarly was hardly interested in Gendry._

_Looked at him, as much as the other nobles of Highgarden did, as if they didn’t understand why he was still here, was still alive._

_Well, they weren’t alone in wondering that._

_But a part of him wondered if Olenna didn’t want him training with Dickon Tarly so that Dickon could figure out his weaknesses and execute him, instead of teaching him._

_The thought made him shiver._

_When he looked up, Olenna looked away from him._

_“I have a feeling that you will be returning to King’s Landing far sooner than even you imagine,” Olenna said, still not looking at him. A pause. “In fact, I’ve changed my mind. You may come to court with me, when I go in a fortnight. Would you like that?”_

_He swallowed thickly. Nodded, because technically, she had granted his request, and he’d never even had to mention that the real reason he wanted to go to King’s Landing had nothing at all to do with Margaery Tyrell, and more to do with the fact that Arya’s sister was there, these days, and he’d enjoyed their little talks, during the time she’d spent in Highgarden._

_Olenna hadn’t met his eyes, he knew, since the moment she’d been there to take him out of his cell. He didn’t know what that meant; some people here didn’t meet his eyes because they thought that he was unworthy, that, as a bastard, he shouldn’t even be in Highgarden at all, let alone have such a personal interest taken in him by Lady Olenna, but she had been the one to bring him here, after all._

_And she still wouldn’t look him in the eyes._

_That, more than anything else she said to him, vague as it all was, disturbed Gendry enough to excuse himself from the table before she allowed him to. He was so distracted that he barely noticed when she merely waved a lazy hand, allowing him to go without a complaint._

* * *

Lady Olenna had ordered him to come and see her for a luncheon, at this time yesterday, so Gendry found himself walking to the parlor that she’d described, even though he had a feeling it would be a wasted trip, given how far away his rooms were from her own, here in this castle.

After all, she was surely busy dealing with this…siege, this attack by the Greyjoy lord, just as Margaery was, just as the rest of the Small Council had to be.

Gendry had been there, after all, in the throne room when Euron Greyjoy had delivered his ultimatum to Margaery, had demanded her hand in marriage in exchange for the lives of her men in the harbor. He had a feeling that would be of more priority to Olenna than whatever thoughts she’d wished to stick in Gendry’s head, today.

But he went anyway, because he thought that if he sat in his room listening to the sounds of men screaming in the harbor, far too close to his chambers as it was, or the splash of ships being sunk by some otherworldly creature, according to the servants, he would have to fight the urge to go out there and get himself killed, as well.

There was nothing he could do about this, just now. The Tyrells had yet to make up their minds about what they would do about it, and Olenna Tyrell was likely to throw him in a cell herself, if he did anything she didn’t want.

He knew that about her, now. It had become all the more clear since their arrival in King’s Landing, with all o the questions she asked him over these luncheons, about whether or not Dickon Tarly was expressing any interest in Margaery, about whether or not he himself had spent any time alone with Margaery, since his arrival here.

About whether he thought that each individual choice that Margaery was making, since she had been installed on the throne in the name of a son only just born, was the right one, in his mind, as if Olenna Tyrell cared a wit about that.

To tell the truth, he’d thought he would be spending more time with Margaery, since his arrival in King’s Landing, and a little less time with her grandmother, but that seemed not to be the case.

Hells, he never saw her at all, not really, and he supposed he could understand that. Perhaps he simply reminded her of a worse time in her life, when this husband she clearly Han’t loved was still alive, and she’d been the captive of pirates.

He knew she was busy, but Gendry was still a little hurt that he and Margaery had not once interacted, since he had first arrived in King’s Landing and been pronounced the…the Lord of the Stormlands.

Everything had changed, with that, and he had seen the surprise on Margaery’s face when it had been announced; clearly, whatever it was her grandmother was planning, by giving him that title, Margaery hadn’t been party to it.

For a moment, she’d looked furious, and then, her hand had gone to her stomach, and Gendry had almost understood her anger.

After all, he’d not been a threat to her when he was Gendry Baratheon, bastard son of Robert Baratheon. As the Lord of the Stormlands, officially recognized by the Crown, he was far more of one.

He still didn’t understand what her grandmother was angling for, with all of this. Wondered if she was deliberately trying to get some sort of reaction out of her granddaughter, and Gendry was just a pawn in that game. He understood that Margaery had been acting…strange, ever since the death of her husband.

But this certainly seemed like a personal, deeply dangerous game that Olenna was planning, if that was indeed the case.

He still had yet to work up the courage to demand the truth out of the old woman. She’d had him trained with a sword, with a mace, on horseback. He was hardly an accomplished fighter, but he was passable enough, he thought, for whatever it was she was planning for him.

Clearly, or Dickon Tarly would have continued his training when Gendry came to King’s Landing, which hadn’t happened. In fact, like Margaery, besides these luncheons, Olenna seemed to have almost forgotten about him.

There was no servant standing at the door, when Gendry arrived, to tell him that Olenna would not see him. Still, he sighed as he opened the door, stepped inside, expecting to find either a snide servant or no one, at all.

Instead, he found Shireen Baratheon, sitting at the head of a rather large dining table, picking at a piece of fruit with a look of disgust on her face.

He blinked, staring down in confusion at the girl. “I think…” he said slowly, taking a half step back. “I think I have the wrong room.”

Shireen Baratheon, the last true Baratheon, if the rumors were to be believed about Cersei Lannister’s children, squinted at him. “You were meant to have a luncheon with Lady Olenna, as well?” She asked, and there was something very different from surprise in her voice, as if she had expected something like this to happen, actually.

The thought unnerved him.

He paused, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly in the buckles of his belt. “I…” he said, slowly, and swallowed. “Yes.”

Shireen smirked. It was not a nice look, on a face so young. “Perhaps she forgot about the both of us,” she allowed, and Gendry blinked at her, swallowed hard.

Shireen Baratheon, this little girl who was simultaneously a princess and, somehow, his cousin, squinted up at him as if she were trying to get a read on him, in much the same way that Olenna sometimes would back in Highgarden, when she had invited him for supper and then barely spoke more than a few words to him.

“I don’t understand why you’re here,” she said finally, bluntly, and Gendry blinked at her, reminded a little bit of Ar-

He shook his head. “Lady Olenna asked me to come and sit with her for lunch,” he said, and then motioned aimlessly around the room with his arm. “Although it seems like she isn’t joining us.”

Shireen’s face scrunched up, as if she’d just had a bad lemon. She hadn’t; there was no food on the table, and even if there was, Gendry had the distinct impression that she wouldn’t try to eat it.

It made him wonder if he ought to have been avoiding eating during his meals with Olenna, as well.

Then again, she could have poisoned him in Highgarden at any time, and she hadn’t. Instead, she’d brought him here.

And, like Shireen, he didn’t understand why.

“I suppose she wanted the two of us to get to know one another,” she said, and shrugged. “Or, she wanted to keep us away from the Greyjoy man.”

Gendry swallowed hard; he hadn’t been raised anywhere near the court, of course, but it was slightly unsettling to think that this little girl knew more about the machinations of Olenna Tyrell than he ever would.

“The Greyjoy man?” He’d heard the sound of the ships being sunk in the harbor, of course, had known what that sound was almost immediately after living so long near the shores of Dorne, where so many pirates plagued the shores, though this had sounded infinitely more intense than any of those times.

Had heard Euron Greyjoy’s ultimatum to Margaery, but he was surprised by the almost…nonchalant way this little girl was speaking of him, as if she weren’t worried at all that they were all about to die, unless Margaery made a choice that Gendry certainly didn’t envy her for.

Fighting back, he could understand. Fighting to the death, even. But the Tyrells had not looked, as Euron sauntered out of the throne room, as if they were willing to do that, to protect Margaery Tyrell from another marriage.

And each ship that sunk in the harbor only seemed to weaken their resolve further.

Shireen shook her head. “I meant, I don’t understand why you’re here at all, in King’s Landing,” she continued. “An heir and a spare, is what they usually keep,” she went on, when Gendry only blinked at her in confusion. “I’m the heir, I suppose, and they’ve made it clear that Tommen is the spare, if anything happens to me. That’s why they stripped him of his title, so that he might inherit behind me.”

She was talking about Storm’s End, Gendry realized, slowly.

Shireen blinked at him. “But then there’s you,” she said, slowly. “And they called you the Lord of Storm’s End, even after they had me brought here. I don’t…I don’t understand that.”

Gendry didn’t understand it either, though a part of him thought he was beginning to. Was getting used to Olenna Tyrell’s games.

He felt a stab of pity for the young girl in front of him.

That wasn’t what he said, though. He thought he was getting used to the way that courtiers talked about things here, as well.

“I don’t suppose it’s an easy thing,” he told her instead, almost commiserating, “trying to understand Olenna Tyrell.”

Shireen let out a noise that might have been a laugh. She seemed so old for her age, the same way that Arya had, and painfully young, at the same time. “Yes, I suppose so.”

She looked at him, in that moment, almost as if she weren’t imagining what he’d look like, pulled apart in front of her. It was something of a relief.

“When I was with…with the Bolton bastard,” she whispered, and her tone had totally shifted then, to something young and vulnerable that had Gendry leaning forward just to hear her. He felt a stab of pity for her, at the way her voice had shifted, but didn’t dare let it show on his face.

He’d spent enough time with Arya Stark to know how she would react to that, after all. Pity.

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t understand him, either, but at least his madness was…explainable, sometimes,” she said, and Gendry grimaced.

“How long were you with him?” He asked, not totally sure that she would respond just because he had asked. After all, she had already admitted she didn’t know why he was here, had already made it clear that she didn’t trust him much, either.

But at least it was filling the uncomfortable silence that the knowledge Euron Greyjoy might tear down their walls at any moment created.

Shireen blinked up at him. “I don’t know,” she said, softly. “Too long. I thought my father…” she shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. “I grew up, there.”

Gendry wondered if he’d grown up, in Highgarden. He wasn’t entirely certain that he had. Perhaps he had grown up on the road with Arya, or in that ship with Margaery, but he thought he’d grown up a little too much, in Olenna Tyrell’s presence.

He forced himself to smile at her. “Well, I’m glad you’re not there, any longer,” he told her, as she drummed her fingers against the table, still staring at him in something like consternation.

She shook her head, pressing her lips together. “They say Euron Greyjoy is mad, too,” she whispered. “A different kind of madness, perhaps, but mad, all the same.” She blinked up at him, an unspoken question in her eyes.

He grimaced, not wanting to answer it. “I’m sure they’ll figure this out, Princess,” he told her, and then immediately grimaced, realizing that wasn’t the name he was supposed to give her, anymore.

Still, the beam she sent his way was almost worth the danger of the title being overheard by some servant or guard of Olenna Tyrell’s.

* * *

Sansa knew that the Small Council did not, officially, allow Olenna Tyrell anymore than it officially allowed Sansa herself, but no one attempted to protest either of their presence in the Small Council chamber, when Sansa arrived rather late, and breathless.

She took her seat - where she had been sitting from the moment of Joffrey’s death, as close to Margaery as she could manage - and gave Olenna a small wince, when the other woman all but glared at her for being late.

There was no helping that, after all.

Sansa…after what Sansa had just seen, she had needed a little time to come to terms with it, before she joined the rest of these men who had known her when she was nothing more than a little girl and who wouldn’t be fooled by her show of pretense, now.

She slid into her seat, and cleared her throat, waiting for the shouting of the Small Council members - and many of whom had made themselves welcome to the Small Council without technically being on it - to die down before she cleared her throat.

Loudly.

No one responded.

Across the table, Olenna was still eying her, as if she very much would like to know what Sansa was thinking yet couldn’t.

Sansa found that rather more reassuring than she knew she ought to.

Sansa ground her teeth together. She didn’t want to contribute her next words to this conversation, didn’t quite dare look to Margaery as she did so, but she had heard that all of these nobles had been locked in the Small Council chambers since Euron had issued his threat.

They hadn’t seen what she had.

Hadn’t been shaken by it, the way she had. And they had to know, if they were going to make a decision.

Still, she worried that it would be the wrong one, after her next words.

“That…thing,” she said slowly, when she was sure she had mustered enough attention to actually speak, “in the harbor. Have any of you seen it?”

There. That was a better opening than the one Sansa had almost said, wondering how they hadn’t heard the Thing out there and wondered how it could simply be a ship. She supposed even their shouting could not have covered up that noise.

She bit back a sigh when she realized that she did, in fact, have their attention.

Euron Greyjoy had said he was going to sink ships every hour that Margaery did not answer his proposal.

He had already sunk three. Sansa had seen that, with her own eyes, had seen that he was clearly capable of ordering his creature to do so for him, or of controlling the creature in some way that caused it to wreak destruction only on those he ordered it to, and these people had not.

They needed to understand what they were up against, she thought, almost idly.

Of course they hadn’t seen it, though. None of them had left the Small Council chambers since Euron Greyjoy had issued his ultimatum and all but swaggered out of the throne room, all too busy arguing over the future of Sansa’s wife.

Her wife.

She closed her eyes, forced them open again. “They said at the Rock that some sort of…creature destroyed the Lannister fleet, destroyed most of Lannisport,” she told them, something that they knew far better than her, obviously.

After all, they had at least been awake and aware, when it was happening.

“I saw it,” she continued, over the grumbling noises that greeted these words, and the room fell gracefully silent.

At the head of the Small Council table, Margaery’s eyes widened as they met Sansa’s.

Sansa quickly looked away from her.

This would be easier, if they weren’t meeting one another’s eyes.

Much easier.

She closed her eyes, and thought about the ease with which she had placed baby Nikoelas in Elinor’s arms, even knowing that lately, Elinor had become some sort of creature of Olenna’s, and she’d done it anyway, without even thinking.

Margaery had told her to watch over their son, while she slept, and she’d placed the babe straight into Olenna’s arms, practically.

She swallowed hard, felt something like panic blurring the edges of her vision, and she didn’t know if that was because of what she’d done, or because of Euron Greyjoy’s creature, out in the harbor.

“He’s controlling something,” she whispered, and her voice was so soft that she could see members of the Small Council leaning forward to hear it, but no one tried to interrupt her.

She thought Margaery might be holding her breath.

“Something that…something like I’ve never seen before,” she went on, quietly. “It’s…”

Huge.

Terrifying.

Unexplainable.

In truth, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to explain it, not to these people who had never seen it for themselves. She supposed she could drag them all out to the parapets and make them look for themselves, but…there wasn’t time for that.

Wasn’t time for any of this.

She pointedly didn’t look at Margaery.

Sansa had seen it rip apart an entire ship in the harbor, a Tyrell flagship, with its long, thick tentacles. Had seen them wrap around the mast of the ship, and drag it down into the depths while the men on board screamed, while they fought to get off the ship, to jump into the waters, though that wouldn't save them, not if the amount of blood flooding into the waters of the harbor was any indication.

Not if the way that the harbor’s waters were turning red was any indication.

Sansa had watched as the first ship was dragged to the depths with ease by this creature, this thing that Sansa had never even seen in her nightmares, watched as the ship was splintered into pieces and the men were killed, eaten, crushed, she wasn’t certain.

And the way the creature had done it, the ease with which the creature had killed those men, just as if they were toys and not human beings, that had been even more terrifying.

People had gathered on the beach beyond the harbor, watching, and Sansa had wanted to scream at them to get away, to make sure they were safe, but she understood the compulsion. The need to sit and watch in horror as those men were killed by something otherworldly.

She had seen the second ship destroyed by Euron’s creature, as well, unable to move from her spot after the first one, staring in something between horror and confusion as this creature dipped out of the waters yet again, wrapped itself around the second ship as the men tried to get off.

And oh, they had tried to get away, Sansa had seen that for herself from her place on the parapets, as well. Apparently, Euron’s ultimatum had made it to them; they tried avidly to escape to the shore, after the first ship was destroyed, jumping into their long boats or simply into the water itself in their haste to get away.

It didn’t save them.

This creature, the thing that Euron Greyjoy had sent to kill their ships because Margaery wouldn’t agree to his marriage proposal immediately, seemed as if it knew exactly where in the water each and every man had disappeared to, no matter how they tried to disguise themselves in pieces of debris or behind other, ripped apart bodies.

It took its time, with those ones. Sansa got the distinct impression that it was enjoying itself, killing those men, if a creature like that could be described as enjoying anything.

She hadn’t been able to watch much longer, after that.

Had only stayed long enough to see the way that Euron Greyjoy held up a hand, after that second ship had been destroyed, and the creature stopped, though it surely couldn’t have been looking in Euron’s direction at the time; it was rather too distracted attempting to ram a third ship.

But it had stopped, the moment he’d done so. Had gone still, and then disappeared beneath he waves it was causing, and the harbor was still, for a moment.

“It’s destroying those ships, in the harbor,” Sansa continued, hesitantly, far too aware that she had everyone’s attention, now. “The men can’t get away, either.”

Euron had kept good on his promise to destroy a ship every hour, not bothering to destroy more than that, but the creature still erupted from the waters every time it found a straggler in the water, too.

It had been…horrifying, hearing those screams all of the way from where she stood. To see the blood staining the water, moments later, when the body itself had disappeared beneath the waves.

“There’s…the first ship it took down…” she swallowed hard, still resolutely not looking in Margaery’s direction at all, even if she could feel Margaery’s eyes on her, “it tried to fight back. It…tried to ram the beast, tried to…” she swallowed again. She may not be a soldier, but she knew what she was about to say was true, all the same. “There’s nothing we can do, against something like that.”

And, to her own shock, the men of the Small Council didn’t try to argue the matter over with her. Perhaps they remembered too well what had happened at Lannisport; perhaps they themselves had gotten tired of the screams in the harbor, she didn’t know.

She held her breath.

Finally, she looked over at Margaery, saw the way the other woman’s eyes had widened, searching her own, searching for…

Sansa looked away the moment she realized what it was Margaery was searching for, because even if she knew this was the only way, she didn’t want to give it.

Didn’t want to give Margaery her permission, not after everything they had suffered through to get to where they were together, now.

She didn’t want to give her up to this man, either, not entirely convinced that he was a man at all, as she was.

But she was going to have to.

She knew that, and Margaery obviously knew it, too, if the way that she was looking at Sansa was any indication.

Margaery had been accused of being many things, by her own people. Mad. Wicked. Willing to let anyone suffer for her husband’s pleasure, for her own sins.

She didn’t want to be that woman, Sansa knew. Had never wanted to be that person.

And as much as the thought of something happening to Margaery because of this, of Margaery suffering because of this, horrified Sansa, she knew what they had to do.

Not only because Sansa didn’t think she could live in happiness with the knowledge that that happiness had come from the suffering of Margaery’s people, but because Sansa thought Lord Varys, and some other of the nobles of King’s Landing might be right about Margaery, in some respects.

Margaery had endured much, this year. Sansa didn’t think there was much more that she could take the blame for, much more that she could place on her own shoulders, before she was well and truly gone.

And Sansa knew that if Margaery felt at fault for…whatever it was Euron Greyjoy would do to King’s Landing if she refused him, Sansa would never get her back, even if the thought of giving her up was too much for Sansa, now.

It was a twisted, circular sort of logic, and Sansa hated herself for it, the same way that she hated herself for placing Nikoelas in Elinor’s arms without a second thought. Couldn’t help but wonder if the logic itself came from what she had seen in the harbor, and nothing else.

After all, did Margaery deserve to suffer so that others would not? Hadn’t they both suffered enough, these past few years?

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut, hating herself just a little more.

She knew how Margaery would answer that question, already.

Knew it when she opened her eyes and met Margaery’s once more, saw that same question there, in her eyes.

Nodded, looking away as she did so, because she knew that if she met Margaery’s eyes, she would lose her resolve.

Sansa…When Sansa had been younger, had still been the little Stark prisoner, Cersei’s little dove, she’d told herself that when she was queen, if, she would make sure that the people loved her, that they didn’t fear her the way that they feared Cersei, the way that she knew they feared Joffrey.

All she had wanted was to be loved, the way that the husband who should have loved her didn’t, the way the madman she’d almost married hadn’t.

She’d thought that was what Margaery wanted from her people, as well, when she had come and started convincing Joffrey to act differently, convincing him that it was in his best interest to be a different sort of king than he was turning out to be.

It hadn’t worked, of course, but she had tried, and Sansa had thought that they felt the same way, about the people. Perhaps, even, Margaery cared for them a little more than Sansa herself did.

She didn’t know; suspected she would never know, whether the way that Margaery acted around the smallfolk, the way that she talked about them, was all just a deliberate facade to keep them on her side, knowing that her husband would ensure that they hated her from the start, no matter that the Tyrells might have saved them.

And she’d done a good job with that, which was partially, Sansa was certain, why Cersei had never believed her act.

Sansa believed it from the start. She didn’t know if she still did; she had her doubts, right around the time Joffrey had slaughtered so many women and children at the Sept, but recently…

Recently, Sansa was beginning to believe that Margaery really did care how the smallfolk felt about her, really did want them to love her, really did want to be the sort of queen they would love, no matter what.

But love required sacrifice.

And Sansa…Sansa had seen that creature out there, had seen what it had done to those men, had heard their screams, and a part of her still didn’t want to hand Margaery over to that man, knowing that Margaery would be the only one enduring his particular brand of madness, if she did just that.

Sansa closed her eyes. Breathed in, and out.

“Well, of course we don’t have a choice,” Randyl Tarly sneered; Sansa got the feeling that he was still recovering his wounded pride after Euron had all but called him a terrible Hand of the King.

He sent a look Margaery’s way that was almost apologetic, but not quite. “Your Grace, we are losing this war. Floundering, one might almost say, and we haven’t even started fighting anyone yet. Unfortunately, some sacrifices will have to be made, and Euron Greyjoy has already made himself a…formidable opponent. At least he is here, and not in Dorne, paying court to Arianne Martell, or, worse, to this boy claiming to be a Targaryen.”

Margaery pressed her lips together, and opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t quite get the chance.

It was Varys, who interrupted her. “You’re saying you think she should accept his proposal of marriage?” He asked, and at least he sounded annoyed by it.

Sansa imagined that even the Spider hadn’t figured something like this into his plans.

But he seemed terribly displeased about this, more displeased than Lord Varys ever let on in these meetings, and Sansa couldn't help but narrow her eyes, wondering what about the idea of this marriage disturbed him so much.

She doubted it was because he was concerned about Margaery.

Perhaps about her mental state, considering the way she’d been acting lately, but even then, he’d been oddly silent on that account, as well.

When she had offered up Dorne, Sansa had seen the look on Varys’ face, across the throne room. Had seen the way his face had shuttered, had known, in that moment, that they had probably lost him, just as they had probably lost far too many nobles, as well.

They already suspected their queen was mad, after Joffrey’s death, after the way that she’d dealt with the smallfolk. Giving away Dorne like this…

Sansa closed her eyes again.

She wondered if it was more strange that Varys seemed disturbed by the thought of Margaery marrying Euron, or that he was still here at all, clinging to what they all knew was a sinking ship.

“Absolutely not!” Mace blustered then, sitting up in his chair; none of the members of the Small Council seemed to pay much attention at all to the words. Sansa felt a stab of pity for him. “I will not…I will not allow my daughter to marry this…this beast of man!”

“We…may not have a choice in the matter,” Varys pointed out then, despite his earlier protest, in his usually soft-spoken voice. He cast a look that was almost like pity, in Margaery’s direction, before he continued; Sansa didn’t believe it was pity for a moment. “We do not have the resources to fight off both him and Dorne, as he has made it clear he would ally with them in a heartbeat, and Dorne has little enough choice if they wish to survive, themselves.”

Mace glowered at him. “I will not…” He began again, but Sansa, for the small amount of hope blooming in her chest, already knew it was a wasted effort.

She’d known that the moment she’d seen Margaery’s eyes, asking her for permission.

“I will not allow my daughter to marry this man! We will sink every damn ship in the harbor before that happens. Send for more men! I…”

He reached up, covering his face with his hands.

Olenna reached out, then, surprising Sansa when she placed her hand over her son’s and squeezed it gently, almost compassionately.

“They say he was banished from the Iron Islands in the first place for raping his brother’s salt wife!” Mace snapped, and the arguments fell silent, at those words; they’d all heard those rumors, after all. Even Randyl Tarly, for all his insistences that the Queen had to do this thing. “I will not…I will not allow my daughter to be subjected to such a man!”

Margaery, sitting silent all of this time at the head of the table, flinched.

Randyl Tarly still looked apologetic as he said his next words. “I understand how…taxing such a marriage would be, for the Regent,” he said, nodding in Margaery’s direction, “but…it would not have to last.”

Silence.

Sansa sucked in a breath, and flushed slightly, when Varys glanced in her direction, but forced herself not to look away from his penetrating gaze. She’d already given away far too much already, with that small allowance.

Randyl looked like he regretted even making the suggestion, at the darkening look on Mace Tyrell’s face, but he didn’t back down.

“Once we’re sure that he no longer…poses a threat to Your Grace, once we could figure out how he controls this…creature of his,” Randyl went on, warming up to his topic as he went along, and Sansa pitied the daughters she’d heard he had, “The marriage would have to last no longer than that.”

Or perhaps she didn’t, Sansa thought, her eyes flitting towards Mace’s face again; after all, he’d never offered to rid Margaery of her last marriage. Sansa had the feeling Randyl would, for his daughters.

If it was expedient to his own plans, of course.

Margaery blinked, and then cocked her head at him, as if he were suggesting something she had not already thought about before.

The thought almost made Sansa break out into hysterical laughter. Or maybe, that had something to do with the fleet being murdered outside of this room, while they all sat around and debated about something Sansa had known from the moment she’d walked into this room Margaery would do.

“Oh?” Margaery finally asked, and the tone of her voice made Sansa flinch; she’d heard it enough, when Margaery was still pretending to be Joffrey’s dutiful wife. Cold. Removed. Heralding death.

“You think any member of the smallfolk will want a thrice married, and thrice widowed, queen ruling over them?” She shook her head, pressed her lips together. “I’ve heard that many of them already think me a witch. I’d rather not contribute more to the theory.”

Olenna, who had been oddly silent up until this moment, allowing the men to squabble, cleared her throat.

Sansa bit back a sigh.

“All you men have certainly spent this time wisely giving your opinions on what the Queen Regent should do,” Olenna said, dryly, as they all settled at the sound of her voice, and she was still holding Mace’s hand but it didn’t look like such a comforting gesture, now, “But our Regent has been oddly quiet. Perhaps we ought to let her be the one to make this decision.”

Silence.

Sansa was almost surprised that Olenna had made such a suggestion at all, knowing the other woman. Had almost expected her to try to take the choice away from Margaery, altogether.

But then again, she’d never forced Margaery to marry Joffrey. Had even been willing to kill him on his wedding day to her granddaughter, if it turned out he was too much of a threat to her.

Perhaps this did make sense, in the twisted sort of way that all of the things Olenna did made sense.

Then, from Randyl, when Margaery didn’t immediately speak up despite the silence allotted to her, “No one denies that this is a difficult decision for the Regent to make for the sake of her people,” he began, as Mace started to bluster once more at those words, “And no one denies the sacrifice it would ask of her, but our men are dying because…”

“I will do it,” Margaery interrupted him, still meeting Sansa’s eyes as she said it, and, far from settling the matter, the room seemed to erupt into chaos once more.

Sansa mouthed, ‘I’m sorry,’ because she didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how else they were going to get out of this situation in a way that wouldn’t make them both the worse off for it.

Margaery nodded, once, shortly, before turning back to her Small Council.

“I made the decision to become Regent for my son, even before he was born,” she told him, and Sansa thought a little of the old Margaery had bled into her voice, with those words. “I took on that responsibility, knowing full well it would not always mean something good.” She paused. “And I did it promising to protect the Realm. I cannot then turn around and allow it to descend into chaos because of one man.” She lifted her chin, higher now. “I’ll do it.”

And Sansa…

Sansa had known this was what was going to happen. Had known this would be Margaery’s decision, but it still felt devastating, to hear it spoken aloud, and before so many witnesses, and at a time when Margaery couldn’t exactly take back those words, or claim that she’d made a mistake.

Not with so many lives on the line.

So many already lost.

Sansa had known she was going to make this decision, from the moment Sansa had seen what that creature in the harbor was capable of doing, but she still closed her eyes and bit down on her tongue until she tasted blood flooding into her mouth, when she heard those words.

Sansa closed her eyes, and thought of the Sept, of how many people they said had been killed, that day, something Margaery still blamed herself for. Something that had pushed Margaery towards that damned septa, had pushed Sansa into killing her…

Of course she would agree to do this. Of course, she wouldn’t want any more blood on her hands.

It was admirable, and the people would love her for it, rather than fearing her, Sansa was right about that.

But she had a terrible feeling that it was a bad choice, for a Regent.

Had a terrible feeling that the Margaery they all met in the morning, the Margaery Sansa met in the morning, wouldn’t be one she recognized at all, if she was even still alive, at that point.

“No,” Mace gritted out, and she opened her eyes.

Margaery’s expression twisted into something almost like regret, but she didn’t back down, either.

“No,” Mace repeated, shaking his head. “No, we’ll go somewhere. We’ll leave this place, go back to Highgarden…escape with the ships…”

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek, not bothering to point out that Highgarden had fared little better against Euron Greyjoy, in recent months.

She didn’t know if Mace even knew that, after all.

“No, Father, we won’t run,” Margaery told him, and her voice was soft, but full of ice, at the same time. It wasn’t the Margaery Sansa remembered well, from Before, but she still felt something like reassurance, at hearing it.

Mace swallowed thickly. “I…I forbid it. I’m your father, and I won’t allow-”

“I am the Regent,” Margaery said, standing to her feet, and her Small Council stood with her. “This is not a marriage, it is a necessary step to protect our people.”

Sansa had no doubt that she had cut her father off so quickly not just to get this argument over, but because she couldn’t stand the thought of exposing even more weaknesses to so many members of her Small Council.

They already didn’t know how many were still loyal to Margaery, at this point. They didn’t need to see her arguing with her own father, as well.

But she said it as if she were willing her father to understand, and Sansa didn’t bother to explain to her that he would never understand. That Sansa had come into this room knowing this had to happen, and she still didn’t understand.

And Mace Tyrell was a man; they didn’t surrender as easily, either.

Mace Tyrell stood with the rest of them, but banged his fist on the Small Council table, a moment later.

Margaery flinched.

Mace grimaced.

Olenna glanced between the two of them, and cleared her throat. “As the Regent,” she said, very softly, “This is her decision, Son.”

It was the first time Sansa had ever heard Olenna speak to her son without derision in her tone, and Sansa was grateful for that. Grateful that the way she spoke seemed to take the fight out of Mace’s shoulder blades, seemed to make him wilt.

Grateful that Margaery wasn’t going to have to argue with her father to marry her murderer, if that was what Euron Greyjoy was to become.

Sansa hadn’t liked the way he’d been looking at Margaery, in the throne room. Joffrey had never looked at her like that, save towards the end of their marriage, when Margaery had started to plot his death because she knew she couldn’t keep his attention much longer.

Gods, how had this all happened so quickly?

Sansa shivered, though it was anything but cold, in this room, though she could feel the sweat drying still, against her skin.

Instead of continuing the argument, Mace dipped his head, and then turned, and was the first person out of the room.

* * *

Margaery was the second.

She made it as far as the hallway before Sansa was after her, before Sansa could see her, once again surrounded by her Kingsguard, pausing in the hallway, looking suddenly as if she were about to break down right there, in front of so many people, when she had held together so well, in those Small Council chambers.

Sansa grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the nearest empty room before she could. She winced when she remembered how little Margaery liked being touched, these days, winced when she felt the way that Margaery flinched back, but Margaery didn’t try to pull away from her, not as Sansa dragged her into the room and informed the Kingsguard that they needed a moment alone, not as the door slammed behind them.

For a moment, she was almost surprised that the Kingsguard listened to her, with the distressed look on Margaery’s face, even if the other girl hadn’t pulled away from her, but then she remembered.

She’d been giving them quite a few orders about Margaery, before she’d…fallen, in that dining hall.

They were almost used to listening to her. She felt certain that they would guard the door to make sure none of Varys’ creatures were listening on the other side.

Sansa grimaced, jaw ticking as she turned around, faced Margaery again.

And almost wished that she hadn’t.

In the split second that Sansa had been turned away from her, Margaery fell to her knees, was kneeling on the floor of this empty council chamber now, hands on her thighs, breathing heavily.

Moments away from sicking up all over the floor; Sansa recognized the look far too well.

She moved forward, knelt down in front of the other girl, almost before she even knew what she was doing. Knelt, and reached out for Margaery, and then she hesitated.

She thought about Euron Greyjoy, about the reputation that he had, doubted he would hesitate, once he had what he wanted. Who he wanted.

“Margaery, look at me,” Sansa told her, and waited until Margaery did, reaching out to cup the girl’s face in hers, shuffling forward so that she could feel Margaery’s breathing on her skin. “We’ll figure this out. We will.”

Margaery let out a wet snort. “Will we?” She asked, pupils blown wide, and for a moment, she looked just as she had the moment that Sansa had found her standing over her husband’s dead body, covered in his blood. “What, will we just…just tell the madman that we’ve already married each other, so unfortunately I can’t be married again and he’s just a bit too late with his threat to drag down King’s Landing?”

Sansa flinched.

Margaery sucked in a ragged breath, and then another. “Because that’s…that’s how I feel, Sansa. I…I can’t do this. I can’t marry someone else when we’re already married. And I can’t…I can’t survive another marriage like the one before ours.”

She was breathing in shuddering sobs, and Sansa winced, certain that the Kingsguard would burst through the doors at any moment and ask what was wrong, would wonder if Sansa was attacking her.

She wiped her free, sweaty palm on her skirts, didn’t quite meet Margaery’s eyes.

“That…doesn’t matter,” she said slowly, willing Margaery to understand without Sansa having to take the other girl out to the parapets to see that creature in action, and Margaery let out a wet laugh, reaching up to rub at her eyes. “It can’t matter. It won’t matter, to me, I promise, Margaery. I know…I know that you have to do this.”

She realized instantly that was the wrong thing to say, as Margaery’s face crumpled, and amended, “It won’t matter, because we’ll already be wed. Because we were wed. This…this will just be to keep us all safe. So…you can do this, and I won’t…I’ll still be yours. I just…”

Margaery let out a hysterical laugh, as those words seemed to settle around her. “And when I ask you to help me kill this one, too?” She asked, and Sansa grimaced. “Because he’s mad and he looks at me and all I see is Joffrey? Will you do that uncomplainingly, too?”

Her eyes filled, and Sansa looked away, suddenly unable to meet them.

Margaery let out another hysterical little laugh, reaching up to brush Sansa’s hands away from her face.

“I didn’t even marry then Joffrey to keep us all safe, Sansa,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely. “I did it because I thought I would gain something. That my family would gain something. But this…I can’t. With this, I’m just defending us, and I don’t want to, not if the price is another husband who looks at me like I’m a piece of meat, and who wants to watch the whole world burn.”

Sansa flinched.

Margaery swallowed hard. “And I know that’s…” she shook her head. “Selfish of me. Wrong, but I…Gods, Sansa. I can’t do this again. I can’t. I almost wished that Randyl Tarly hadn’t brought up killing him, so it wouldn’t look suspicious if something did happen…”

Sansa flinched again.

Margaery fell silent, then, the only sound her ragged breathing, as Sansa clung to her and tried to remember to breathe at all.

“I wanted to be Queen, when I married Joffrey, just like I wanted to be Queen when I killed him,” Margaery said finally, into that silence. “Maybe I’m cursed.”

She said it as if she were about to start laughing, and Sansa leaned back from her, rather alarmed.

“Maybe this is my punishment,” she said, words eerily similar to ones she’d said before, “For reaching too high. Marriage to madmen, until one of them finally kills me.”

Sansa fell back onto her knees, at those words, and for a moment, Margaery almost looked quickly, but the look vanished quickly enough as she started to breathe too heavily, too quickly, once again.

Sansa leaned forward, then, taking Margaery’s hands into her own this time, without even noticing a flinch from the other girl. Swallowed hard.

“Then we will kill him before he tries anything,” she promised, the words oddly confident, when Sansa didn’t feel that way at all. “Just like Joffrey, and we’ll get it right, this time.”

Margaery laughed out loud, flinched at how loud the noise was. “Oh?” She whispered. “Are you going to do it, this time?”

Sansa winced.

Margaery looked away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That was…cruel of me. I’m sorry.”

Sansa looked away then, too. Thought of all of the times she’d wanted to kill Joffrey, and even in the end, a part of her had hesitated.

And here she was, offering to kill Margaery’s next husband before they were even wed.

“I’d do that for you,” she whispered, into the silence.

Margaery’s breathing quickened again. For a moment, their eyes met.

“I know,” Margaery whispered back, and her hands shook, where they sat clasped in Sansa’s.

For a moment, it was quiet; even Margaery’s breathing seemed to have improved.

Then,

“Sansa, I…I knew him. Know him,” Margaery blurted out, her hands squirming now in Sansa’s, and Sansa blinked at her, totally lost.

After all, Euron had been exiled…some time ago, from what Sansa understood. Years.

“W…What?”

“That’s not…He told me his name was something else, not Euron, and he didn’t look the same, then,” Margaery said, swallowing hard. “But he was the pirate who fucking…” she dragged in one breath, and then another. “Sansa…”

The pirate. The one who had rescued Margaery from the sea, the one who had cut her hair, who she always seemed so frightened to talk about.

Sansa’s eyes narrowed, but she felt doubt not a moment later.

“How?” She asked. “I…I thought he was off plaguing the Dornish coasts, and Euron Greyjoy has been in the Iron Isles for some time.”

Margaery threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know,” she breathed, and her eyes were shining in a way that Sansa didn’t particularly like. “I don’t know, but Sansa, it was him. It was.”

And he had frightened her, and now, he was asking for her permission to frighten half the coast while becoming her husband.

Sansa closed her eyes, forcing herself to drag in one breath, and then another. “Are you sure?” She asked.

When she opened her eyes again, Margaery was glaring at her.

“I think I’d remember,” she muttered, sounding almost…petulant, now, which was at least better than terrified, as she had seemed, earlier.

Sansa shook her head. “You said he looked different,” Sansa said, trying desperately to find some sort of explanation, something to explain how this was happening that didn’t qualify as magic or madness.

Because dear gods, she didn’t have time for this headache, just now.

Margaery’s lower lip quivered. “Yes, he, he did,” she said, slowly. “For one thing, he had two eyes, and…and…” she shook her head. “But it was. Him. I don’t know how, but it was.”

Sansa stared at her. “That’s…”

Impossible.

The word hung in the air, though she didn’t dare to say it allowed, and Margaery flinched as if she had done so, anyway.

“I didn’t mean…” she began, but Margaery only shook her head, rather sadly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, but Sansa had a feeling that it did, and very much so.

Margaery had come back from that whole…journey, changed, Sansa remembered. That had been the first time that she had changed in a way that had frightened Sansa, and certainly not the last, but it had been noticeable.

And not just the plots she had made with Arianne, but that time she’d spent on a pirate ship, Sansa was certain, had affected her the most.

She still barely talked about what had happened to her, there.

But…it was impossible.

Whoever that pirate had been, he hadn’t been Euron Greyjoy, who was busy fighting his brother’s children for the Iron Islands, at the time. And he didn’t look like him, not at all.

No, this was just Margaery’s trauma, the reminder of that pirate, causing the connection, in her mind. That was all.

Still, Sansa shivered.

Because madmen…they had dealt with madmen, before.

Magic?

Not so. That was nothing they’d dealt with, before.

Sansa wasn’t certain that they could.

And she could tell that Margaery was just as frightened by the prospect as she was.

Sansa looked up into Margaery’s wild, wide eyes, and knew she had to do something about that.

Because Margaery…Margaery had already agreed to it, and there was no backing out of it, now. Not if King’s Landing was to survive, not if it ever got out that Margaery had made the decision to save her people, and then changed her mind.

She needed to do this.

And if she was going to get through this, she was going to need a distraction.

Sansa closed her eyes, fighting down bile.

She knew just the one.

“It was my fault,” Sansa whispered, and Margaery jerked, turning to stare at her.

“I…what?” She asked, eyebrows furrowing.

Sansa licked her lips, dreading this next part, even more than she dreaded the thought that somehow, Margaery had a connection to this pirate, even if it was one that she herself could not even explain.

“This,” she breathed, and felt more than saw Margaery’s flinch, in the air around her. “All of this. I…” she dragged in one breath, and then another.

She’d started this to give Margaery a distraction, because maybe if Margaery was thinking about her fury with Sansa, when this conversation was over, she wouldn’t be so traumatized by the idea of a marriage with Euron.

But now that the words were upon her, Sansa thought she might be sick before she gave voice to them.

“I…I saw this,” Sansa said, and when she looked up, wincing, to meet Margaery’s gaze again, she knew that the other girl didn’t understand.

Of course; she couldn’t.

She hadn’t taken Sansa’s name along with her hand, after all.

Sansa swallowed hard. “I…I dreamt about this,” she went on, feeling that bile creeping up her throat even now. “Before it happened. And I…I didn’t warn you about it. I didn’t even try.”

She peeked at Margaery again.

But Margaery was just staring at her, brows furrowed together, and at least she looked confused now, more than frightened, even if Sansa could still see the fright in her eyes.

“Sansa,” she said then, slowly, and Sansa winced a little at the condescension in her tone, but didn’t try to interrupt her, because this was only a distraction. Seven hells of one, but a distraction, all the same. “A…a dream doesn’t make you responsible for something happening. Dreams aren’t…It was just a dream.”

But she trailed off, then, staring at Sansa. Staring at the look on her face.

The conviction, there.

And Sansa could have told her that it wasn’t just a dream. That she’d had other such dreams, before. Dreams that had come true, when they should have stayed in her mind. Moments that had come true, even if she hadn’t understood them, solely in dreams, until after they’d happened. That if things hadn’t moved so quickly after Sansa had awoken, she might have done something about it. Might have tried to warn Margaery, or made plans to make sure that it wouldn’t come true.

But she didn’t say any of that.

Because this wasn’t about her dreams, disturbing though they were.

This was about distracting Margaery, the way she’d not quite been able to do, the night Margaery had killed her own husband and it had been left up to Sansa, to get her calm and ready enough to address the court about his death, not hours later.

If she went out there like this, Euron might not even let her survive the night. And if she had enough to think about, enough to focus on while she dealt with Euron, she just might.

“I dreamt about you waking up, after they…after they took Nikoelas away,” Sansa stammered out, dreading the look on Margaery’s face, the way it was already twisting. “I dreamt about you screaming for him. I dreamt about my telling you that he was…gone.” She reached up, brushing the hair out of her eyes because it gave her something to do with her hands. “I dreamt about it, and then it happened, and if I’d thought about it for even a moment, if I’d even mentioned it to you…” She shook her head. “But instead, I just…I let Elinor take him. I knew she was Olenna’s creature, that she has been for a while now, but I still let her take him, even knowing what was going to happen. Even suspecting that Olenna would want him out of this place.”

Margaery reeled back from her, looking as if she’d been slapped. Horrified.

Sansa couldn’t meet her eyes at all, now.

“And I…I dreamt about this too, I think,” Sansa said, swallowing hard, when Margaery didn’t speak. Just…stared at her, looking equal parts betrayed and confused. “At least, I…” she bit her lip. “I dreamt about King’s Landing, about the throne, destroyed. Ravaged.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, because she’d meant this to be a distraction, a confirmation that Margaery had to do this, but saying these words, telling Margaery these things…it was excruciating.

“I dreamt about the Iron Throne,” she went on, swallowing hard, “Covered in ash, broken into pieces.”

Margaery flinched. “Sansa…” she began, but she didn’t seem capable of saying anything more than that.

Sansa didn’t meet her eyes, anyway. “I dreamt about that, and I didn’t say a word about it. Not to you, not to anyone. I thought…I thought it was just a dream, but even after Nikoelas…”

Margaery flinched, at the mention of her son’s name.

Sansa forced herself to keep going. “Even after they took him, I didn’t say anything, when I knew the dreams had to be real. And now, he’s here, and maybe if I’d said something before, we might have been more prepared.”

Margaery might not find herself having to marry another madman.

She could see the moment that realization hit Margaery, could see it in the way that her eyes widened, in the way that stood, slowly, to her feet, as if she suddenly couldn’t stand to be so close to Sansa.

A distraction, indeed.

Sansa couldn’t help but flinch, when the other girl moved away from her. But she got to her feet a moment later, as well.

Forced herself to meet Margaery’s eyes. “I…I’m sorry,” she blurted out, because other words felt inadequate, at the moment, but she couldn’t just leave it there.

She had to say something, after all.

Margaery flinched.

And then, she crumpled.

Her legs gave out beneath her, and for a moment, Sansa hesitated to reach out and help her keep standing, afraid that she would push Sansa away.

And even with what she’d just confessed, Sansa didn’t think she could bear that.

But Margaery was already moving towards her, then, and Sansa felt something like relief hit her even as she was flooded with guilt for that very emotion, as she finally made out the words Margaery was muttering, over and over.

“My baby,” Margaery sobbed, falling into Sansa’s arms, and Sansa held onto her for dear life, not knowing what else to do. “She…she took my baby, and now this. Sansa, I…A person can only suffer so much. I…”

Sansa just kept petting her hair, feeling tears pricking at her own eyes.

“How did you do it?” Margaery whispered, into the silence that followed, and Sansa’s eyes flew open again, at those words. “How did you hold on for so long, feeling this alone?”

Sansa flinched.

Because the simple truth was, she hadn’t. She wasn’t even sure that she’d been living at all, before Margaery had breezed into her life, had breathed new life into it, again.

“I…” she swallowed thickly. “I’m still here, Margaery. I’m not going anywhere. We’ll figure this out.”

Unlike the confident promise those words had been before, they felt empty, now. Hollow promises.

Margaery wouldn’t meet her eyes as she straightened up, composed herself. Wiped at her eyes, flinched when Sansa tried to touch her again.

Sansa watched her move toward the door, hesitate. Wanted to walk over to her, to wrap her arms around Margaery as she once would have had no qualms about doing, and comfort her, or get on her knees and beg the other girl for forgiveness.

For a moment, with the way that Margaery was waiting, she thought she might.

And then Margaery reached out and opened the door to the little room they’d taken over. The Kingsguard startled back, as she walked through it.

As Sansa watched her go, unmoving.

It wasn’t until after, as she was watching Margaery walk away from her, that she realized she hadn’t said those things to distract Margaery from her newest ordeal. There were plenty of things she could have said instead, if that were her intention.

The realization hit her just as the door shut behind Margaery, the truth of why she’d said those things, why she’d kept on going, even after she’d seen the look on Margaery’s face.

An unconscious decision, but Sansa had made it all the same.

She hadn’t only been trying to distract Margaery, with that confession, not really.

No, she’d been trying to cure her of her guilt. Guilt for leaving Sansa, in order to do this, when they’d just been…married. Because she knew that Margaery didn’t want to leave her, and especially not for another madman, not after the strain her marriage to Joffrey had put on their own relationship, the last time.

But she didn’t have another choice. She was going to do it whether it meant breaking her trust with Sansa, anyway, and at least this way, Margaery didn’t have to feel guilty about it.

Because right about now, she probably hated Sansa, just a little bit.

Nikoelas was safe from madmen, just now, but he wasn’t here, in his mother’s arms, and Sansa had known that was going to happen.

Margaery couldn’t possibly feel guilty for forsaking their marriage vows, now.

Sansa lifted her hand to her mouth, and didn’t bother to curb the sobs, as the door shut behind Margaery.

After all, no one was here to hear them.

* * *

“Lord Euron,” Margaery said, folding her hands ever so delicately in her lap as she took her seat on the Iron Throne once more, as prim and proper as if she didn’t realize that half of the fleet had already been sunk in King’s Landing’s harbor.

Euron Greyjoy gave her that, however; she was going to need his fleet, after all, if she was ever going to survive this game.

He’d already gotten what he wanted, out of this.

Still, he cocked his head at her, and she felt as if he was looking at her even behind the eyepatch that covered his sightless eye, felt as if he was seeing her down o her very bones, striping her of those, too, as he had tried to strip her of half of her fleet.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She supposed that if he was…kind…enough to allow her propriety, he would be kind enough to allow her hesitance. He would still get to sink ships so long as she didn’t give him an answer, after all.

For a moment, with her eyes closed and the hall so silent that she could hear the wind whistling in the air, and, farther off, the sound of people still screaming in the harbor where Euron Greyjoy’s creature had wreaked havoc for hours already, Margaery could almost imagine that she was in another place and time altogether.

Could almost imagine that it was the days after the siege of King’s Landing, when Stannis Baratheon had been fought off and the Tyrells had marched victoriously into King’s Landing, offering bread and smiles to the people, and Margaery had been offered to the king on a silver platter.

Her last marriage, she had thought. Hoped.

Ha.

And this one wouldn’t even be a legitimate one, when her last marriage hadn’t been to a legitimate king.

Even then, she hadn’t known that it would be. One could never be certain about these things.

She felt something like a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside of her, as she took a deep breath, heard the far off splash of something breaking through the water in the harbor.

“ _Your House has come to our aid. The whole realm is in your debt, none more so than I. If your…family would ask anything of me, then ask it, and it shall be yours_ ,” Joffrey said, behind her eyelids, and for a moment, it was if she were transported directly there again, was herself standing where Euron stood now, staring up at a boy she didn’t know well enough to agree to marriage with at all.

They were not in his debt this time. Well, perhaps he thought they were, for his rescuing them from the Dornish fleet, or what little remained of it now, but they weren’t, not truly.

Margaery was merely trading one sad reality, one mad husband, for another.

And…dear gods, she had already agreed to it, had already come to the depressing conclusion that they didn’t have another choice, that she didn’t have another choice, not if she wanted to get out of this alive with the majority of her army intact, not if House Tyrell wanted to live to fight another day, what with the creature in the harbor, eating its way through their ships, literally…

But she didn’t know if she was that selfless, now that the choice was truly upon her, now that she had to give an answer to a man who looked at her like he would like to see what her insides looked like, and not at all in the way Joffrey had wanted to do so.

She swallowed hard; Euron Greyjoy was a man of hard lines and cruel folktales. She knew the rumors about him, that he had been banished from the Iron Islands in the first place because he had taken and raped his brother’s salt wife.

He would make Joffrey look like a kind husband.

Perhaps it would be kinder, just now, to sink herself in the harbor with the rest of the Tyrell fleet, to lay down on her brother’s sword, or, better yet, on the knife that she knew Sansa kept in her clothes, these days, as if she thought that would truly save her, in the end.

“ _Your Grace_ ,” Loras had said, that day when their family had put him to the task of offering her up to Joffrey like a piece of meat, never mind that she had wanted it, clearing his throat and looking awkwardly back at her before he turned his attention back to the King, so that he didn’t have to look at her at all, “ _My sister Margaery. Her husband was taken from us before…” he lowered his head, she knew, so that the court did not see his tears. “She remains innocent._ ”

Joffrey had perked up with interest, the moment he’d heard that, had turned to Margaery like she was a new flower he’d very much like to pluck.

She wondered if Euron would have liked the thought of her innocence.

“ _I would ask you to do us the great honor of joining our Houses_ ,” her brother had said, and then, even her horror of a husband had turned to Margaery and asked her if this was what she wanted.

Knowing what she did now, about the future in store with her from her dear husband, Margaery wondered if she would have made the same mistake again.

When she opened her eyes again, she thought she saw the barest hint of impatience across his features, that time. Perhaps he was not as patient in his victory as she had thought.

“I…accept your offer of marriage, Lord Euron,” Margaery said, into the silence, the bated breaths waiting for her answer, after she had gone to all of the trouble of asking Euron Greyjoy before her once more.

She heard the horrified gasps of the crowd, of the courtiers who had, for some reason or another, stuck around after Joffrey’s death or come here from Highgarden because of it, the ones who hadn’t known she was going to make this decision when it was not as if their sun had made any selfless decisions since becoming that.

She didn’t know what they thought she was going to do; perhaps they thought, since she had survived Joffrey so long, she had picked up enough tricks to save herself from Euron, as well. Had found enough white lies that she might be able to persuade him to do what she wanted now, too, rather than doing what he wanted, now.

Margaery bit back a hollow laugh.

It looked like the Whore of Highgarden had finally run out of tricks.

She heard a sound that might have been a moan of despair, from her father, forced herself not to look over in his direction, at all.

She feared that if she did, she would be lost.

More lost than she already felt.

And she certainly didn’t look over at Sansa, where she knew the other girl was standing in the crowd, too close to Olenna Tyrell by far, these days, because she knew that if she did look, she would be lost.

She wouldn’t be able to agree to a marriage with another madman when this time, she was already married, and to someone she hadn’t wanted to be parted with again, not like this.

But she wasn’t looking at any of the nobles, or at her father, or even at Sansa, even after the other girl had been the one to tell her to do this, when she spoke these words.

No, she was watching for the reaction on Euron Greyjoy’s face, and when she found it, the one she was looking for, Margaery flinched a little. Because she recognized it, all too well.

Not from the adoration Joffrey had painted on his face, when he had agreed to wed Margaery after the siege of King’s Landing, not from the way he had looked at her when he had come to the conclusion, spurred along by her, of course, that they were the same, not even the look in his eyes when he realized that she wasn’t.

No, the look on Euron’s face, a look he was certainly better at hiding behind impassivity than Joffrey had ever been, was the same one she had seen on her late husband’s face a dozen times, whenever he saw tears in Sansa’s eyes, or forced two whores to beat one another for his amusement, or heard someone plead for his mercy in anything at all.

It was there for only an instant, and then it was gone, hidden way behind the blank expression that Euron kept presenting her with, just as if he didn’t think she knew he’d gotten some sort of sick amusement from having his creature kill her men and Dorne’s men, but Margaery found it, all the same.

She wasn’t coming into this from any position of strength, as she had been when she was betrothed to Joffrey. She wasn’t coming into this with the mysteriousness about her person she had once used to convince Joffrey that they ere the same, he and her, the moment she finally thought she understood him and took a gamble.

The whole of the realm knew who Margaery Tyrell was, these days, and she knew she would not be able to fool Euron Greyjoy, this time, as she had fooled her last husband.

She only hoped that his tastes for exposing weakness were not the same as her husband’s. It already terrified her enough, this prospect of marriage to another madman when her marriage to Sansa had been meant as a promise to both of them that it would never happen again, without her thinking too hard about the fact that Euron’s gaze had landed on Sansa a little too long for her comfort, earlier, along with his rather disturbing innuendos about the two of them.

Euron squinted at her with his one good eye, and she found herself wondering how he had lost the other one. Whether it had been this salt wife who had scratched it out, or some other woman, at his mercy, or this creature he used in his hunts.

She wondered if she would ever feel enough his wife to ask him.

She wondered if she would ever get close enough to him to scratch the other one out, herself.

When she had married Joffrey, after all, she had never thought she would be the one to kill him. Perhaps the cause, she would grant that, considering how furious her brother had been about the whole thing, but not the one to do it, herself.

Perhaps there was yet a murderer in her, still.

She resolutely did not look at Sansa.

_And let no man come between us._

Barely a day had passed since then, and what a day it had been, to turn those words into such a farce.

She closed her eyes, breathed in, and out.

Her husband to be already knew she was weak, after all.

When she opened them again, she thought Euron looked almost…disappointed. Perhaps he’d thought that, because she was married to a madman, she would be made of sterner stuff.

Well, if he’d wanted that, he should have married an Islander, she thought, miserably, long before she ever came into contact with him.

“Good,” he said, finally, and that simple word fell through the air like the loud ringing of the bells. Margaery flinched. “We will be married at dawn.”

Margaery glanced towards the torches lighting the Great Hall. She knew that, as a bride, she ought to be more nervous about her prospects, ought to want more time to prepare for marriage, or, failing that, a way out of it.

Instead, she lifted her chin and asked, with a little bit of steel bleeding into her voice, “Why not now?”

She saw Sansa choke, at those words, and fought back a wince.

Euron Greyjoy turned back to her, where he had already been turning away a moment before, and lifted a single eyebrow. Then, he smirked.

“ _Ser Loras, I will gladly wed your sweet sister_ ,” Joffrey had said, smiling at her, after saying something laughable about heeding his heart; he hadn’t loved her then, hadn’t loved her until he realized that she was like him. “ _You will be my queen, and I will love you from this day until my last day_.”

And he had, in his own way. Loved her, until his dying day, when he had seen her, finally, for who she truly was.

Margaery wondered whether it would be worse, now, to have a husband whom she knew very well could never love her at all.

Or if the worst part of all of this would be reciting the words she had just breathed in Sansa’s presence and before the old gods and the new not a day before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say something about this series having a happy ending, didn't I?


	45. Winterfell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Warning for threats of violence against women, attempted rape…violence.

Theon hadn’t liked the idea that Arya didn’t want him to go with her.

Oh, he felt quite certain that she could handle herself, especially after the rather impressive display of her prowess when a few bandits had attacked them on the road, showing off skills he hadn’t thought a girl of her age could have, certainly, and, worse than that, not seeming to a give damn about their attackers’ pain, but still, he worried.

She may have learned how to be an assassin, or whatever it was that place she would barely speak of had taught her to do, but she was still just one woman, and fighting against Ramsay Bolton, of all people.

She wasn’t prepared, to face him. Theon had tried to warn her of that, but she had waved off his concerns easily, had told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that she could handle herself.

Even after he’d told her of the things that Ramsay Bolton had done to him, all for his own sick amusement.

Theon, she’d said, I’ll be back by sunset.

Theon, that was his name, now.

It felt strange, wrapping his mind around an identity that he’d long since given up, but it was the only one that Arya seemed predisposed to respond to, even if he thought she was uniquely qualified to be one of the only people who understood that need to be another person.

To be Reek.

Perhaps that was why she was so set against it.

It was nearing midnight, now.

Theon was getting worried; his hands were beginning to tremor, the way they did these days when he was truly worried, and he stared up at the great wall surrounding Winterfell, the wall that Arya had warned him to keep away from, with his gut twisting in concern.

Something was wrong.

Something had gone horribly wrong, and the longer Theon stood here, wondering, the more images flitted before his eyes, images of what Ramsay could be, even now, doing to a girl he’d promised himself he would look after, after the way he’d failed all of her brothers.

His throat dry, Theon stared up at the great wall surrounding Winterfell, and waited, gut clenching.

* * *

_He glanced between them. “And I only meant that surely, I have done you a great disservice, by marrying a girl who pretended to be you. I should only think you would want to punish her for that impudence. I wonder, would a septon say I was married to both of you, or none of you, Arya Stark, my dear wife?”_

Arya, despite herself, could not quite resist a shudder as she turned to give Ramsay Bolton, this man whom Theon so obviously was terrified of, her full attention.

He was smirking, as he said those words, as if he thought it amusing, this whole situation.

She supposed he did; Theon had made it clear that he was quite mad, after all.

Beside her, Jeyne was shaking. Arya sniffed the air and grimaced a little, valiantly sidestepping the little pool forming at the bottom of Jeyne’s feet.

Fuck.

No help from her corner, then.

Ramsay glanced between them once more, and then, brandishing the knife that Jeyne had handed over to him without a fight, murmured, “I’m sure we could find one, even at this late hour. A septon willing to put things to right.”

Arya forced her lips to pull into a parody of the smirk that she saw on Ramsay’s face. She could tell that the action startled him, more than he wanted to admit. “I don’t need a septon to put things to right,” she told him.

No, the Many Faced God had never existed, after all.

She’d learned that the hard way.

She lifted her chin, still forcing herself to smirk at the other man, to ignore Jeyne, where she stood so close to Arya, an innocent, squirming in terror and discomfort, now.

Ramsay raised a brow. He still looked amused, as if he couldn’t understand what Arya was doing here in the first place, but he was going to have fun with her while she was.

Well, more fool he.

Arya wasn’t Jeyne; she never had been.

And she wasn’t about to find herself falling into bed and babe with a madman like Ramsay Bolton…like Joffrey Baratheon.

Ramsay stared at her for a moment, as if he wasn’t quite certain what she meant by that, but certainly wondered, and Arya chose that moment to act. To rip the little sword she’d been keeping against her side loose, the one she’d stolen off of the guards that she’d killed outside of Winterfell so that she could steal their clothes.

Needle.

It felt good, holding it in her hands, here, of all places. The place that Jon had given it to her in the first place, brandishing it against someone like Ramsay Bolton, and for a moment, Arya let herself think about what message that would send the North, the knowledge that she had slaughtered Ramsay Baratheon here, in the home that his family had helped to steal from hers, with the knife that her bastard brother had once given to her.

Somehow, she thought it would be rather fitting.

Ramsay’s eyes widened, as he saw her brandish Needle, and then he smirked. “What is that going to do to me, little wife?” He asked her, smirking, spreading his arms, almost as if he were daring her to attack him.

Arya had never been one to back down from a challenge, though.

She lifted her sword, watched the way that his eyes widened with something like justice in her own, and leapt forward, already imagining the sight of his brains splattered across the far wall of her childhood bedroom.

She thought it would certainly be a better decoration than the macabre curtains, at the moment.

She heard a sound that might have been Jeyne screaming, and then, before Arya ever figured out how he had managed to move that quickly, for all of her training - or lack thereof, a traitorous voice that sounded far too much like the Waif whispered in the back of her mind, for all that she’d made sure the bitch was dead before she ever left Braavos - her own head was slamming against that wall, instead.

She saw stars.

And then, she saw nothing at all.

From a far off place, she thought she heard the creaking sound of floorboards, as Ramsay Bolton knelt down beside her, thought she felt him running a hand through her hair. Thought she might have tried to flinch away from him again, might have tried to brandish Needle again, thought she saw, in the light streaming in through the window, Bran, shaking his head sadly at her.

And then, she knew no more.

* * *

When Arya awoke, she was lying in a bed.

It took her a moment to realize why this should be unsettling; Arya had not slept in her own bed in many years, and she was sleeping in it, now. Sleeping, spread out, on blankets that felt far too comfortable, that smelled of home.

Her hands were bound to the headboard.

Needle was no longer pressed against her side; as she moved slowly, pretending to awaken much more slowly than she actually was, Arya felt around for the little sword, knowing before she ever opened her eyes that it was nowhere within her grasp.

It took a moment, for her eyes to adjust to the dark.

She had spent enough time without eyes, during her time in Braavos, to notice things before her eyes ever adjusted; to hear the sound of frantic panting in the corner of the room, to hear the rustle of clothes from the end of the bed she was laying on, to smell the putrid smell of urine and sweat.

She opened her eyes a little wider, and the light only then seemed to start flooding into the room.

She saw Jeyne first, bound and gagged and shoved into the corner of the room like a rag doll, her eyes wide and tears streaming down her dirty face. The girl’s eyes widened further when she realized that Arya was awake, and already, she was shaking her head, as if she thought it was worse that Arya was awake, now.

And who knew?

Perhaps it was.

Perhaps, now that she was awake, Ramsay Bolton was going to take her to wife, as he’d all but threatened before, and Arya was going to wish that she’d never been born, much less attempted to return, alone, to Winterfell.

Ramsay was sitting at the end of the bed, arms forward, elbows pressed into his knees, staring at her contemplatively. Far too close, she thought, legs scrambling up a little involuntarily, before she realized how much more vulnerable that made her look, before him.

She grimaced a little.

Ramsay must have seen the look; he smirked.

“You’re finally awake,” he said, into the silence, the only sound breaking it Jeyne’s heavy breathing, her muted cries, beneath the gag. “I thought it would never happen.”

He didn’t sound particularly unhappy with either thought, Arya realized, and her lips curled in disgust as she recognized the same sort of madness in him that she’d recognized in Joffrey Baratheon long before anyone else ever had.

The madness that had caused him to go so unhinged, when she had attacked him.

And she clearly hadn’t learned her lesson, about attacking madmen.

Well, she wouldn’t have, a voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Bran’s, whispered at the back of her mind. Lady had been the one killed, after all, not Nymeria.

“I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up,” Ramsay said, staring down at his hands for a moment, and, for an instant, Arya was almost convinced that he felt guilty for slamming her head against a wall, the same way she’d been planning to do with him, moments before.

And then she realized that he was only regretting how strong his hands were, and she grimaced in disgust.

“Of course, all of this would be lost without you, Arya,” he said, gesturing around them, finally looking up again. Grinning. “Winterfell is yours. Are you happy?”

He said it like he thought she should be, like he thought she ought to be grateful to him, for allowing her to stay here at all, tied down to a bed though she was.

Arya spat to the side. “I don’t think I’ll be happy until I have the heads of all my enemies impaled on the outer walls of this place,” she spat out, unable to stop the words, and Ramsay raised an eyebrow at her, before he laughed.

“I think you’ll find that a little difficult, in your current position,” he told her, not sounding at all sympathetic. “Though…” he cocked his head at her, studying her. “You’re the one who killed Myranda, aren’t you?”

Myranda.

The girl on the parapets, Arya remembered, after a moment. Theon had told her about the girl, the kennel master’s daughter, clearly as mad as Ramsay, or, if she wasn’t, a damned good pretender.

A survivor.

Arya closed her eyes, and thought of the Merling Queen. Thought of Shae.

Wondered if she would even recognize Sansa these days, with how much her sister must have changed herself, to survive in a place like the one Shae had survived.

Wondered if Sansa would recognize her, in turn.

But they were different types of survivors, after all. Arya could never have survived the life Sansa must have, so far, and Arya very much doubted that Sansa could have survived what she did, to get here.

Didn’t much like dwelling on that thought for long; when she opened her eyes again, Ramsay had moved closer, and it took everything within Arya not to react, not to flinch back from him.

She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.

Ramsay took her silence as an admittance, if his next words were any indication. “So, I suppose you’ve already gotten started, there.”

Arya lifted her chin. “She wasn’t an enemy,” she said. Or, at the very least; she hadn’t been on Arya’s list. “But I won’t say I didn’t enjoy killing her.”

Theon could attest to that, after all.

Ramsay’s hands fisted. Arya wondered if she was ever going to figure out how to talk around madmen, if she was ever going to figure out how to survive, the way that Sansa obviously had, for so long.

But then, he relaxed, just as if she hadn’t just admitted to enjoying killing his woman.

“I noticed you fed her to the dogs,” she said, into the silence that followed, and tried her best not to look over at Jeyne, to tune out the sound of the other girl’s cries, to not think about why Jeyne might be crying so hard in the first place.

She’d certainly been bruised and battered when Arya had come across her earlier, but Arya hadn’t seen anything immediately wrong with her, then.

She was trying very hard not to look at her at all, now.

Ramsay grinned, and this time, Arya almost believed that he meant it. “You were still watching,” he said, and Arya hesitated for only a moment, before she nodded.

He leaned forward, a little closer now, and Arya almost didn’t flinch. She’d had a good teacher, after all.

“I hoped you were,” he whispered, into the silence, the sound interrupted again by Jeyne’s tears. “Did you also walk across that courtyard, when you snuck into this place?”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” Arya repeated, coldly, and if a little of her fear slipped into her voice, she didn’t think he recognized it. “This is my home, not yours.”

Ramsay snorted. “It’s soaked so thoroughly with the blood of my enemies that the ground there has sunken, that it’s hardened. I doubt we could get anything to grow there, even if we tried.”

Arya lifted her chin, meeting his eyes. “They weren’t my men,” she reminded him, because her father and her brother might have both declared Stannis Baratheon the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms, at one point, but in her mind, he’d had no right to steal her home from her because of it.

Her brother had been the King in the North, when he’d died, and Stannis Baratheon had never respected that.

Neither had the Boltons, apparently.

Ramsay stared at her for a moment longer, and then he leaned back on the bed. “I suppose they weren’t,” he said, shrugging slightly. Then, he turned, glancing at Jeyne. “They certainly seemed interested in claiming Arya for themselves, though. Oh, Stannis put quite the effort in trying to free her from me, the last Stark daughter besides your bitch of a sister, breeding with Lannisters. Almost succeeded, even.” He shrugged. “Didn’t work too well for him in the end, though.”

Arya sneered. “I hear he’s out fighting legends, finding them a better fight than you were.”

Ramsay’s eyes darkened.

In the corner, Jeyne let out a whimper.

“He believed that you were my wife, though,” Ramsay said finally, leaning back again. Arya remembered to breathe again. “Believed the fiction as much as everyone else in this place. Though,” his eyes glanced dispassionately over to Jeyne, and then back to Arya. “Having met you, I don’t know what they were all thinking. She hardly compares.”

Arya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m flattered,” she said, dryly, fingers itching for her Needle.

She hoped that he hadn’t melted it down. That he was the sort of madman who liked to hold onto his keepsakes, if only for that sake.

And for her brother’s, of course.

“But you see, with you here now, I’m faced with a bit of a dilemma,” Ramsay said, into the silence that followed. “When the Lannisters offered me Arya Stark for a wife, I almost couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that they were legitimizing me in such a way, that finally, I would have the North, my father’s inheritance to me.”

Arya snorted. “I’ve heard you’re only a bastard,” she said, “so I suppose it only makes sense that your wife was a servant.”

Ramsay gritted his teeth together, briefly annoyed, before he smirked again. She couldn’t tell if it was a pretense, or not.

She didn’t like not knowing that, not being able to read him as well as she would have liked.

“But, my whole claim to Winterfell, to the North, stubborn and tenuous as it is, lies in my marriage to Arya Stark,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her words. “Especially now, with my father’s death.”

She’d heard the innkeeper in the village whispering that he’d surely killed his father, just as he’d killed his father’s wife and legitimate son.

“So, I imagine that eventually, when I had…outlived my usefulness to them, the Lannisters would have seen to it the world knew my secret, that my little wife was exposed for the fraud that she is, so that they could sweep in and steal Winterfell back for themselves, once more.” He shrugged. “The Lannisters have a way of doing that. Asking others to betray their friends for them, and then turning around and betraying them, in turn. You’ll notice they’ve been of so little help to the Freys, these days.”

Arya shook her head. “I wouldn’t know,” she said, even as that had her thinking. Of the Riverlands, and her mother’s people, and why hadn’t she gone there instead of to the Rock? Instead of immediately here, as well?

She was almost regretting it, now.

She wasn’t going to regret it once she’d cut open Ramsay Bolton from neck to navel, she told herself.

Swore it.

They said that her mother’s corpse had been stripped naked and thrown in the river, throat cut open, disgraced.

Arya was going to make sure that Ramsay Bolton’s body suffered a far worse fate than that, and then, she was going to make sure that Walder Frey’s did, as well.

It was only a pity that Tywin Lannister and the majority of his wretched family weren’t still lining up to be killed these days, as well.

Ramsay grinned, as if he knew exactly what was inspiring the defiance in her eyes, and leaned forward, rubbing his hands together like an excited child. “I imagine the Tyrells would have tried the same thing, eventually. But now, with the real you, they can’t. After all, they still have the Stark girl, the only one who could prove who are you.”

Arya swallowed despite herself, discomfited by her sister being referred to by this creature at all.

“So,” he went on, far too cheerfully, “I’ve come up to a solution to this little problem we’re all facing.” He shrugged, leaning forward now, eyes darkening with an emotion Arya decided instantly she loathed. “I’m going to make you my true wife, as the law says you already are, while this false one watches.”

In the corner, Jeyne whimpered.

“And then, I’m going to kill dear little Jeyne for her knowing deception,” Ramsay went on, undeterred by the sound of his wife’s whimpering.

In fact…Arya glanced down. She would almost say he was enjoying it.

She reminded herself that she could probably kill him without Needle. With the things that she’d learned in the House of Black and White, she certainly didn’t need a weapon, to do most of her killing.

But…

Her hands were tied, literally, at the moment, and Jeyne was there, in the corner of the room, a liability, in case she couldn't keep the upper hand in this situation.

And…she remembered the look of horrified disgust on Theon’s face earlier, as he watched her kill Myranda, and enjoy it far more than she’d wanted to admit, to him, to herself.

Jeyne had looked content with Arya’s killing earlier, when she’d thought Arya might free her from this life. Arya didn’t want to know how she would look when she saw where Arya had been all of these years, the things she’d learned.

“As a wedding gift to you, for the fact that someone stole your identity for so long,” Ramsay went on, and then paused, as if he thought that Arya ought to thank him for this, now.

Arya scoffed; Ramsay’s face darkened, but she didn’t let that bother her anymore than Jeyne’s whimpers had bothered him.

“Go ahead and try,” Arya spat out, enjoying the look on his face when the glob of spit hit his chin, and muttered through gritted teeth, “I’ve faced fiercer beasts than you.”

Ramsay stared at her a moment, and then he laughed. “Not yet, you haven’t,” he said, as he prowled closer to her. Climbed up onto the bed, moved towards her with wicked intent in his gaze.

Arya…Arya took a deep breath, and forced down the small bit of panic she felt, at his reaction. Told herself that she’d already suffered enough, in her admittedly short life, that even this newest violation shouldn’t matter.

After all, eventually the Kindly Man would have wanted her to learn how to endure this, as well, if she had stayed much longer in the service of the Merling Queen. If she hadn’t murdered her prematurely, so that the Waif could take control of their little rivalry once more, and get Arya in trouble for it.

She could…endure even this, if she had to. Could endure it with the knowledge that if she wanted to, she could turn the tables even on someone like Ramsay Bolton, that she had the training to deal with him.

That she had a much better chance of dealing with him, once and for all, when he was more vulnerable, and she wasn’t tied to a bed.

She could still feel that knife, pressed against her side, the one that Ramsay clearly hadn’t searched her well enough to find, and it gave her a courage she almost didn’t want to feel. Not today, not in her own childhood bed, not in front of her sister’s friend, not like this.

Ramsay pressed against her, smirking. “I’m going to make you my wife now,” he whispered against her bare skin, and she grimaced at how putrid his breath was, remembered that he’d taunted Theon by eating sausages in front of him, wondered if he was actually mad enough to stoop to the level of… “But I’m going to punish you for what you did to Myranda, too. You must know that.”

Arya cracked her neck, felt the knife biting into her skin without trying to make it obvious that she was reaching for it. After all, if she gave it away too early, she’d only lose it, and while she had the confidence that she could still kill him even then, she wasn’t quite as impressed with her odds, in that case.

“Get your filthy hands off of her,” a familiar voice interrupted them, just as Ramsay was reaching down between her legs, and for all of her earlier protestations, Arya all but sagged back against the bed in relief.

Ramsay, on the other hand, went very still, above her.

Jeyne let out a noise that might not have been an actual cry this time, from the corner.

And then, almost too quickly, Ramsay peeled himself off the bed and jumped to his feet, spinning around to face the door.

There were guards in the doorway, half carrying Theon between them, and they looked embarrassed, to have interrupted their lord like this, but Arya barely noticed either one of them, as they hastily explained how they’d found Theon skulking around the outer gates, how one of them had happened to recognize him.

Arya didn’t think Ramsay noticed much of his guards, either, as he waved them back and walked forward, grinning manically, now.

Arya sat up a little, in the bed, working her wrists to see how tight the knots holding her down actually were. She thought if Theon could just distract Ramsay long enough, she might be able to work her knife free enough to cut herself loose.

“Reek,” Ramsay said, looking genuinely pleased at the sight of the other man, spreading out his arms. “It’s so good to see you again. I knew you’d be back.” He smirked, eyes shifting over Theon’s body. “You always come back.”

Reek - Theon, his name was Theon, and yet, Arya had seen the change immediately after Ramsay had said that other name - quivered, before them.

Arya almost couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Thought about all of the cruel things she’d said to him, since they’d been reunited, how angry she’d been with him, for playing the part of some tortured being when he had done horrible things to her family in the name of his own.

Shivered a little, as she worked to free herself from the knots. That had been another thing the Kindly Man had insisted that she teach herself, during her time at the House of Black and White, with the Waif smirking overtop her, and she’d be damned if she couldn’t free herself from them now.

She worked at the knots because it meant that she didn’t have to look at Reek. Didn’t have to look at him and realize he wasn’t the same man who’d been, not quite thriving, but at least coming back alive, while they’d made their journey from the Rock to Winterfell.

He wasn’t the same man, and she didn’t know if that wasn’t her own fault, for insisting that they stay behind here, instead of going to find Jon, the way that Bran had told her to go, in her dreams.

She shook her head.

She couldn’t think about that at all right now, or she knew that she would be lost.

Ramsay snapped at the guards, “Let him go. Reek would never hurt me.” His eyes flashed. “He knows better than that.”

Arya shook her head, felt her mouth going rather dry, as she remembered what Theon had told her, that she was just one woman and that he didn’t think she could handle Ramsay on her own. How she had shaken off his concerns, and declared that she was going to face him anyway.

Reek was shaking.

Ramsay had done this to him.

The guards let go of him, giving him a little push forward into the room, though they didn’t look particularly happy about it.

Arya lifted her chin, glaring at them. She knew that they were Bolton men, that they were probably just as terrified of their master as Theon, in their own way, but once upon a time, this had been her home, and neither of them were lifting a finger to help her.

She wouldn’t easily forgive them, that. Not if what she suspected - that they’d been steadily not liking a finger to help Jeyne, for years - was true.

She’d gotten through the first knot.

Reek was shaking, but he still managed to lift his chin and glare up at Ramsay. They were roughly the same height, Arya thought idly, but they didn’t look it, just now. Ramsay looked as if he was touring over Theon.

Reek.

Whoever he was, just now.

“I’m here for…for Arya,” he stammered out, the words barely making it past his chapped lips, and Arya grimaced. “I’m not going to let you take her.”

Ramsay blinked at him for a moment, looking genuinely confused by this statement, before he let out another laugh. “Oh?” He asked. “You’re not, are you? You mean the way you’ve so valiantly been able to protect another Arya from me, all this time?” He gestured over to Jeyne, in the corner. “I wonder what she thinks about those priorities, Reek. How rude of you, to say such a thing right in front of her.”

Theon swallowed so hard, Arya could hear the sound all of the way from the other side of the room.

Ramsay folded his arms together over his chest. “Come now, Theon. We both know you’re not going to do anything to stop me from doing…anything to Arya, whether she’s real or not.” He smiled, the benevolent lord with his servant. “Are you?”

Theon was shaking. Swallowing hard, he shook his head, and Arya closed her eyes, sagging back against the bed. Forcing herself to take one shuddering breath, and then another.

This was her plan, she reminded herself. She’d learned things like this, in the House of Black and White. How to deceive. How to become someone else.

The victim.

She glanced over at Jeyne, and tried her best to mirror the expression on the terrified girl’s face, even as she silently promised the poor girl that she would find some way to make all of this up to her, when it was over. To repay her, for everything that she had suffered in Arya’s name.

Theon lifted his chin. “I won’t let you hurt her,” he whispered, and Arya thought she might have seen some of the fire reenter his eyes at those words, but she couldn’t be sure, not from where she was laying.

She swallowed hard, shifting on the bed, working the knots on her left hand, now.

Ramsay blinked owlishly at Theon. Stared. Then, “Is that how you’re going to act now, Reek?” He asked, and now, he sounded angry. Furious. “All of that effort I put into you, wasted. And this is how you repay me?”

Theon swallowed hard.

Ramsay shook his head, looking disgusted as he moved over to the chair in the corner of the room, and picked up the scabbard that Arya, in her confusion upon waking, hadn’t even noticed until now.

Damn her.

Ramsay ripped free the sword, and turned to the guards. “Leave us,” he told them, and they hesitated, for only a moment, just long enough for him to lift the sword in their direction.

They scattered.

Ramsay smirked, as the door closed behind them, holding the sword up in the air, staring at its glint.

It took Arya a moment to realize why she recognized it.

It was Needle. Clearly, he’d confiscated that off of her body while she lay unconscious, even if he hadn’t found the other one.

Well, at least she knew the extent to which she’d been violated, knowing that.

Ramsay, like a king granting favors, turned the sword, hilt first, towards Theon. Theon squinted at him, and Arya closed her eyes again.

“Well?” Ramsay asked, sounding annoyed when Theon didn’t react, didn’t move. “Take the damn sword, Theon! Make your choice! Fight for her!”

Theon shook.

Ramsay rolled his eyes, reaching out and forcing the sword into Theon’s feeble grasp, wrapping Theon’s fingers around it.

In the corner, Jeyne was staring to sob.

And it struck Arya then, that perhaps this wasn’t the first time that this had happened. She wondered how many times it had, how many times Reek had been faced with this exact same choice, and had never made the right one.

Theon let out a sound that mirrored Jeyne’s.

Arya stared between the two of them, horrified.

She could see the last vestiges of her plan, in coming here at all, crashing down around her feet.

Or rather, around her bed.

“I thought this was what you wanted, Theon,” he went on, into the silence. “I thought you were going to protect her from me, to prove that you’re still the man, the brother, she knew. Well? Do it!”

He was all but shouting those last words, as he spread his arms before Theon, perfectly defenseless.

Arya would not have thought twice about running him through, about watching the blood gush from his neck as he slowly fell to his knees, and bad out in front of her.

Might even have enjoyed it, knowing everything that she did about him.

Theon didn’t move, just stood there, holding Needle in his hands, shaking.

Ramsay, rather dramatically, flopped down into the chair he had just pulled Arya’s sword from, letting out a sigh.

“And here I thought you’d grown some backbone, since Stannis stole you from me,” he muttered, sounding genuinely disappointed that Theon clearly hadn’t. He scoffed. “I should have known you’d be the same stupid creature you’ve always been. You’re not so fun anymore, Theon. In fact,” his eyes flitted over to Arya. “I’m getting a bit tired of you. Beginning to think that there might be…more interesting prey, around.”

The words were clearly meant to goad, and yet. Theon didn’t move, just stood there, the only person in the room holding a weapon, and shook.

“So let’s play a different little game, Reek,” Ramsay said into the silence, smirking as he watched the tears threatening to fall from Theon’s eyes. Arya gritted her teeth.

And then, Ramsay was half turning back to her, smirking again, and Arya hated the feeling she got with his eyes on her. “Which girl would you like to keep safe? Arya, or the other Arya?”

He laughed, reaching out to run a finger down Arya’s cheek, where she still lay, on the bed. Thank the gods, he didn’t notice the knots.

Arya grimaced in disgust as he pulled away from her, but that only served to make him more amused, as he stalked across the room towards Jeyne.

“The girl you once considered a sister, or this one, the one you’ve…” he reached out, ran a hand through Jeyne’s matted hair, and the girl started to sob in earnest, now. “Suffered alongside so beautifully?”

Theon’s face twisted up. “I…I…”

“I…I…” Ramsay mocked him. “Come on, Reek!” Now he sounded annoyed, rushing forward, and grabbing Theon by the neck, yanking him back against the wall. Arya grimaced, her own head throbbing. “You said you wanted this. I thought you wanted to be Theon Greyjoy again. Theon Greyjoy had to make choices Reek never did. Come on!” He twisted, sneering back at Arya and Jeyne. “Which Arya?”

Theon closed his eyes, and Arya thought she might have seen a tear escape down his cheek. He shuddered, swaying on his feet, swallowing hard, and dear gods, in that moment, she almost hated him, and she couldn’t even articulate why.

And then, he was moving towards the bed, pointedly not looking at Jeyne. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, in her direction, but he didn’t look at her. He came to a stop in front of Arya. “Please,” he begged Ramsay. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

Arya closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Ramsay was glancing between her and Theon, looking genuinely confused.

“She’s your choice?” He asked, as if he was clarifying, as if Theon hadn’t made that painfully clear.

In the corner, Jeyne began to sob even harder.

Arya closed her eyes, but that didn’t stop the sounds.

“Really?” Ramsay asked, into the silence. “And what do you think that’s going to get you?” He went on, when Theon just kept sobbing, the sounds joining Jeyne’s. “Do you remember when we joked about her dead brothers, Theon?” Ramsay asked, voice cajoling, almost friendly.

Far too friendly, Arya thought, insides twisting.

“How we joked about the way you burned them to a crisp so that nobody would be able to recognize them, how you killed them even though you’d been raised alongside them?” Ramsay went on, cruelly.

Arya…Arya knew that it wasn’t true, that her brothers hadn’t been killed by Theon, at the very least, and that Rickon was perhaps even still here, and still, the words burned through her. She swallowed hard.

“Do you remember…” Ramsay took another step closer, smiling. “Do you remember the day that my father came to see my progress with you, and you told him how they had probably gone to find their bastard brother, Jon, and you knew where he was?” He went on, and at those words, Arya felt herself going very still.

“Just…offered up that information,” Ramsay said, as he stepped closer still to Theon. “Without even having to be prompted, while you shaved my face instead of slashing it. My creature, through and through, aren’t you, Reek?”

Arya was shaking, now, but for an entirely different reason.

Ramsay smirked at Theon. “Very well,” he said, into the silence that followed those revelations, and Theon let out another choked sob. “I’ll honor your choice. That’s the rules of the game, after all.”

Theon squinted at him. “I…” he did look at Jeyne now, looking scared. “You will?”

Ramsay raised a brow. “Don’t you believe me?” He asked. “I did promise you, after all, and you know I always honor the terms of my games. No fun, otherwise.”

Theon grimaced. Arya did, too, wondered how Theon could be so foolish as to think that Ramsay would honor those terms, that he would ever let her go, when he knew that she was the real Arya, the key to the North.

Wondered what exactly Ramsay had done to Theon, to make him believe such a thing at all, just because Ramsay said it to him.

“But if you want to walk out of here with her,” Ramsay went on, and Arya’s shoulders stiffened, even as she’d known this was coming, “You’re going to have to be rid of her imposter, yourself.” He sniffed, gesturing over to Jeyne. “I’ve no need of her anymore, after all. Not when half of Winterfell knows that Arya Stark is still alive.”

Jeyne was shaking her head furiously, where she lay crumpled on the floor, her eyes widening in terror. She scrambled back as best as she could, tied up as she was.

Arya felt a stab of pity for her.

She didn’t deserve this. Of the two of them, Arya was a murderer. Jeyne was just a girl who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, who knew enough about Winterfell to pretend to be her.

She didn’t deserve this.

Theon clearly didn’t seem to think so, either, if the way he immediately started shaking his head and trying to scramble back from Jeyne was any indication.

Ramsay tutted. “Now, now, Theon, you wanted this. The power of choice,” he said, reaching out to grip Theon by the arm, holding him in place. “Now, you have to use that power.”

Jeyne let out a whimper, though the gag, that might have been a plea. Arya worked her way through another knot, finding it more difficult now that Theon and Ramsay were so close to her, that Ramsay could look over and know instantly what she was trying to do.

Silence followed Ramsay’s words, just the sounds of Jeyne’s whimpers and Theon shaking filling the room.

“Pick up the sword, Theon,” Ramsay said, placing both hands on Theon’s shoulders. “Run her through, and I’ll let you and Arya walk out of here. You’ll never have to face me again, never have to worry about me chasing after you again. I’ll even…forgive you, for letting Myranda get herself killed.”

Theon swallowed hard. “I…”

“Kill her,” Ramsay whispered, fingers tightening on Theon’s shoulders, now, as he stared down dispassionately at Jeyne. “Look how pitiful she is. Do you think she has the chance at a life, after this? I walked in to her beggin Arya to kill her, just now. You’d be doing her a mercy.”

Theon closed his eyes.

“You know what I’ve done to her,” Ramsay went on. “The sick games I’ve played with her. The ones you’ve played with her, too, in case you’ve forgotten about them. You think she could ever recover from that? Just because you want to be Theon again, doesn’t mean my dear little pet will ever be anything more than what she is. It would be…cruel, to leave her like this forever.”

Theon’s hand shook.

Arya swallowed hard as she watched some of the resistance fade from Jeyne’s face, then, as she lifted her chin to look up at Theon, to nod for him to do it.

“Theon, no,” Arya breathed, in horror, as Theon lifted Needle into the air over Jeyne’s head, as Ramsay turned to Arya and smiled right at her.

Winked at her.

Jeyne closed her eyes, clearly resigned to her fate.

“Theon, don’t do this!” Arya cried out, because none of this had been part of the plan. Theon wasn’t even supposed to be here. “Theon!”

His arms were shaking, but he hadn’t run Jeyne through, yet.

She thought that surely, that had to mean something.

“You don’t have to play his game,” Arya whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear. “You don’t have to become that…that creature, Reek, just because it’s what he wants from you. You can fight, Theon, so do it!”

The words sounded…strange, even to her own ears, useless, in this hopeless little room, and yet. And yet, Theon hadn’t tried to run Jeyne through.

She thought perhaps that meant something, so she kept going, the words spilling from her lips before she even had the time to think about what they meant.

“Your name is Theon Greyjoy, and you were like my brother,” Arya went on, insistently, eyes wet in a way that Reek had not seen since they had begun traveling together, at the Rock. “You’re my brother, so snap out of it, damn it!”

Theon’s hands were shaking.

Jeyne let out a strangled sob.

Ramsay glanced between Theon and Arya, looking genuinely confused about why Theon was hesitating.

Perhaps he’d never really known Theon as well as he thought he did, she thought, but there was no triumph in the thought. Not while Theon was still pointing Needle at Jeyne, contemplating the very act Arya had been, despite her plan, before Ramsay had walked in on the two of them.

And then, agonizingly slowly, Theon turned around, and suddenly, the knife was being pointed at Ramsay’s throat, rather than Jeyne’s.

Ramsay went very still, even as his hands lifted into the air, as he stared at Theon in confusion. “Reek,” he whispered, sounding almost…betrayed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Theon swallowed hard. “That isn’t my name,” he whispered, hoarsely.

Ramsay stared at him for a moment, and then laughed. “What, you think you can still be Theon Greyjoy?” He asked, mercilessly. “After everything I’ve done to bring you here, Reek?” He shook his head. “You can’t kill me.”

Silence.

They never got the chance to see whether or not Ramsay was right, though a small, sad part of Arya rather suspected that he was, what with the way that Theon’s hands were shaking.

Arya freed herself from her bonds, before that, not bothering to show the knife she still had giants her body because she didn’t want any of them to know about that, not quite yet, but jumping to her feet while Theon still held Needle to Ramsays’t throat felt like almost enough, for now.

She scrambled over to Jeyne, first, as Theon and Ramsay both blinked in confusion at her, and untied the other woman’s bonds, ripped the gag off her mouth.

Jeyne flinched back, from her touch, but Arya pulled her to her feet, all the same.

Then, she turned to Ramsay, exerting half of her effort just trying to keep Jeyne upright, she couldn’t help but think, but she rather thought Jeyne deserved that, at the moment.

Needle was still waving in front of Ramsay’s throat. For a moment, Arya considered snatching it from Theon’s hands and running him through, but that wouldn’t accomplish what she’d wanted, in coming here.

She’d heard that old woman, at her inn, had heard the occasional guests who came through her doors, trying to keep their voices quiet around what they assumed was a lady, for all that Arya couldn’t understand what about her still reminded them of a lady.

The North still remembered. Arya just intended to give them a little…help, in that.

And she needed to see her brother, before she could manage that.

So she didn’t try to snatch Needle free from Theon’s shaking hands, merely put a hand on his shoulder and told Ramsay, in a tone as cold as the snow outside of this fortress, “We’re leaving. And if you try to stop us, you’ll find a knife through your back.”

Ramsay gritted his teeth. “You’ll never get past the guards,” he hissed out, but there was fear in his eyes, now.

Arya could live with that.

Arya hummed. “Leave that to us,” she told him, icily. “But you’re not going to try and stop us.”

Ramsay stared at her for a moment longer, and then he smirked. “You think he could really kill me?” He asked, moving forward, pressing himself against the knife that Theon held against his throat. “I don’t think he could. Why don’t we put it to the test?”

A trickle of blood ran down Ramsay’s throat, and he jerked back. It took Arya a moment to realize that he hadn’t intended that; that it had been Theon, pressing that sword too close.

Ramsay’s eyes got comically wide.

Theon looked almost as surprised as Ramsay himself did, though he didn’t lower Needle.

Arya was almost…proud of him, for that.

Arya smirked, reaching out to grab Jeyne’s hand, to pull her a little closer, because if they were going to get out of here alive, Arya knew, they were going to have to move fast. They wouldn’t have time for her to slow them down, not when they were trying to get out of this place.

And for Arya’s newest plan to succeed, Jeyne was going to have to get out of this place.

Theon didn’t lower Needle as they trickled past Ramsay, out into the hallway, where it seemed the guards had left them to themselves, no doubt used to the sorts of games that Ramsay liked to play, these days.

Ramsay faltered, when he tried to follow after them, still looking furious as he glanced between Needle, far too close to his neck, and Arya.

“You can’t…” he shook his head. “You won’t get away with this.”

Arya smiled at him, and didn’t bother trying to explain to him that she wasn’t trying to. She just needed to get Theon and Jeyne out. She could damn well accomplish the rest on her own.

“Move,” she hissed at Jeyne, even as she felt pity for the other girl, giving her another shove in the direction of the empty hall, in the direction Arya had first come from when she had snuck back into her home.

Jeyne stumbled forward, Arya following after her, hissing over her shoulder, “Theon, come on!”

She felt, somehow, that it was rather important to say his name, just now, or she was going to lose him forever.

And Needle, the last thing she had left of her family’s. Of Jon’s, who, if Ramsay hadn’t been lying, Theon had betrayed, once, just as he had tried to betray her brother’s.

Just as she had been afraid, today, that he might try to betray her.

“I’ll have them kill your brother if you leave me like this, Wife!” Ramsay screamed after them, and at those words…Arya stilled. “I’ll have them flay him alive the way the Boltons of old used to deal with their enemies, and paint his blood on your family’s walls!”

Pure, feral fury dripped from every word, and she knew that, unlike Joffrey’s empty promises or the Kindly Man’s cryptic words, this madman would do what he had promised without a second thought, if she let him.

She’d known that before she ever set foot into Winterfell, though, after the things that Ramsay had told her.

Arya closed her eyes.

“I’ll have my dogs eat what’s left of his flesh!” Ramsay kept screaming, the sound echoing horribly in the courtyard of Winterfell, and Arya found it suddenly difficult to breathe.

“Go,” Arya breathed, giving Jeyne a harsh shove in the direction of Theon.

They both flinched as they knocked together, like dolls.

“Arya…” Theon began.

Arya shook her head. “Go,” she told him, again. “Get back to the village. Tell them she’s,” she gestured to Jeyne, “Arya Stark, and she needs asylum from her wicked husband. That woman at the village, she…” Arya bit her lip at their wide eyed expressions. “The North remembers. It always does.”

Theon shook his head, glancing back in the direction they had just come from. In the direction of Ramsay.

Arya closed her eyes. Knew what she had to do, even if she didn’t relish it anymore than Theon clearly did, from the look on his face.

“I’m not leaving you here, to him,” he whispered, and Arya saw a bit more of what he had suffered, or, perhaps more accurately, what Jeyne had suffered, in his eyes.

Arya shook her head, reaching out to clasp his shoulders in much the same way that Ramsay had, before, except she was facing him, now. “Go,” she whispered, and then, “Promise me you’ll keep Jeyne safe.” A hesitation. “She’s important.”

And not just to Arya, she didn’t say, though she hoped that Theon could read that in her eyes.

Theon stared at her for a moment longer and then, finally, nodded. She didn’t know what he saw in her eyes to make him agree, but the important thing was that he did go.

She could live with that, for now.

Theon and Jeyne disappeared around the corner, and she knew that they would get out, through the same way she had once snuck in. Knew it, because at the same time, she turned around to find herself face to face with Ramsay Bolton.

He was sneering at her. “Oh, did he abandon you?” He asked, glancing over her shoulder, but he was too late to see Theon, now. “He does that, you know. When I first brought Jeyne here, he begged so prettily for me to leave her alone. And then he stood and watched, while I fucked her, every night. Even gave in and gave what he could to her when I asked him to, too.”

Arya flinched.

“Didn’t tell you that, did he?” Ramsay asked, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Maybe once I’ve tracked him down again, I’ll let him give you what little he can still give, too. After all, I think he’d like that.”

Arya lifted her chin. “I didn’t stay behind to talk about Theon,” she gritted out, coldly. “I stayed behind to make you an offer.”

He blinked at her. “Come again?” He sounded genuinely confused.

She wondered how long he would have lasted at court. While she was surprised by how long Joffrey had, she couldn’t help but think that madmen gave away far too much to survive that kind of game.

Her sister had survived that type of game, and for years. She just had to figure out how.

“I’ll stay,” she murmured, forcing her lower lip to tremble, as if she was truly considering the idea, as if the thought truly did horrify her. “I’ll stay, if you just…if you just promise that you’ll leave them alone. That my brother will be safe from you, too.”

Ramsay blinked at her. Then, he smirked.

“There’s a good wife,” Ramsay said, reaching out to rub a carefully affected tear from her cheek - Arya couldn't remember the last time she’d cried - and then letting his hand lower, down, to press against her lower lip. “I have a feeling we’ll understand each other just fine.”

Arya lifted her chin. “I want to see my brother,” she hissed out. “I won’t do a thing you want until I know that he’s actually alive, that he hasn’t been dead this whole time.”

Ramsay’s eyes danced in amusement. “And what will you give me in return?” He asked her, carefully.

Arya lifted her chin. She’d never been raped, before. Almost, but never. “I know how to bite it off before you can pull away. I can promise not to, if you like,” she promised, and he stared at her a moment longer, before he laughed.

“All right, Wife,” he said, pulling her close. “But we’re going to fuck tonight. I’ve waited far too long to consummate my marriage.”

Arya lifted her chin. “Where are you keeping him?” She demanded, because Winterfell was her home, but she knew far too well how one could get lost inside of it.

After all, Bran had gotten lost so many times, on his adventures.

He…

He’d been standing, in her dreams.

She wondered if that meant he was really dead, and her dreams had meant nothing at all.

She swallowed hard, and followed where Ramsay led her. Not down to the crypts, as she had half been expecting, been half dreading, but instead, somewhere that was almost worse.

To the dog kennels.

Arya grimaced, moving a little further from Ramsay and being rewarded with the way his grip on her tightened, as he dragged her into the kennels, past the guards, as the dogs started to howl and jump around their cages, eyes wild, bodies malnourished. They strained against the bars holding them back from their prey.

She thought of Nymeria, and wondered if her direwolf was even still alive, out there, or if she was just as feral and starved as these creatures.

She half expected to find her brother locked away in one of the cages, locked in with a wild dog or as wild as one, himself.

It was why she wasn’t as surprised, when she finally did lay eyes on her brother once more.

She’d been half right; he was in a cage, though not with another dog. Instead, the cage was dangling from the ceiling above them, and her brother was sitting in it, clutching to the bars, staring down at them without a hint of recognition in his glassy eyes.

His hair was matted, his clothing ripped, his cheekbones sunken in as hollowly as the dogs before her. He twisted a little in the cage as it swung idly above them, trying to keep an eye on these new intruders, but there was no recognition in his eyes, no reaction to Arya once more being in his presence.

Her brother had been a child, when she had left him, but surely, he should recognize her.

She shivered, and thought of all the depraved things that Ramsay Bolton had done to Theon. She’d just found her brother dangling in a cage, after all. She wondered what short work Ramsay had made of him.

Instead of meeting her brother’s eyes, eyes that didn’t recognize her at all, Arya swallowed hard and turned on Ramsay.

“Rickon,” she breathed in his name, running forward, and then pausing, when she realized she had no way of getting him down from there, nor of getting up there with him. She skidded to a stop, stared up at her brother, where this monster was keeping him in a net like a dying fish, and breathed a prayer that he might forgive her for this, for leaving him here for so long, at the hands of such a man’s mercy.

She hadn’t known, she reminded herself. She’d thought he was dead, just as the rest of the world had.

She should have figured out the truth long before now, though. Should have walked to the ends of the earth, trying to find her brother, trying to find the truth.

And instead, she was staring up at a little brother she barely recognized, more skin and bone than boy, and more animal than human being, if the feral look in his eyes was any indication. His clothes hung off his body in rags, his hair a matted mess, and she could see the dark circles under his eyes, could see the pain in his joints as he tried to move to get a better look at her, in his little makeshift prison.

She was almost surprised he’d recognized her at all. He looked…he didn’t look good, even she could admit that.

Shadow was right. A shadow of the happy little boy she’d once known.

She remembered her dream, remembered Bran telling her to leave him here, that they would all be lost, if she did not.

She hadn’t believed him, still wasn’t sure that she believed in anything called destiny, but she couldn’t help but wonder, looking up at her brother now, if she hadn’t already lost him a long time ago.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned back to Ramsay, raising an expectant brow.

Ramsay smirked at her. “You said you wanted to see him,” he told her. “You’ve seen him. Don’t we have other things to do now?”

Arya lifted her chin, stalling, and they both knew it. “I won’t know it’s him, the way he looks, until I see the birthmark on his right leg. Bring him down.”

The dogs barked, straining on their leashes, as if they knew what Arya had just requested and wanted it as much as she did.

Rickon let out a sound remarkably similar to theirs, then, and Arya felt her stomach clench in sudden, very real worry.

“What did you do to him?” She demanded, not at all having to affect the real anger in her tone.

Ramsay lifted his chin. “You ought to be thanking me, you know,” he said, and for a moment, she thought he was actually offended, if a creature like him could even be offended. “He’s much better off than when Stannis’ men originally found him, I’m told. Was nothing more than a wild, feral creature, then. At least now one could almost call him human.”

Arya swallowed hard, gritting her teeth, didn’t know whether or not to believe him, even with the little she knew of her brother’s situation, now.

“He’s hardly the brother you remember, I’m sure,” Ramsay said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder now, something she allowed only because of her plan. “But you’ve seen him. I didn’t do that to him. You ought to thank me by fulfilling your promise, now.”

Arya lifted her chin. “I want to see him.”

He shook his head. “You’ve seen him,” he muttered, sounding almost resentful. She couldn’t help but think it was a little strange, how much he wanted to bed her, legal consummation or no.

But she didn’t have time for that.

“Let me touch him,” she said. “I haven’t seen my brother in years. I’ll…” she moved a little closer to him, then. “I’ll thank you in the best way I know how, if you do.”

Oh, that was a promise she could keep.

Ramsay stared into her eyes for a moment, and then said, “You know I won’t have let them get even back to that little inn you were staying in, don’t you?” He asked, coldly, and Arya flinched a little. “My men are after them, as we speak.”

Yes, Arya did know that.

But it wasn’t going to matter.

She didn’t need to be wearing someone else’s face to kill him, today. She just needed to think about the stories she’d heard about Joffrey Baratheon’s death, and she knew she could do it.

She lifted her chin. “Let him down,” she whispered, trying her best to sound helpless, worried for the friends she had just sent out to be captured again, and so easily.

She knew that Ramsay wasn’t going to kill him. There wasn’t any fun in this for him, then.

Ramsay walked over to the side of the kennel, reaching up for the rope holding her brother’s cage in the air, and slowly lowered it, just enough that it was hanging above the ground by Arya’s knees. He clearly wasn’t going to give her anything more than that.

Arya told herself it didn’t matter. That it didn’t matter, because this wasn’t going to last much longer, this game that Ramsay played with the lives of people she cared about, people she’d known, in another life.

He’d be free of these bars soon enough, she promised herself. She’d make sure of that.

She swept forward, forcing herself down to her knees as Ramsay clearly wanted, and reached for her brother through the bars.

“Rickon?” She whispered, and she didn’t have to force the sound of tears to enter her voice; they came on their own.

Her brother stared at her, with no hint of recognition in his gaze, and she wondered how long he’d been kept in this cage. Wondered what Ramsay thought he’d done to deserve this.

“Rickon,” she whispered, again. “It’s me. It’s Arya. Don’t you…don’t you recognize me at all?”

She had - maybe - sacrificed Jon to come here and save her brother. She wasn’t - she couldn’t - lose him now.

Her brother blinked at her. Once, then again. Opened his mouth. Closed it.

“It’s your sister,” she said, again, resisting the urge to pet him through the bars of his cage. She could practically hear Ramsay’s smile, behind her.

And then, a miracle, and Arya had stopped believing in those a long time ago.

“Ary’?” Her brother breathed, blinking hard in her direction, voice hoarse and scratchy but oh so real.

Arya was crying now, not for the effect it might have on Ramsay, but in earnest. And she knew that was dangerous, to give him that much of her, but she couldn’t help herself. Not when her brother was still there, under all of that feral fear, still recognizable.

Bran had been wrong.

If she’d left him here any longer, she might have forfeited the chance to ever save him.

This - what she was about to do - was the right thing, she knew that it was.

Arya moved forward, desperately, wrapping her arms around him through the bars of his cage.

“It’s going to be all right, Rickon,” she whispered, in his ear, as he shook against her, not even certain that he could understand what she was saying. She ran a gentle hand through his hair, the way their mother used to do when he’d awoken from a bad dream.

She wondered how many of those he’d been forced to endure alone, these days.

“It’s going to be all right, I promise. I’ll fix this. All of it.”

She’d see to that.

Because she never thought she’d see him again, just as she’d once thought she would never see any of her family members again, and here he was, in her arms, and that had to finally herald good omens for House Stark, surely.

Surely, it did.

She hadn’t made it in time to save her brother and mother, she wasn’t sure that she could save Sansa, but Rickon…Rickon was here, in her arms, and that meant something.

“All right, this touching little reunion is over,” Ramsay snapped then, moving forward and grabbing her by the arm, ripping her back from him.

Arya let out a cry before she’d even realized the noise had escaped her, but not because Ramsay’s grip on her arm was bruising.

Rickon stumbled back to the floor of his cage, still hanging just above the ground, his legs clearly still unused to holding him upright, as Ramsay moved forward and pulled on the rope that dragged his cage back into the air.

Rickon let out a sound that might have been a whimper.

Arya closed her eyes. Then, “Stop it,” she whispered. And, when he kept pulling on that rope, pulling Rickon further into the air. “Stop it!”

Ramsay spun back to her, looking furious.

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, little wife,” Ramsay said, gripping her by the arm and giving it a solid tug. “You promised me anything, after all.” He leaned down, and she could feel his spittle in her hair. “And if you even think about biting me, I’ll have all your teeth knocked out, understand?”

Arya closed her eyes. Nodded.

Felt the little knife she’d brought with her, the one that wasn’t Needle, pressing against her thigh, and wondered how Ramsay had missed that, when he was tying her to her childhood bed.

She wondered if he was planning to fuck her in her childhood bed, as well.

He shook her, hard. “And then I’ll force you to watch while I feed your brother to these dogs, who at least are better behaved than he is. Do you understand me, or not?”

Each word was accompanied by another harsh shake.

Arya swallowed hard, reaching into the hem of her shirt. Ramsay’s eyes didn’t bother to track the motion, too intensely trying to threaten her.

Fool, she thought.

In his cage, Rickon began to cry, almost as if he knew what she was about to do, as if he were mourning what she had become.

Nothing she did could compare to what had happened to him, she told herself, for she’d seen the terror in his eyes, as she held him through those bars, had seen the torture he’d been through, even if Ramsay wasn’t lying about it being at his hands.

Ramsay forced a step closer to her, and for a moment, she thought he might even try to rape her here and now, in front of her feral little brother.

He didn’t get the chance.

She ripped the knife free from her undergarments, quicker than he could blink, because she had learned that from her time at the House of Black and White, as well. Shoved it, as hard and as fast as she could, because he was bigger than her, stronger than her, between his ribs, where Theon should have shoved it earlier.

He let out a faint noise of surprise, reached down in an attempt to pull the knife free, and Arya twisted savagely. He let out a grunt of pain, jerked against her.

Rickon was still crying, in the background, the sound reminding her far too much of the sound of Jeyne’s tears, earlier. It didn’t make her want to pull the knife free any more quickly. Instead, she twisted it further, pulled it half out, shoved it again, even as his hands scraped against hers, blindly trying to push her away from him.

“My name is Arya of House Stark,” she whispered, against his cheek, as he sagged down against her, blood cooling against her fingers. It still felt so warm, and she reveled in the feel of it against her skin, the way she hadn’t been able to, with the Merling Queen. “And you can’t threaten me in this place, because this is my home, not yours. And I’m taking it back.”

She had warned him, after all, what would happen if he tried to stop her.

He still looked surprised, as the blood began to spurt out of his mouth and dribble down his chin, down to his throat, where the blood from where Theon had nicked him earlier was already drying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise we’re not getting a whole season of crazy!Ramsay, guys.  
> Anyway, I don't particularly like the way this chapter turned out, but I felt bad about not updating recently, so here you go! We'll be heading back to King's Landing next, I promise.


	46. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, guys, we've reached a thousand comments! Love you all!

_They had taken Loras away from her for the summer, perhaps forever; to a girl of Margaery’s age, they were one and the same, after all._

_The simple truth was that her brother was gone, that he had got to live with a Baratheon, and her father had spent the Rebellion fighting Baratheons, and her mother cried in her rooms every night, even after Father convinced her that Loras wasn’t going to be killed the moment he stepped foot in Storm’s End, that none of the Baratheons had designs on him, that this was a perfectly normal undertaking, fostering._

_But her mother still cried every night, and sometimes, when she knew that all of her servants had gone away, Margaery cried, too._

_Loras was not, by far, her nicest brother. That was Willas, had always been. But she felt that Loras was the brother who had understood her, best of all. Better than Garlan, with all of the time that he spent playing with the serving children or going hawking, or Willas, who spent far too much time in his books or his letters._

_She was going to miss him so much._

_She already did miss him, though her grandmother had attempted to soothe her nerves by sending some of her cousins to come and serve as her ladies. Elinor was lovely, of course, and Margaery already adored her, but she wasn’t Loras. She wasn’t playful like him, wasn’t willing to dress up in boys’ clothes and run away to the village, the way Loras used to be willing to do with Margaery._

_And getting rid of Elinor was difficult. She didn’t know what her grandmother had said to the other girl, but, kind as Elinor was, Margaery felt like the girl was trying to glue herself to Margaery, and Margaery could only take so much time in the other girl’s company._

_Her brothers had always teased her for that, for what they saw as a failing, on her part, to be friendly with other girls, girls her own age. Oh, she could act prim and proper before the court, but she’d much prefer racing horses with Loras than she would playing dolls with Elinor._

_And instead, her brother was off, playing servant to Renly Baratheon. It wasn’t fair._

_“Margaery,” Garlan walked into the room then, frowning at her. “I didn’t think you’d be in here.”_

_Here being the library; Margaery didn’t spend much time in here. She did love to read, but not the sorts of books that were in here. She much preferred stories, something fun, rather than the dry tomes about taxes and levies that could be found in this room._

_Willas spent much of his time studying in here. Loras had spent his time here playing pranks._

_“I’m reading,” she snapped, a little more sharply than she’d intended, as she held up one of the books she had chosen at random off the shelf. “Go away.”_

_She didn’t want to talk to him, anyway. He might want to talk about Loras, and she most certainly didn’t want to talk about that, of all things._

_Perhaps if she just ignored that it had happened at all, she would forget._

_“No you’re not,” Garlan said, squinting at her, his chin wobbling a little as he sank down beside her. “You’re in here, pouting.”_

_Margaery gritted her teeth, and resisted the urge to tell him that he himself pouted often enough, every time one of the pages, or one of the other little cousins, called him Garlan the Gross._

_She didn’t say that, though, because that was the sort of thing that Loras would say, and that was one thing she didn’t miss about her brother._

_“You’ll be next, you know,” Garlan said, into the silence, after sitting down, and Margaery flinched a little, at how easily he was able to reach in and pull out one of her biggest fears, of late._

_She hadn’t been sleeping. Perhaps the circles under her eyes had convinced him._

_For a moment, she hated him for saying something like that. Loras was always so easily able to pick away at her defenses like that, but Garlan wasn’t that person. He was…kinder than that, because he knew what it was like, to be picked on, to have his vulnerabilities pointed out to the world._

_The next to charge through the door was Willas, but unlike Garlan, Margaery could believe that he hadn’t come looking for her specifically, especially with the number of books under his arm. He frowned at the both of them, clearly surprised to see either of them there, and then moved over to the desk._

_Garlan went on as if he hadn’t noticed Willas’ entrance._

_“Married off to some fat, old man, to pup heirs for the Family,” he told her, and Margaery flinched harder, at those words._

_Willas glanced at her, and then sighed. “Stop it, Garlan,” he said, and there was something in his voice, a warning that he never really used with Loras, that actually made Garlan fall silent._

_Margaery breathed a sigh of relief, when he did._

_Willas turned back to Margaery. “Don’t mind him,” he told her, gently again. “Do you want me to read to you?”_

_Margaery licked her lips, opened her mouth to speak, but her particularly morose older brother beat her to it, tonight._

_“They’ll probably make him marry one of Renly’s heirs, when they’re old enough,” Garlan said, into the morbid silence that followed. He was older, now, seemed to have aged a decade, since Loras had gone to Storm’s End to serve as a squire to a boy who, by all accounts, did not much favor riding, and his tone was perfectly bland._

_Margaery thought there was something worse about that than if he had screamed and cried, the way that Loras had when they told him they were sending him away, for the good of the family._

_Unlike the rest of his family, Loras had never seemed to understand the importance of the good of the family._

_Margaery couldn’t say that she understood it either; after all, their family was rich, richer than was decent, she’d heard a serving woman say once, before she’d been sent away for stealing the silver, or so Alerie had said._

_But if their family was so rich, Margaery didn’t understand why she still had to suffer the loss of her brother. Why they couldn’t just give the Baratheons some money, and her brother could stay and live with them forever, like it should be._

_Like a family._

_They should all be together, as a family. Should grow up together, at the very least, but Margaery didn’t want to give up her brothers, even then. Wanted to know them when they were old, like Janna knew her Father._

_But Margaery hadn’t said any of this, not when Loras had come and cried in her arms, before trying to look very brave for their father, not when Grandmother had come and asked to speak with him, and Loras had seemed…changed, after that, hadn’t complained once about the fact that he was being sent away, save for how tightly he had clung to Margaery, as he said goodbye._

_She’d known that he was still upset, but that was the only time he’d shown it. When he had come back to her room after their Grandmother took him away, he’d told Margaery to stop complaining about it._

_That was how she knew there was something wrong, about all of this, something that not even money could solve._

_“I’m never going to marry someone just because Father tells me to,” she told Garlan, stubbornly. “Or the King tells me to, or anyone does. They can’t take me away from you, too.”_

_Like they’d taken Loras._

_“Oh?” Willas asked, sounding more amused than anything. “And how are you going to achieve that? You can’t fall off a horse and become a cripple like me; if it comes out that the Tyrell children are getting themselves crippled, the rest of the realm will think us cursed, I grant you, but Grandmother might still marry you off to the Imp, anyway.”_

_Margaery made a face. “If it saved me that, I’d run away to Essos, then. We all could. Together.”_

_Willas grimaced, gesturing down to his bad leg. “I’m not sure I’d make it,” he said, and Margaery’s face fell, a little._

_“Well,” she said, her lower lip jutting out, “maybe you don’t believe me, but it’s true. Whoever I’m going to marry, I’m going to choose someone who won’t take me away from the rest of you. We’ll figure out the rest later.”_

_Garlan laughed, and Margaery pouted at the noise. “Then what are you going to do if there isn’t anyone willing to put up with this family?” He asked her, and for a moment, he sounded as cruel as Loras could sometimes be. She got the feeling he was humoring her, and didn’t quite understand how. “Never marry and become an old maid?”_

_Margaery crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe I will,” she said, and pouted a little more when this only served to make Garlan more amused. “At least then I won’t have to deal with a husband I don’t love.”_

_She didn’t stop to think about whether or not she knew any old maids, much less any that were happy._

_Garlan looked disgusted, by what she’d just said. “Mother and Father love each other,” he said, almost defensively, and Margaery raised a single eyebrow at him._

_“I didn’t say they didn’t,” she said, swallowing at the look on his face, tense until he seemed to relax, once more. “But Ma and Father aren’t most married couples. Most…never love each other at all.” She’d learned that all too well, recently. “I don’t want that.”_

_Garlan snorted. “So then, tell Grandmother that, and she’ll find you some husband who will adore you for life, I’m sure. Adore you into an early grave, no doubt.”_

_He said it like he was making fun of Margaery, but she didn’t understand how, not then._

_“Maybe I will,” she said, and Garlan simply snorted again, before half turning away from her._

_Willas, however, didn’t move away from her. Instead, gave her a tremulous smile. “You know, I’d like it if we all stayed together as a family, too,” he told her, and the words were gentle, as if he knew it unlikely but didn’t want her to think so._

_She supposed she appreciated that._

_Or, she would, eventually._

_“Tell me what you read about, today,” she said, instead of asking him what he meant by that, if he thought it as unlikely as Garlan seemed to._

_Willas sighed. “You’ll just find it boring,” he told her, but Margaery squirmed off the sofa then, moving over to stand in front of his desk, and gave him her best pleading expression, the one that always got her an extra slice of cake, from Cook._

_“Please,” she begged, hanging off of his arm._

_Willas gave her a long look, and then sighed good-naturedly, moving over on the bench so that she could climb up beside him._

_Margaery grinned._

_“It’s about an ancient group of people, who lived among the Children of the Forest,” Willas told her, all seriousness, as she looked down at the scrolls on his desk. “They were called greenseers, and according to legend, they could do…things, that men cannot.”_

_Margaery raised a brow, surprisingly interested in the topic. Usually, the things that her brother took the time to read, outside of their normal lessons with the maesters, were terribly boring. Things about ruling cities and politics and economics, and Margaery could usually be counted on to give up on them fairly quickly._

_But this…this sounded more a fairytale than history, and far more interesting, certainly._

_“Do things,” she repeated, earnestly. “Like what?”_

_Willas smiled at her. “Well,” he said, rubbing his hands together, no doubt just as pleased to have a captive audience as he was to distract her, “It was said that they had abilities over nature, and that some of them could dream. Of the future-”_

_“Does Maester Lomys have you reading this?” Margaery interrupted, because it sounded exactly like the sort of thing that Maester Lomys had once pried out of Loras’ hands and told them wasn’t important to their lessons._

_Margaery thought that Loras had promptly lost interest in their lessons, after that._

_Willas coughed, blushed slightly, which Margaery thought was a weird reaction. After all, she knew that her brother liked to go and find things to read, on his own, even if Loras sometimes made fun of him for it._

_After all, Loras wasn’t here, and he knew that Margaery’s teasing was always goodnatured, whereas Loras’ sometimes…wasn’t._

_But…_

_“No,” Willas sighed, finally, getting a little tense, now. “It’s not something that Maester Lomys has me reading.” Another pause. “Oberyn mentioned it in his last letter, said it was something he thought I’d find interesting.”_

_And with that, suddenly, greenseers were no longer interesting._

_Margaery tensed, immediately, her eyes glancing down at Willas’ leg almost of their own accord, before she cleared her throat and got to her feet._

_“Oh,” she said, shrugging, pretending that name didn’t matter to her, pretending it had no meaning at all, the way Garlan was always so much better at doing than she was._

_Willas’ face fell, but Margaery didn’t bother to explain herself. She figured if he couldn’t understand her anger with what had happened to her brother, she would never be able to understand how he so effortlessly forgave the one who had done this to him._

_“I told you that you’d find it boring,” he told her, pretending he didn’t understand her reaction, thought it was just a loss of interest, another little warning, but Margaery rolled her eyes._

_“Oh, just keep going,” she said, as she wandered back over to the sofa. “Tell me, and maybe it’ll help me finally fall asleep.”_

_Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the look in Willas’ eyes, as if he was genuinely worried about her inability to fall asleep, these days, with their brother gone from their lives for the first time that Margaery could remember._

_Well. Margaery was rather worried about it, too. Perhaps his boring studies really would help her, this time. She’d been known to fall asleep during his readings, before._

_Her Grandmother sent for her, the very next day after Loras had left them. To continue her studies, the way Maester Lomys would never be Abel to do so._

* * *

Margaery had to say, this was her worst, and perhaps her strangest, wedding to date. Standing in the middle of a place that her husband’s soldiers had, not so long ago, been ordered to kill every man, woman and child within, holding the hand of a man she’d met mere hours ago, and who had then proceeded to unleash some sort of beast on her men, who had refused to free them from this creature until the marriage vows were said…

She’d expected him to fuck her, on their wedding night.

She didn’t think it an unreasonable thing to expect of her wedding night, especially with a man like Euron Greyjoy, who had already made it clear that he didn’t care about convention, or about a woman’s feelings, either way.

She’d been preparing herself for the grim reality of that ever since she had agreed to marry this man, ever since Euron had delivered his ultimatum in the throne room, and Margaery had known that she had no other choice but to accept.

Perhaps that was a little why she had broken down so fully in that empty room, in front of Sansa, because she hadn’t slept with anyone, not truly, since…and she had a feeling that Euron Greyjoy was no more a kind lover than her husband had been, in the end.

But she was rather surprised when it didn’t happen.

Joffrey hadn’t on their wedding night, not really; he’d been too drunk, after all of his merrymaking during their embarrassment of a wedding, had fallen asleep at her side and been snoring within moments.

It had been a terrible embarrassment, for Margaery, and even worse for her husband, when he’d awoken in the morning. She’d made sure to remedy that with sweet lies about what a kind husband he’d been, how…generous and knowledgeable he’d seemed, in bed with her, and sweet kisses that at least led to their wedding being consummated, if only out of fear that Cersei would find some way to prove it wasn’t.

Euron didn’t even seem interested in her.

Oh, he had, earlier, in the throne room. Had stared at her like he wanted to devour her, and she hadn’t been certain whether he meant it sexually or literally, though both had sounded terrifying, at the moment.

He’d smirked at her in the throne room, when she had capitulated, for that was what it had been. A capitulation. A surrender, to a conqueror, rather than anything else that her Small Council might try to paint this as, than Sansa might try to paint it as. 

She’d been surrendering to an enemy, when she agreed to Euron’s proposition, and much as the thought that she was about to find herself trapped in another loveless, horrifying marriage terrified her, she thought that disturbed her far more.

Angered her, even.

Their ceremony was…nothing like her previous marriage, nor the quick but lovely one she’d had with Renly, in Highgarden. There was no lively music, no dwarves to entertain them, no septon droning on and on about the Faith while Margaery worried whether her husband was going to fuck her to death, tonight.

Her father did not appear; he would not speak against the wedding, he knew better than that, but his absence had made an impression nonetheless, amongst the terrified nobles who had attended. They all knew that if her father wasn’t there, that meant something, after all.

Margaery gritted her teeth and endured it, just as she endured the rest of the farce of a wedding, just as she knew she would endure her wedding night, as well.

Sansa wasn’t there, either, and Margaery was relieved for that. She hadn’t asked the other girl not to come, but she hadn’t asked her to be there either, had left the choice entirely up to Sansa, and she rather thought that Sansa had made the right one, now.

She didn’t want Sansa to be here for this. Didn’t want her to see Margaery marrying another man after the promise that they had made to each other, and Margaery was so relieved she almost made herself sick, that Sansa wasn’t there. That Sansa hadn’t come out of some sort of sick sense of obligation to Margaery, because it would only remind Margaery how _wrong_ all of this was.

And it was wrong.

She’d meant what she said to Sansa, before she had gone out and accepted Euron’s invitation. She didn’t consider this a marriage, not truly, not when she and Sansa had said their vows to each other, and meant them with every fiber of their beings.

This was…this was a sin, in a way that sleeping with Sansa while she had been married to Joffrey had never really felt like a sin, to Margaery.

And she’d seen how badly it was affecting Sansa, from the way the other girl had started spouting nonsense about dreams, about dreams that predicted the future, dreams that were coming true before her very eyes. Maybe Sansa hadn’t seen it - maybe she really did believe she’d had dreams about the future, and who knew? Perhaps she had - but Margaery did.

She wouldn’t have brought those up if this wasn’t breaking her, and Margaery knew it was, and she was still making this choice.

For her people.

Because she was their Regent.

Not for the first time, this throne that she clung to so desperately felt more like a burden than a privilege.

But Sansa wasn’t there, and Olenna was, and somehow, that gave Margaery the strength to keep going.

To repeat the words after the High Septon that Sansa’d had appointed, the words long and boring, but at least not droning, as they would have with the previous High Septon, the one before the Sparrow.

She said the words, and she thought, for a moment, that it was strange that they were having a wedding under the jurisdiction of the Faith of the Seven. Of course, their marriage would not be a recognized one by the Crown, if it wasn’t, and would certainly cause a scandal amongst the people now, of all times, but she would have thought that Euron would have insisted on having a second marriage, in the religion of his own people.

Their marriage would have been dedicated to the Drowned God, if he had insisted.

Margaery shivered, and Euron, holding her hand in his with a surprising lack of force, raised an eyebrow at her, as he repeated the words, as well.

Margaery swallowed hard, and looked away from him. Found that she couldn’t bring herself to stare into his eyes - eye - for very long.

It reminded her far too much of her time on that pirate ship, even if this wasn’t the same man, as she was sure it was, somehow, of the creature that he was holding them hostage to.

And then, all too quickly, even if she had been the one to suggest they get this over with, uncertain whether he would continue slaughtering her men in the night, if she didn’t marry him right away, the marriage ceremony was over.

After all, without all of the pomp and ceremony, without the feasting and the speeches of family members, without all of the preparations that had gone into her last wedding, and there had been so many of those, the words required to band a man and wife together for eternity took remarkably little amount of time to say.

Margaery swallowed hard, once more reminded of Sansa.

Reminded of Sansa just as it occurred to her that she was a wife twice over now, four times, she supposed, in many ways, if this really was a marriage, as everyone else in this room seemed to think it was.

She swallowed hard, and leaned in for Euron to kiss her, when the time came, was surprised with the crush of his lips against hers, as if he were claiming her more than he already had, with just the barest amount of heat in that kiss to make her wonder if perhaps he really did want her, that way.

That way.

Gods, she sounded like a child. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done this before, after all.

Margaery took a deep breath, and turned back to their captive audience.

Her husband hadn’t insisted on being married before the Drowned God, but he had demanded that they be married in the Sept - probably to ensure that no one could declare this marriage illegitimate, Margaery thought, not bothering to mention that it most certainly was.

Instead, she had nodded and placidly agreed, as she had the feeling she would be quietly doing with every suggestion her husband made, after this, if she indeed wanted to keep her head.

And so, they were married.

It was funny; when she’d married Renly, she’d become a queen, for the first time. It had been a heady feeling, even if she knew her husband didn’t love her. She’d felt like a different person.

When she’d married Sansa, she’d felt that again, that headiness, though it had nothing to do with a throne, that time, and everything to do with the woman she whispered her vows to.

With Euron, she felt nothing.

She felt nothing as the smallfolk they had awkwardly dragged there so that this wedding had some semblance of order to it, awkwardly cheered for them, as the nobles all clapped stiffly, as she thought about the fact that her own mother wasn’t even here to see her married, never mind that her father had refused to come.

Nothing about this felt real.

Perhaps if she closed her eyes, it would all seem like nothing more than a horrible dream, and she could pretend that it had never happened.

She sucked in a breath, and then another, and snuck a glance over at her husband.

After the kiss, he dropped her hand, took her arm instead, and though their skin wasn’t technically touching at all, she could feel his touch, burning into her skin.

He didn’t call off the kraken until that moment, their arms touching as he leaned over to one of his men and she heard him whisper, above the quiet cheers of the smallfolk and the nobles, something she didn’t understand at all.

The screams that could be heard from the harbor stopped, after that.

Her wedding to Joffrey had been a fairytale, for all that she didn’t love the man she was marrying.

This one felt almost more…honest, Margaery decided, uncertain whether that was good or bad, as they walked down the steps and out of the Sept for good, Margaery still feeling the blood beneath her feet as if this were the same day as the last time she had come here against her will.

Married in a place she could barely stand to step foot in, out of guilt, for these very people all glaring at her, and at Euron, much to her surprise, as they made their way through the gathered crowd and back to the Keep.

Margaery wondered at the small size of them, wondered if the plague was still ripping through them. She’d not heard about it lately, but then again, she’d been rather distracted. With Cersei, with Euron.

She rode in a different litter than her husband, and she was grateful for that. Grateful that her husband didn’t try to fuck her in front of so many people, because she didn’t think she would be able to stomach that, and it struck her as the sort of thing he might think himself entitled to.

After all, who knew what those Iron Islanders did, and, after all, he was a pirate.

She shuddered, where she lay in her litter, and felt a sick sense of relief that her son was already in Highgarden, away from all this mess, something she certainly hadn’t expected to feel at all.

Perhaps the Iron Islanders had a tradition of killing the children of their wives’ previous husbands, as well.

She certainly wouldn’t put it past them.

Margaery swallowed hard, and felt like it had been the blink of an eye, the journey between the Sept and the Keep, before the guards were helping her out of her litter, all of them with something like pity in their eyes, for their queen.

Margaery gritted her teeth, and reached for her husband’s arm, once again.

Walking up the steps of the Keep was excruciating, far more so than it had been after her husband had rescued her from the clutches of the High Sparrow, with so many eyes still on them, so many screams still echoing in her mind.

There was silence, from the harbor.

Euron seemed content to let her lead him back into the Keep, which she found rather surprising. She may be the Regent, but she was under no delusions that he would be a quiet, compliant consort.

He’d already made that painfully clear, and they’d known each other all of less than a day, after all.

She came to a stop, then, in the middle of the now cleared out throne room, as the doors shut behind them, as the guards seemed to think the newly married couple wanted time alone.

She bit back a snort at that thought, thought about how all of these new guards were loyal to House Tyrell above all else, these days, and wondered if they, too, would stand by and say nothing, do nothing, as they listened to her husband rape her, tonight.

She swallowed hard, blinked up at the Iron Throne, where it loomed before her.

It had never seemed like such a…massive thing, before this moment.

She wondered what it had looked like, in Sansa’s dreams, covered in ash and broken, as she’d called it.

Margaery licked her lips, and turned back around to face her husband, opened and shut her mouth when it became clear that she was going to have to be the one to initiate this conversation.

She hated him a little more, for that. For the fact that he was making her start up a conversation between the two of them, and in the room where the Iron Throne sat.

And she had questions; they did need to talk.

But the words stuck like lead in her throat.

She swallowed hard, regarding her new husband, more than a little unnerved by the lack of any soft edges she saw about him.

Joffrey’d had them, and she’d just had to look, to find them.

She didn’t know what to do with a man who didn’t have any.

Euron stared back at her, gaze just as calculating, and Margaery was the first to look away, not liking being regarded like that.

Finally, in a voice embarrassingly close to a whisper, she said, “Would you prefer to do this in my rooms, or the ones we’ve prepared for you?”

She flinched a little at the thought of going to bed with this man either way; after all, he did not have the look or the bearing of a gentle lover, and even then, Margaery had just given birth; she doubted the experience would be very kind to her, either way.

Not to mention that if they did this in the rooms he’d been given, she would have to endure the thought of Cersei Lannister laughing at her.

Cersei’s old chambers.

Something about that had seemed fitting.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then snorted, grabbing her by the arm again and all but dragging her from the throne room. Margaery gulped, all but stumbling after him, fear making her legs move like lead and bile rise up in her throat.

Gods, this was really happening.

She’d really just been married, or as close to it as she could be, when she was married in fact to Sansa, and her husband was really about to take her to bed and have his way with her, with none of the attraction between them that she’d manufactured with Joffrey.

No, she didn’t flatter herself that Euron Greyjoy was already beginning to feel the barest bits of affection for her.

Her dowry had been…not killing her army, after all.

Margaery swallowed hard, and somehow didn’t remember the journey back to her chambers.

Her chambers.

Margaery skidded to a stop, then, rather surprised when Euron actually let her stop, actually came to a stop beside her.

She sucked in one breath, and then another, far too aware of the fact that she was giving too much away to her husband, just now, but unable to stop the ragged breaths, unable to force down her emotion at the realization that she was about to be raped - again - in the rooms where she’d killed her last husband.

After what felt like an eternity of Margaery trying to breathe in the corridor before her rooms, Euron snorted, and reached out for her again.

Margaery flinched.

He thrust her in the direction of her husband’s - last husband’s - Margaery thought, a little startled at the realization, bedchambers with a look that almost rivaled disgust, on his features, and none too gently, either.

“Good night,” he said, sounding as disgusted as he looked, and Margaery…stopped, in the middle of the hallway, barely able to keep herself from stumbling forward.

Confusion bled across her features, confusion she knew he must have seen, if his next snort was any indication, before he started moving away from her.

Confusion, because she knew that this husband wasn’t above raping her, given his own past. Might even prefer it. Probably wouldn’t even consider it rape, considering that they were married.

He was moving away from her. Moving down the hall, back towards the chambers that had been prepared for him, and Margaery…stared, wondering in confusion if she was meant to follow him. If he was actually going to make her beg for their consummation, as if she…wanted it.

She shuddered.

“I would also cut your hand and bleed it a bit on the bed if it actually mattered still, in your case,” he called over his shoulder, as he kept walking, finally putting her out of her misery, “but I’ve no need to sample used goods. Good _night_ , Your Grace.”

Margaery gaped at him, forgetting her fear of this monster she had just married for a moment in favor of honest anger.

Well. That was her greatest flaw, her grandmother had always told her, as a child.

“Then why demand this marriage?” She shouted, at his back. “Why go through with it? Why kill dozens of my own men?”

She thought she knew the answer to that, already. Thought that the answer was more terrifying than she wanted to admit she found him already.

He did pause then, to turn back and look at her like he found her terrible wanting. And she felt strangely…disappointed, to be found so, by him, of all people, after all of the trouble he’d gone to arranging this marriage.

Well. Arranging…

She bit back a sigh, hugging herself before she realized it only served to make her look even more vulnerable before her new husband.

“Because a time is coming, Your Grace, when I am going to have need of you. Desperate need,” he told her, the words shocking her enough for Margaery to fall silent, brows furrowing in confusion, at his words. “In order to survive what comes for us all. I’ve Seen it. More than once.”

The words, far from comforting when they were proof enough he had no real interest in her body, only served to unsettle her further. Margaery hugged herself again, squinting at him, more terrified now, she thought, than she had been a moment ago, at the thought of him raping her tonight.

Because those were the words of a madman. And gods, she’d known he was mad when she’d heard what he had done in Lannisport, but this…this was a confusing sort of madness, rather than a vile one, and Margaery didn’t understand why he wouldn’t fuck her, visions of the future or no.

It was then that she noticed how unnaturally blue the area around his lips were.

And it was then that Margaery realized her husband was well and truly mad.

And who knew?

Perhaps she was just as mad as he.

That was the only explanation for her asking, rather than turning and running away from him when he gave her the chance, “And what is this thing that you need me for?” She asked, hoarsely. “What is it that you’ve Seen?”

Perhaps she sounded a bit more fascinated than she should have, for Euron blinked at her as if he was pleasantly surprised that she was taking him seriously.

As if she wouldn’t; she’d seen what his monster had done to the Reach’s ships, in the harbor. To the Dornish ones, too.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then gave her an unnatural, white smile. “Death, Your Grace. Death comes for us all,” he said ominously, and this time, when he turned and walked away, she made no attempt to stop him.

Nor did she make an attempt to ask him what the fuck that had meant, and how his marriage to her could prevent any of that.

Gods, her new husband was mad.

She remembered Joffrey, near the end, raving about Targaryens to Sansa, about dragons and Heirs and the End.

At least this new husband was showing his true colors immediately, she supposed, shivering as she saw the door shut behind her husband’s back, only then convinced that he wasn’t going to turn around and have his way with her all the same.

She breathed out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, but hardly felt comforted, even then.

She closed her eyes, and saw behind her eyelids that image Sansa had seared into her memory, earlier today, of the Iron Throne, covered in ash.

Margaery swallowed hard, hugging herself.

* * *

Sansa laid in her bed, arms folded over her chest, eyes closed, and pretended the thought that her wife was being fucked in Joffrey’s chambers by a man who didn’t deserve her, who had openly threatened her, didn’t bother her one bit.

Pretended she wasn’t all but shaking with fury, at the thought that someone else had their hands on the woman she loved, that someone else had stolen the woman she loved simply because he could, as if men in this world didn’t take enough from her already and Sansa couldn’t simply have one good thing, one thing that was hers and not something that could be taken away by another man who loathed her.

She hadn’t gone to the wedding. She’d been quite aware that Margaery hadn’t wanted her to go, and, to be frank, Sansa hadn’t wanted to go, herself. Hadn’t wanted to sit there and witness another man, another madman, steal what was Sansa’s from her, say a few words before a septon his religion didn’t even believe in, and take her wife away from her in the eyes of the gods and of men.

No, she’d been almost glad that Margaery hadn’t wanted her to go.

But it had made things worse, in a way, as well.

Every time Sansa closed her eyes, where she lay in the privacy of her own bedroom, she found herself imagining it. Wondering how they had decorated; whether it had been with the blood of dead Tyrells, or dead smallfolk. Whether the High Septon had looked approving or not, whether eh cared or not about the fanatic he had once replaced.

Whether he had gone, after the wedding, to report to Littlefinger, the man who had appointed him in the first place, at Sansa’s suggestion.

Whether Mace had looked like he wanted to kill Euron Greyjoy, throughout the whole affair, and Garlan had been forced to try and stop him.

Whether Margaery had looked beautiful, or whether she had been too sad to be beautiful.

She could be beautiful, Sansa admitted, even when she was sad, and she certainly wasn’t going to break down in tears in front of so many; Sansa knew her too well for that, knew her decorum too well for that.

But Sansa might have gone to the wedding, if she had thought Margaery would beak down, if she’d thought that she would see a hint on Margaery’s face that the other girl loathed being there as much as Sansa loathed the thought of handing her off to another man.

She wondered if instead, Margaery’s face had been full of carefully controlled fury; fury at Euron, for forcing her into this marriage when she had sworn off men ever again, fury at Sansa, for the dreams she’d had but had never warned Margaery about, not before it was too late, at least.

She closed her eyes, and Sansa saw every possible outcome, of a wedding thrown together in a matter of minutes. Of Margaery, wearing the mourning garb she still wore for a husband she’d murdered, standing in the middle of the Sept, promising to love and obey a husband who’d had no qualms about killing her own people.

Of Olenna, and the wrench this no doubt put in the other woman’s plans.

There was a knock at the door.

Sansa flinched.

It opened without her saying that it could be opened, and Sansa winced, opening up her eyes, wondering if it were Margaery, back already…but she doubted that Euron Greyjoy would be so kind.

“My lady,” Rosamund said, as she stepped into Sansa’s chambers with an apologetic look on her face, and Sansa immediately sat up in bed, startled.

She’d almost forgotten that Rosamund was still, technically, her lady. After what Megga had told her, whispered in shallow breaths in an attempt to catch Sansa up on everything she’d missed while she had been…out, about how Sansa was poisoned at Cersei’s command, but, from what Margaery had discovered, no doubt at Rosamund’s hand, she had almost expected to wake up and find that Rosamund had been thrown in the Black Cells again, at their Regent’s command.

But perhaps Margaery had realized that would be too cruel, or perhaps she had thought Sansa would want to deal with herself.

Whatever the case, Rosamund had certainly made herself scarce, since Sansa had awoken. Sansa could do well enough without servants to survive, in this place, but she had been wondering, about the other girl.

To see her now, alive and relatively unharmed, from what Sansa could see, besides the scars she already carried, and without Brienne in the room to keep her safe…Sansa shuddered, just a little.

She folded down her dress to hide that fact.

“What is it?” She asked, coldly.

Rosamund flinched, as she always did, when Sansa used that tone of voice, but Sansa couldn’t bring herself to feel guilt over it.

After all, Rosamund had almost gotten Sansa killed, and on the orders of a woman that she’d thought she could use Rosamund against.

Rosamund swallowed hard, reaching into her pocket. “I…A raven brought a message for you, my lady,” she said, very softly. “F…From…”

She grimaced then, and simply handed the message over.

Sansa’s brows knit, and she walked over to Rosamund, snatching the message from her hands with shaking fingers, not entirely certain why she felt so nervous.

Perhaps Rosamund had laced the letter in poison, to make sure that Sansa actually did die, this time. After all, Cersei had gotten whatever it was she’d wanted, out of Sansa’s poisoning; Megga had told Sansa that the poison, now that they knew what it was, was not actually meant to kill her.

At least, according to Rosamund.

Sansa squinted at the other girl, in lieu of looking at the letter. She wondered if that had simply been Rosamund’s guilt, talking.

Perhaps they would never know.

After all, Cersei had returned to the Rock by now, was happily plotting their destruction from there, while her son remained here as a hostage to keep her in place, at least, for now.

Sansa took a deep breath, and forced herself to finally look down at the letter Rosamund had brought her.

She didn’t need to open it to know whom it was from. She knew the moment she saw the flourished script on the front of it, with her name written there.

She felt her throat go terribly dry.

She turned the letter over, broke the seal, secretly relieved to find out that it had not been already broken by the woman in front of her, and half turned away from Rosamund, to pretend a little privacy she didn’t really feel.

She hadn’t felt entitled to privacy since she’d arrived in King’s Landing, Sansa thought, a little glumly.

She swallowed hard, and her eyes scanned the message, heart leaping into her throat the nearer she got to the end.

She’d known from the handwriting that it was from Baelish, but even still, reading it, reading the casual possession in his tone as he wrote that he was glad she had finally awoken, that he was sad and angered that he could not be there with her when she had, because their Regent had sent him away on “urgent business,” that he understood that he had disappointed both the Regent and Sansa in some ways, but that he was in the middle of something which he hoped would make it up to her…

She closed her eyes before she ever read the words “your dearest love,” and wondered if right now, if Margaery hadn’t sent him away, she would be celebrating her wedding night with her husband, rather than Margaery celebrating one with hers.

She had been resigned to it, before. Had known that Margaery would find some way to get her out of it, because, after all, it had been Sansa’s idea, but had still thought she might have to endure a second marriage, and one with a man who would do more than grope her a little, before the end.

But he was gone, now. Gone, and speaking of her as if he had never left, telling her he would do something to make all of this up to her…

Sansa blew out a slow breath. Margaery had sent Baelish to deal with the North, after all. To deal with the Vale, and the North, an impossible mission, and that was the only thing he could surely be talking about, now.

To keep from disappointing her, he would give her something, something that would make it all up to her…

She swallowed hard. As horrible as the thought of Stannis Baratheon claiming her home had been, her father and her brother had sworn fealty to the man, at one time. As horrible as the thought of Ramsay Bolton in her home had been, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be there forever, that neither the Tyrells nor the Lannisters would want that, and soon enough, her home would be hers in at least name, once more.

But if Baelish took it in the name of the Crown…no, Sansa very much didn’t like the idea of owing her home to him, of all people.

She knew that Margaery had not banished him for that reason; she had forced him out in the easiest way that she had known how, by giving him an impossible mission and telling him not to come back until he had completed it, but Sansa knew Baelish better than Margaery ever could.

She knew he would only take something like that as a challenge, one that he would overcome. After all, it was something Sansa was reasonably sure he’d wanted, anyway.

She didn’t know whether the fact he was writing this letter to her now was simply because wherever he was, he’d just learned that she was awake again, or whether he was close to achieving his goals, and wanted her to know it.

Wanted her to be grateful for it.

In some ways, she would almost call him a romantic.

“Good news, my lady?” Rosamund asked behind her, as if she cared, and Sansa turned slowly around to face the other girl, eying her sharply.

“Did you read this?” She demanded, icily. “Did Cersei, before it ever reached my eyes?”

There was nothing incriminating in it, not really; Baelish made no mention to the reason he was banished, nor why he was calling her his love, but Sansa didn’t know who to trust these days, and she certainly didn’t still believe she could trust Rosamund, of all people.

Rosamund swallowed hard. “My lady, I…” she shook her head, and then sagged a little. “No, I didn’t read it.” She bit her lip. “I haven’t heard anything from Cersei since she was sent away from King’s Landing, I swear it.”

And Sansa’s brows furrowed, for that struck her as rather strange, but she forced herself not to think about it. Not to think about the mystery surrounding Cersei Lannister just now, when she had far too many other issues to deal with, after all.

Foremost of them being Greyjoy, and how he was further going to ruin their lives with his presence.

Sansa licked her lips, stepping forward, all but invading Rosamund’s space, and not feeling a speck of guilt for doing so.

Rosamund had ensured that she lay poisoned, on the brink of death, useless, for months. That Margaery lay open, vulnerable, without her, at a time when she had needed Sansa to be there for her desperately.

Sansa could not quite forgive her for that, even if Cersei had forced her, even if Sansa had awoken to find Margaery quite a changed woman from the last time they’d spoken, even if Sansa didn’t know whether that change was all genuine or not.

Sansa took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I don’t know whether I should trust anything that comes out of your mouth,” she told the other girl. “After all, you’ve given me no reason to.”

Rosamund swallowed hard. “I…I’m sorry,” she breathed, hoarsely. “I…I didn’t mean…”

“Didn’t you?” Sansa asked, cocking her head, and Rosamund fell silent, face flushing.

“My lady, I…” she lowered her gaze, flinching slightly. “I admit, I don’t understand why I’m still here.”

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from telling the other girl that she didn’t understand why she was still here, either. Why any of them were, if Sansa were being quite honest with herself, when Sansa would quite rather be on the other side of the Narrow Sea by now, far away from all of this madness.

She didn’t say any of that to Rosamund, however; she wasn’t quite sure how the already fragile girl might take it.

She swallowed hard, and said, “Because you still have work to do,” and Rosamund lifted her head, sharply. Sansa shrugged. “I don’t have Baelish here, anymore, and I need eyes where I can’t get. I can’t rely on our Master of Whispers for those, I assure you.”

Whatever Varys’ intentions, she doubted they were at all aligned with Sansa’s own, not after how suspiciously he’d regarded her, every time she’d tried to take charge of a Small Council meeting, as if he knew exactly where she thought she got such authority, and didn’t approve.

Well. Apparently her relationship with Margaery was something of an open secret, after all. Even Euron, with his veiled words, had all but alluded to it, something that absolutely terrified Sansa, when she thought about it too hard.

Because Euron Greyjoy couldn’t know about it; that was impossible.

She shook her head, breathed out slowly. “I don’t know how you were getting in contact with Cersei, before, but if you’re smart, you won’t contact her again,” she told Rosamund. “And you know you won’t get another chance to prove yourself to me. She isn’t here. I am. And I’m hardly disposed to be at all kind to you, these days.”

Rosamund flinched.

Sansa lifted her chin and now, perhaps, she did feel a little guilty. “I’m still in need of a maid,” she went on, “and I don’t want one of Olenna’s creatures following me.”

After all, she’d suffered enough of that under Cersei.

“But what I really need are eyes and ears,” Sansa went on. “Ones that aren’t reporting to anyone else.”

Rosamund licked her lips. “And you’re not…you won’t punish me?” She asked slowly, carefully. “For…for what I…”

Sansa eyed her sharply. “I will,” she said. “I did promise you once, after all, didn’t I?”

Rosamund stared at her, eye twitching.

Sansa forced the remorse she felt at those words to bury itself deep. She stepped closer still, invading Rosamund’s space as near as she felt she could dare, knowing a little of what Rosamund had been through.

What Margaery had been through.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the guilt was once more gone. “So you’re going to do what I tell you to do, and only that, or I will send you back down to the Black Cells. I hear that Cersei’s creature is still there; that she left him here, for some horrid reason, and that he still prowls about, looking for victims for…whatever it is that his experiments consist of.”

Rosamund swallowed hard. “My lady…” she said, and dear gods, Sansa had never wanted to be this woman.

Perhaps she ought to simply send Rosamund away, or, better yet, have the girl killed as she so clearly wanted. Sansa truly didn’t know which fate would be kinder, at this point, whether Rosamund would go crawling back to Cersei were she left on her own, once more.

Sansa swallowed hard, matching Rosamund’s expression, perhaps a little too well, if the girl’s wide eyes were any indication.

“I want you to keep an eye on the children, first of all,” she said, feeling silly calling Gendry Baratheon, of all people, a child, when she was quite certain that he was older than her, but Rosamund didn’t blink. She knew why she had wanted the three of them here, Shireen, Tommen, and Gendry, but she doubted that anyone else who’d had a hand in getting them here had the same intentions. “I don’t know why Olenna brought them here, and I want to. Figure that out, and make sure no one is…poisoning them or something, and then I’ll find something else for you to do. Understand?”

Rosamund hesitated at the word ‘poison,’ before she nodded, slowly.

Sansa sighed, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes. “Where is Brienne?” She asked, because she hadn’t seen Brienne in some time, not since she woke up, she thought, though Megga had told her how caring the other woman had been, how Brienne had barely left her side, when the rest of King’s Landing thought her about to leave them for good.

Rosamund swallowed hard. “She…she has a mission, my lady,” she said, and her voice was almost tired, as she said. “She said…she said that Lady Olenna had asked it of her, and Brienne only agreed once she was sure you were all right.”

Sansa squinted at her. “What the fuck does that mean?” She snapped, more annoyance than she would have liked bleeding into her tone.

Brienne did not work for Lady Olenna, after all. She was loyal to Sansa, and Sansa appreciated that loyalty, considering how nervous Sansa’s machinations sometimes made her, when she was such an honorable woman.

She didn’t know what could have inspired Brienne’s service to Olenna, after enduring all of that doubt, herself. Not when Brienne had come here to protect her because of her mother, and nothing more.

Rosamund swallowed. “I…she wouldn’t say, my lady,” she said, and Sansa stared at her for a moment, before rolling her eyes.

“Then do figure it out, won’t you?” She asked, coldly, and Rosamund flinched, before nodding her head.

“I…Of course,” she whispered, but did not get the chance to ask for more than that, before the door burst open and the two of them found themselves face to face with Margaery, standing in the doorway.

Sansa had…had prepared herself for many things, imagining how Margaery might look after her newest wedding night. Had pictured her covered in blood, the way she had been when Sansa had found her after Joffrey’s death, had pictured her clothes ripped, had thought about all of the rumors of Euron’s raping and murdering, had closed her eyes and barely been able to breathe, from the bruises she pictured on Margaery’s face.

And so, for a moment, Sansa almost found herself wondering if she was imagining this, as well.

Because Margaery didn’t look bloody and bruised. Her clothes, though a little rumpled, weren’t torn. She wasn’t sobbing, as Sansa had been expecting, nor were her eyes dead and too dry.

She was shaking, but that was it alone.

Sansa reached out, instinctively, telling herself that it was foolish to be angry with Margaery for something she had counseled the other girl to do in the first place, even as she felt a spark of fear at the way that Margaery was shaking, but had no visible injuries.

She turned towards Rosamund, grimacing slightly at the way that Rosamund was looking between the two of them.

“Get out,” she snapped, and Rosamund was all too eager to do as she was told.

Sansa sighed, wondering how quickly the rest of King’s Landing might find out that Margaery had left her husband’s bed within minutes of their wedding, if Sansa had figured out the timing well enough, before shutting the door and pulling Margaery the rest of the way inside.

Margaery didn’t flinch at the manhandling, as Sansa was expecting her to. Instead, she just kept shaking, standing in the middle of the room until Sansa managed to coax her into the nearest chair.

Sansa knelt down before her, hesitated, and then put a hand on her knee.

“Margaery?” She asked, carefully.

Margaery’s eyes finally met hers. “Sansa…” she started, and then trailed off, clearly unable to continue.

Sansa swallowed hard, closing her eyes, wondering if this was to be laid on her shoulders, too. If she had made the wrong choice, in trying to get Margaery angry with her, in trying to manipulate her into sleeping with her newest husband for their own safety, especially after what Margaery had gone through at Joffrey’s hands.

She had done what she had in an attempt to protect Margaery’s heart, if she couldn’t protect her body from that man.

And now, she would have to bear that along with the rest of it, for Margaery’s sake.

She wasn’t certain if she was strong enough.

“Are you…where does it hurt?” Sansa asked, softly, not entirely sure what to do with this new, pliable Margaery. It reminded her far too much of what had happened the night of Joffrey’s death, when Sansa had been forced to drag her out of that room and get her cleaned up, and Margaery had barely reacted to a thing she said or did.

Margaery shook her head, slowly. “He didn’t…touch me, Sansa,” she whispered, hoarsely, and for a moment, Sansa wanted to tell her that it was all right, that she didn’t have to lie, that Sansa could take it.

And then she met Margaery’s eyes again, and realized that she wasn’t lying.

“He didn’t touch me,” Margaery repeated again, perhaps realizing that Sansa didn’t believe her. “I swear, he didn’t.”

Sansa swallowed hard. “All right,” she whispered, not sure what to say at all, now. Not sure…why a man known for raping women hadn’t touched his new wife, on their wedding night, though she was beginning to realize that Margaery was just as surprised about that as she was.

Euron hadn’t touched her.

After all of his demands today, that hardly made sense, surely.

“He’s mad,” Margaery whispered, into the silence that followed, and Sansa jerked a little, from how loud the whisper sounded, just then. “Euron. He’s…” she let out a wet laugh. “Totally mad. Another mad husband.”

She sniffed, and for a terrifying moment, Sansa thought she was about to burst into tears.

She didn’t.

Instead, she went on, still in that worrying whisper, “Why must I always attract madmen?”

Sansa shook her head. “Margaery…”

And then Margaery swept down and kissed her, hard, desperate, needy. Sansa was so shocked that she didn’t get the chance to react, simply knelt there, Margaery’s lips pressing against hers, Margaery’s hand reaching out to grab Sansa’s neck and pull her closer, until Sansa was stumblingupright and into Margaery’s lap, to keep the other girl’s chair from toppling to the floor.

She shook her head, starting to pull back after another moment of this, another moment of longing where she wanted nothing more than to pull Margaery into her arms after so long. She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite this desperate for her, hadn’t felt this desperate until moments ago, when Margaery was in her arms again.

She swallowed thickly.

“Margaery…” she tried again, silenced by Margaery kissing her a second time, passionate, and Sansa could feel the other girl’s passion in that kiss, in a way that she hadn’t been able to the few times that they had managed to kiss since Joffrey had…

Sansa pulled back abruptly, mood effectively spoiled by that thought.

“Margaery, maybe we shouldn’t…”

“I don’t want to be tarnished by him before I’ve had a chance to be with you,” Margaery whispered hoarsely, against her throat, hands reaching up to cling at the collar of Sansa’s gown. “I don’t want my first time since…since Joffrey, to be with anyone but you, Sansa. Please.”

Sansa swallowed hard, closed her eyes. Opened them again, unable to resist Margaery as she had always been unable to resist her.

“Are you sure?” She whispered. Even if Euron would no doubt not give Margaery the same considerations, once he had finished whatever this little game was, Sansa didn’t want to rush her. Not with what she’d been through.

She would wait years, if that was what Margaery needed.

In answer, Margaery kissed her again.

And dear gods, it had been ages.

Sansa melted against her. Melted against her kiss, and for a moment, it was all forgotten. This insanity with Euron Greyjoy and that creature he commanded, the torment of the last few months of loneliness, of guilt for what had come before, for the way that Margaery was reacting to it.

For a moment, it was just the two of them, and Sansa leaned into Margaery’s kisses and thought she might be content to remain there forever.

Somehow, the two of them stumbled their way over to the bed, and Sansa was glad that she had dismissed Rosamund when she had, as they fell against the head of the bed, as Margaery pushed her down onto it and Sansa went down without a fight, even if a part of her was wondering if perhaps she should.

If perhaps she should put a stop to this, before Margaery did.

Sansa wasn’t sure how many more times she could bear Margaery’s rejection. Because she knew, of course she did, that after what Margaery had been through, it was a natural enough reaction, but it still hurt, every damn time.

Margaery didn’t pull back this time, though.

Instead, she surged forward, kissing Sansa like a drowning woman, pushing her down onto the bed and climbing up on top of her, and a little part of Sansa wondered if perhaps this wasn’t a mistake, if perhaps she ought to really stop it, because something was wrong, about this.

She understood why Margaery didn’t want to force herself to sleep with Euron first, after all of this time.

But she also…

Wasn’t sure that this was the solution, either.

But it was clear enough that this was what Margaery wanted, if the heat Sansa felt between her thighs, against her lips, was any indication, and Sansa felt sure that she wanted it just as desperately.

And then Margaery was pulling her gown up and over her head, and Sansa forgot the rest of her doubts for good.

Margaery bent down again, kissed her, hard and somehow pleading at the same time, and Sansa leaned into the touch, reached back to wrap her fingers in Margaery’s hair, felt her tense for a moment before the other girl moved closer, moaned against her lips, and soon enough, Sansa forgot that hesitation, too.

Laid back in the bed, felt Margaery pulling the sheets halfway up and over them, felt Margaery pulling off the last of the clothes separating the two of them, and didn’t try to manage it herself, somehow knowing this was what Margaery needed, tonight.

To feel in charge.

Sansa could happily give her that, so long as they were in bed once more.

And then Margaery was pulling Sansa's fingers between her thighs, in a move calculatedly quick that made Sansa jerk, feeling as though she'd ripped off a bandage rather too quickly, and Sansa knew Margaery wanted this as badly as she herself did. Moaned a little, at that wetness between Margaery's thighs, moving closer.

Margaery grinned at her, an echo of the impish smiles of old, the ones that Margaery reserved for just Sansa, in the bedroom. 

The actual act, when it happened, was almost…anti climatic, for Sansa.

When Margaery reached between Sansa’s thighs and Sansa bent down between Margaery’s legs and sucked, insisting, because she wanted Margaery to feel pampered tonight, if there were still any lingering doubts for the other girl, wanted this to feel good, wanted this experience to be absolutely the opposite of the last time that Margaery had sex, when the two of them tried their best to cover their moans, Sansa was paying attention to Margaery’s reaction almost more than her own.

She spent the moment staring up at Margaery’s blissful, peaceful expression, and wishing that she could see that expression a bit more often, these days, and not just in the context of sex.

She looked so beautiful, just then, back arched, eyes closed, clearly content, clearly happy, and Sansa ached to see it. She’d seen that look outside of the bedroom, after all, even while Joffrey was still alive.

She missed that look. Would do just about anything to get it back, she thought, a little desperately, as the two of them fell into the bed moments later, sweating and panting, and Margaery half turned away from her, and Sansa, not quite ready to allow that, turned on her side and wrapped her arms around Margaery’s waist.

She was gratified, though she couldn’t see Margaery’s face, that the other girl didn’t try to pull away from her. In fact, leaned into her touch.

And that was when she noticed them, Margaery’s legs spread open, the sheets falling around her knees.

Sansa reached out, wide eyed, to touch the scars encircling Margaery’s inner thighs, and then glanced sharply up at Margaery.

Sansa remembered seeing those marks for the first time, but it was still…startling, to see them now, all the same.

She met Margaery’s gaze as the other girl half turned in the bed to face her once more, the heat having faded from both girls’ expressions with that single touch.

“I’ve carried them since that night,” Margaery whispered, and glanced away again. “I…”

Sansa wasn’t certain what Margaery wanted to say, then. That Sansa didn’t have to look at them, if she didn’t want to, and Margaery wouldn’t mind, not at all.

But she didn’t say that, and Sansa was rather stupidly relieved.

She didn’t want to have to tell the other girl that it hardly mattered, that they both carried far too many scars these days, and nothing could convince her to turn away from Margaery, now that she finally had her.

That she was almost hurt Margaery might even think Sansa capable of such a thing.

“I didn’t want you to see them,” Margaery went on, even though Sansa could distantly remember seeing a hint of them, once, when she had been helping Margaery clean herself up that night, to ensure that the throne room suspected nothing. “I thought…”

Sansa didn’t know what Margaery was going to say. That she thought Sansa wouldn’t love her quite as much, that Sansa wouldn’t find her as attractive.

She swallowed hard, feeling the dull ache of a scar that no longer hurt against her throat as she did so, feeling Margaery’s gaze slowly lowering to it.

“Do you remember what you did, after Ellaria cut my throat?” Sansa asked, breathless, as she moved closer, all but kneading Margaery’s thighs, then. “How you kissed them, anyway, to let me know you still thought me beautiful?”

Margaery swallowed hard. “Sansa…” she whispered.

Sansa smiled at her, gently, leaning forward and kissing Margaery’s lips. “I won’t kiss them, if you don’t want me to. But they’re beautiful, all the same, Margaery. They mean you survived him, and that you were still you, when you did.” She paused. “And…and I love you. All of you. I thought I made that clear when I…when I agreed to marry you.”

There it was, hanging in the air between them.

Marriage.

They had been married, and the last conversation they’d had had been Sansa, trying to convince Margaery that it was the best idea before them, for her to marry someone else.

And she’d done it.

Sansa wasn’t sure which was worse.

She thought about how little Nikoelas had felt, in her arms, before she had handed the boy over to Elinor, and closed her eyes.

Margaery licked her lips. “I should never have allowed any man to come between us,” she admitted. “Not for so damn long.”

Sansa leaned forward then, kissing her on the forehead. “He’ll never come between us again, now,” she promised, though the words felt stale on her lips tonight, knowing Margaery had just come from a wedding, after all.

But then she was pulling back again, blinking up at Sansa with tears in her eyes. Margaery let out a wet laugh, pulling back and biting back a sigh. “No, instead, I’ve traded one mad husband for another.”

And Sansa…didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Fell silent, limp in Margaery’s arms, suddenly more aware of how awkwardly the bedsheets had tangled around them.

Because it was true, after all.

She bit back a sigh, wrapping herself around Margaery in the way that she hadn’t been able to do in so long, secure in the knowledge that Margaery wasn’t going to pull away from her, after a moment of tense indecision.

“I meant it, you know, when I married you,” Margaery whispered, into the darkness, an Sansa shut her eyes so that she didn’t have to look at Margaery’s hair, tangled before her on the pillow.

“And I…I appreciate what you were trying to do,” Margaery went on, “when you let me marry him, but its…” she turned slightly in the bed, so that they were facing each other again. “It’s not a real marriage, what I have with him. It won’t ever be. The moment I can find a way out of this marriage without getting us all killed, I will.”

There was a stunning finality to those words that made Sansa shudder. Perhaps Margaery noticed, so pressed against her; she moved closer still, and let out a breathy noise of air against Sansa’s arms, wrapped so tightly around her.

Sansa swallowed thickly. “I believe you,” she whispered hoarsely, and was surprised to find that she meant it, bending down to kiss at Margaery’s neck.

“And I…” Margaery shook her head. “I’m not going to blame you for having a dream about my son being taken away, Sansa,” she went on, tiredly, and this time, it was Sansa who tensed against her.

She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. “How can you say that?” She demanded. “I…I should have done something. If I had…”

Margaery sat up in the bed then, cutting her off. “If you had, he would have still been here in King’s Landing when Euron attacked,” she said, a little more sharply than she had intended, if the way she flinched a moment later was any indication. “And maybe he would be dead.”

Sansa flinched.

“As much as I resent my grandmother for stealing my baby away from me without even bothering to warn me,” Margaery went on, her eyes darkening, “the truth is, he’s safer in Highgarden, right now. And…we’ll see him again, we’ll bring him home, when its safe.”

Home.

Sansa had never thought she would think of King’s Landing as home in her life. Had never thought she would want to bring a child she considered partially her own here.

And…had never thought that Margaery would be saying the things that she was, either. Sounding almost…relieved that the child wasn’t here.

Something about that struck Sansa as wrong, more than wrong, considering the way that Margaery had sobbed in her arms the day before about her baby being taken away from her. Had sobbed, because her baby had been taken before she ever got the chance to know him, and by someone she had once trusted.

Now, she was talking about her child as if he were a prized horse that she needn’t see all the time, so long as he was all right.

Sansa felt a shiver run down her spine, opened her mouth to ask about it, but Margaery was already turning away from her, back onto her side, hand reaching down to pet at Sansa’s arm, where it was still wrapped around her waist, and Sansa fell silent.

“We could still run away,” Margaery whispered, into the darkness, as Sansa stared down at their entwined legs. “Just the two of us. Run away to somewhere my family doesn’t matter, this damn throne doesn’t matter.”

Sansa swallowed hard, hating herself for much the thought appealed to her, now Margaery had voiced it and she hadn’t had to, something that had been tickling at the back of her mind for far too long, now.

“Perhaps we could go wherever it is Tyrion disappeared to,” she went on, when Sansa was silent, in turn. “Have my mother send Nikoelas to meet us, wherever we end up, once its safe. She would do that; she knows what it is to have a child taken from her. Tyrion certainly seems to have gotten himself lost.” She licked her lips. “I…I think I would like to get lost, these days.”

The thoughts were so very similar to what Sansa had been thinking not moments before Margaery had entered her bedchambers, that Sansa flinched.

She found she couldn’t meet Margaery’s eyes, as she thought carefully over an invitation she knew Margaery didn’t really mean.

Because she did want that, she did, far more than she wanted to admit aloud, and a part of her was shocked that Margaery herself had made the invitation, that Margaery was clearly thinking about it, as well.

Fuck all of this. This damned Crown, which was far too difficult to hold onto and far too unsatisfying now that Margaery was so close to it. They could just leave, the two of them, if they truly wanted to. They could get out of this place, make a new life for themselves, somewhere no one knew their name and they didn’t have to suffer because of it.

She closed her eyes, breathed in deep, trying to force out the doubts lingering at the back of her mind, trying to truly picture such a reality, rather than just imagining it.

They could do it, Sansa had no doubt of that. Even if they were only two women, they could find some way to support themselves, and Nikoelas, if they really had to. They would not be so privileged as they were now, would not have the same money, but they could do it, if they had to.

Would Margaery still want her, then? Would Margaery still want her when what had brought them together was this damned Crown?

Would Sansa still want her, finally free of this prison?

Elinor had asked her, or perhaps it had been Megga, Sansa couldn’t quite remember, why she had stayed after the Lannisters had left King’s Landing, after she was finally free of both Joffrey and Cersei, when they had been the ones keeping her here, when the Tyrells wouldn’t have fought so hard to keep her here.

And Sansa…hadn’t had an answer for her, because in truth, she hadn’t even thought about leaving.

And that had scared Sansa more than she had wanted to admit, the thought that she hadn’t even thought of leaving.

She wondered when she had started thinking of leaving, if it had been when she had started running the Small Council meetings when it was clear that Margaery could not, or even earlier than that.

She wondered when Margaery had started thinking of leaving. Wondered if Margaery, too, had never thought of doing so until recently.

There had to be a reason. A reason, besides just each other, when the two of them could surely find another life if they looked for one, that neither of them had thought of leaving.

She swallowed hard, opening her eyes again, found Margaery staring over at her, eyes doe and soft.

“But then it would have all been for nothing,” Sansa whispered, with the same sort of fevered desperation she’d heard from Margaery far too often, lately. “All of the pain we’ve been through, all of the suffering…” she swallowed, as she felt Margaery go very still, against her. “It would have all been for nothing, if we just…run away now.”

Margaery flinched, and Sansa felt a stab of guilt, even if she knew she was telling the other woman exactly what she wanted to hear. What she needed to hear, to keep on going.

To feed her ambition. To protect her family, and this son that she’d brought into the world but had hardly gotten to see, before he was ripped away from her.

Sansa didn’t know what sort of man this Aegon Targaryen was, what sort of man this Euron Greyjoy was, even if she was already starting to get something of a hint, but she did know that leaving alive an heir, even if it was the son of a usurper, would never be on the cards for them, no matter how far she and Margaery ran.

She remembered something of the fact that Daenerys Targaryen had been tracked even to the ends of the earth, her movements always known, assassins sent after her when it seemed she was becoming too much of a threat, before she was abruptly forgotten altogether, in light of issues far closer to home.

Margaery would never want that for their son, even if it was something they might be able to survive, better than this.

So Sansa swallowed hard, and whispered into Margaery’s shoulder with a gentle kiss that, whatever this newest challenge, in the form of Euron Greyjoy, they would figure it out, together.

They had to, after all.

* * *

“Ah, my dear Spider,” Olenna said, eyes narrowing on her prey as she found him exactly where she’d been expecting to, after leaving that farce of a wedding, as she took a seat beside the man at their customary spot in the gardens, or what had been their customary spot, what felt like a lifetime ago.

Varys squinted at her. “Lady Olenna,” he said, and his voice was cold, the way it was whenever he interacted with a Lannister, or, the gods forbid, Petyr Baelish.

Olenna bit back a sigh, as she settled back into her chair, reaching over for a piece of the cheese sitting before him and plucking it up. He sighed, leaning back as well.

“Troubling, isn’t it?” He asked her, staring out into the sea. After a moment, Olenna followed his gaze, saw the Greyjoy ships still sitting in the harbor, although thankfully, they had stopped firing on Tyrell ships. And the Dornish ones as well, Olenna had noticed, though those had not been allowed to leave the harbor, despite several attempts since the wedding had begun. Olenna wondered if this…creature of Euron Greyjoy’s would need feeding soon, after all.

Varys kept speaking, and Olenna forced herself to refocus on his words, though in truth, she had not come out into thee gardens to hear more of the Spider’s reassurances, when she believed not a word of them, anymore.

“This new…marriage for our regent,” he went on, slowly, as if he knew already that he had lost her. Huh. “Unexpected, as well.”

Olenna hummed. “I suppose,” she said, affecting unconcern, cocking her head as she chewed on her piece of cheese, and reached for another. “It was certainly the latter.”

He raised a brow. “You don’t find it troubling?” He asked. “That your granddaughter sells herself off to a man who, hours ago, was willing to kill every one of us?” He blinked at her. “I would have thought that a lady with such…love for her granddaughter would be thinking already of how to save her from such a situation.”

She leaned forward in her chair then, the cheese seemingly forgotten, and leveled a glare at Varys. “What I find troubling, Lord Varys, is no longer your concern, I think.” She pressed her lips together, then, “I would be worried about where such whispers might end up.”

He blinked at her, the picture of innocence, as if he couldn’t believe that she would accuse him of being anything other. “My lady, I am loyal to our beloved queen.”

“Beloved,” Olenna snorted. “No, my dear granddaughter, much though it saddens me, has not been beloved by her people in some time. I do not fool myself into thinking that her blind promises to the Dornish, and her fast marriage to Euron Greyjoy, a man who does not follow the Faith at all and makes no attempts to, will endear her further to her people. And _you_ have not been hers, I would say, since near then.”

Varys looked…surprised, and then hurt, though she knew it all to be a facade. He was good at those, after all. The only thing that gave him away was the slight tremor in his hands. “My lady, if there is something that you’re accusing me of…”

“I brought Gendry here,” Olenna cut him off, coldly, leaning forward in her chair, pressing her elbows down against the table. “I brought Shireen Baratheon, I brought Tommen Lannister here. I did not have to do any of those things, certainly not bringing the latter two here, but I made that happen, too. And…we both know why I did it. So.” She raised a brow. “I think that earns me a bit of honesty, doesn’t it?”

He squinted at her again, reached for another piece of cheese, but at the same time that she did, and Olenna snatched it from his fingers. He sighed, leaned back again.

“I know what it is you are, Spider,” Olenna said, chewing the piece of cheese slowly, opening her mouth to speak. “I know who you answer to.”

Varys went very still, the game clearly up. “My lady…” he tried again, one more time, but Olenna was not going to give him that, not when she knew his game, now.

She had spent years, trying to figure it out, after all. Ever since that first time in these gardens, when he had offered Sansa Stark to her grandson, to get the girl out of King’s Landing, and the North out of the Lannisters’ hands.

Ever since Littlefinger had promised to kill a king for her granddaughter, after extending the crown to House Tyrell in the first place, Olenna had known not to trust these creatures, far more similar than either of them seemed to want to admit.

Varys may affect a more trustworthy appearance than Baelish, but Olenna would make no mistake about either of them. They were both snakes. Always had been.

Margaery seemed to have wizened up about Baelish, but she hadn’t killed him, thus far, and Varys was still here, after all.

“I did believe, for some time, that perhaps you were simply playing all sides,” Olenna murmured. “That you remained here because you had not yet chosen a victor.” She sighed. “But that isn’t true, is it? You chose the victor long before they had a prayer of winning this war, and it was not my granddaughter, for all of your expressed interest in her.”

Varys sighed. “My lady, as I’ve repeatedly said, I’m sure you’re mistaken…”

She gestured around the gardens. “Dragonstone was won by the Targaryen boy before we ever realized we had lost it,” she said, sharply. “They could not have managed that without…help, from someone who knew enough whispers about the Crown to get them there in the first place. Do not patronize me,” she went on, sickly sweet, “or I am afraid that you will find yourself without a head.”

Varys swallowed hard. “My lady, if you are accusing me of colluding with Targaryens, perhaps I should remind you of my tireless efforts to be rid of the girl, Daenerys, long ago, under the reign of Robert.”

“Yes,” Olenna mused, “you did try that, didn’t you? But then again, it would only muse it more difficult, her showing up now, in the thick of things, while you’re championing the cause of her nephew.”

Varys stared at her.

Olenna smiled, leaning forward now, chewing obnoxiously because she could. “Tell me, how do you get the notes to Dragonstone, from here? Or from the parapets of the castle where my gracious granddaughter allows you to lay your head?”

Varys swallowed. “There are…many, within the Small Council, and within the walls of this castle, who begin to believe that our Regent not only does not have our best interests at heart, but is, perhaps, not capable of championing those interests, through no fault of her own.”

Olenna hummed. “Yes, those without manhood will wilt at the first risk they see,” she mused, just a tad tired, now. “Though I had hoped that given our…long friendship, I might see a bit more interest from you, before you gave up on her for good.” She smirked at him. “After all, you were once so interested in her, and in Sansa Stark. When did you give up on them?”

“Perhaps it was when I noticed that they were sleeping together,” Varys said, sounding almost…annoyed, and Olenna felt her breath quicken in surprise, before she quickly schooled her expression once more.

There were no other creatures like the Spider who managed to elicit such a response from her anymore, these days. Her granddaughter was fast becoming something she didn’t recognize, something warped by the power that she clung so hungrily to, in a way that reminded Olenna far too much of Cersei Lannister’s desperation, sickening her, and Tywin Lannister was long dead as a result of her own actions.

Varys was, perhaps, the only worthy opponent she had left to spar, and Olenna was going to regret losing him.

She thought about asking him how long he’d known, about the two of them sleeping together. She supposed the fact he did know did not surprise her as much as Olenna would have liked; after all, the foolish girls were hardly subtle about their dalliance, especially since Joffrey’s death, with the way that Sansa had soared into the Small Council and taken it over because Margaery could not.

She did not have to think too hard about what he might have wished to use either of them for in the past, however. He hadn’t been as subtle about that as he seemed to think.

She wondered why he had chosen the boy, rather than the girl, in the war to come. But then again, the boy was here, and the girl was not.

Perhaps the Spider fell prey to the same impatience that the rest of humanity felt.

She would have thought that a man of his…condition was more capable of patience than that. He almost…disappointed her.

“Your granddaughter still trusts me to be rid of snakes in her gardens, my lady,” Varys said, into the silence, a concession. Olenna did not enjoy pity, especially not his. “Perhaps you would do well to trust me, as well. I know you do not have reason to believe me now, perhaps, but you ought to know, after my many years of service, that I wish only for the-”

“Safety of the realm,” Olenna interrupted him, tiredly. “Yes, I’ve heard such a song before. And yet, they say that Petyr Baelish lives, whole and hale, in the Vale these days, whispering in the ear of that foolish boy Harry, despite my granddaughter expressly asking you to be rid of that snake. One must wonder why.”

Varys lifted his chin.

“Perhaps,” Olenna went on, voice far too contemplative when discussing what they both already knew to be the truth, “You do not think you will much longer have to follow the orders of my dear granddaughter.”

He blinked at her, hard. “My lady,” he said, a little coolly, “As I have long said, I serve only the realm. If you have proof against me for something, then, by all means…” he gestured down to the ends of the gardens, where the guards stood watching them even now. “Have me arrested.”

“No,” Olenna said, simply. “You’re far too clever to lose to the rack so easily.”

And perhaps she enjoyed the game, much though he himself infuriated her, these days.

Varys harrumphed. “No, that’s not it either, is it? You’re simply hedging your bets, just in case your granddaughter cannot hang onto that throne. That’s why you’ve kept Robert’s bastard here, as you so graciously pointed out to me. Perhaps we are not so dissimilar as you seem to believe.”

Olenna raised a brow. “Did I point that? I recall mentioning Shireen and Tommen, as well.”

“Hostages, no more,” Varys said. “Just in case, as I suppose you’ve just accused me, someone else wins this war. Stannis. Cersei.”

“And what is Gendry, if not a hostage, as well?” Olenna asked, smiling slightly. “Do enlighten me.”

Varys lifted his chin. “If the words of the Dornish are to be believed, he is the last true heir, besides Shireen Baratheon, to the Iron Throne who stands in Aegon Targaryen’s way. How fascinating, that you’ve gathered both of them here. Him more than her, perhaps, considering that he is only a bastard.”

Olenna sucked in a breath, staring long and hard at him. She didn’t like the thought that he found her as transparent as she found him, but she’d been playing this game for a long time. She knew that in order to get something, sometimes, one had to give something, first.

“And what is your fascination with these Dragons, Lord Varys?” She asked him, shaking her head in genuine confusion. “You, more than many these days, remember what the Mad King was like, what he was capable of. And yet, you would install another one on the throne. And all, you say, for the good of the realm. Do try to justify that, I am genuinely curious to hear your…perspective.”

Varys swallowed hard. “Should the sins of the father be paid for by their children?” He asked her.

Olenna laughed, leaning back in her chair, wiping at her eyes for good measure. “They say that every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin, and one is mad while the other is not. Tell me; which Targaryen is it, this time? The boy at Dragonstone, or the girl with dragons?”

Varys was still.

Olenna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know, do you?” She asked, and her lips pulled into a slow smirk. “Ah, I see. So that’s why you’ve yet to choose a side.” She folded her hands together in her lap. “Well, it might be a long wait then, Lord Varys. Aegon was not the Mad King until he started burning the people alive, long into his reign. Madness is not so easily noticed, at birth, after all, and they are both young, yet.”

Varys was silent, staring straight ahead, clearly no longer willing to meet her gaze, to engage with her, in this little game they were both playing.

Olenna leaned forward, nonetheless, breaths hot against his skin.

“A word of warning, for old time’s sake,” Olenna said, into the silence, forcing a smile at Varys as she stood to her feet, pressing both fists down into the table. Varys stared down at them for a moment, and then up at her once more. “The Targaryens have never been known for their mercy. I doubt very much that either will be interested in hearing your excuses for taking so long to choose a side of your own, nor in sitting by while Aegon Targaryen’s mother was butchered and her dead children dragged before the one they call a Usurper, whatever your good intentions towards their…noble House.” She tapped his shoulder, almost kindly. “Good day.”

As she walked out of the gardens, she nodded pleasantly to the guards, aware of the Spider’s gaze following her until she disappeared from his sight.


	47. King's Landing

When Sansa opened her door the next morning, intent on finding a servant to bring them something to break their fast before the insanity began anew, Margaery still sleeping soundly in the bed behind her, she found herself face to face with Euron Greyjoy.

He was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed over his chest, one good eye studying her intently.

He was nothing like Theon, she thought, idly. They didn’t even look at all similar.

She wondered if she had such a thought merely to keep from going mad, herself, at the knowledge that he had just all but caught them in the act.

Sansa gulped, reaching down to fasten her robe a little more securely, sure that she was blushing furiously.

His sword was still hanging from his belt. She wondered, even if he hadn’t slept with his wife last night, if he was about to run her through.

Stupid, they’d been so fucking stupid, doing something like that on Margaery’s wedding night to another man, and then for Margaery to stay the rest of the night, to fall asleep there…

“I had a feeling that I might find her here,” Euron said, eying the cracked open door behind her, and Sansa swallowed hard, moving quickly to shut it, even if that meant leaving herself alone with Euron Greyjoy in the hallway.

Sansa’s heart hammered in her chest. She resisted the sudden urge to step back.

“Lord Euron,” she greeted him instead, having the feeling that attempting to deny Margaery’s presence there would only make things worse. He didn’t seem like the sort of man it would be wise to openly lie to.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then snorted. “We missed you, Lady Sansa,” he told her, and Sansa blinked in confusion at him, wondering if there had been a Small Council meeting that their own Regent had not been invited to. “At the wedding.”

She slumped a little.

He was still smiling, when she glanced up at him once more.

“You needn’t be afraid of my retribution, girl,” he told her, reaching out to tilt up her chin, and Sansa bristled. “I suppose I can understand her need for…companionship, with such a destiny before her.”

He said it almost as if he did believe those words, and Sansa started, staring at him in something like confusion, because those words…they hardly made sense, to her mind.

Sansa swallowed hard, flinching out of his grip. “I don’t know what you’re…”

“But I won’t be made a fool of, the way the two of you made a fool of her latest husband,” he went on, coldly, and Sansa flinched, this time for another reason altogether. “You’ll need to be more subtle, or I’ll see to it that her interests are…diverted.”

Sansa lifted her chin. She’d like to see him try, she thought, a little angrily, before she remembered that, legally or no, he was her husband, not Sansa, not really. He could do whatever he liked, even if Margaery was a Regent, and the law would be on his side, even if the Tyrells would not be.

“You were no husband to her last night,” she pointed out. “Perhaps you ought to make your intentions more clear.”

Euron stared at her for a moment, looking genuinely surprised by her reaction, before he broke out into a laugh. “Something tells me you wouldn’t want that,” he said, and Sansa shook her head, not entirely certain how to react to that, either.

Least of all because it was true.

But she was still struck rather dumb by the way that Euron was reacting to their infidelity. Or at least, what he would see as infidelity, or ought to, and on is own wedding night, though the very fact that he had blackmailed his wife into a marriage in the first place, and not married her based on his own people’s faith, was perhaps an even greater indication that he cared very little about this marriage himself.

Still, she disliked how very little about this situation seemed to make a lick of sense. Disliked the way that a man not known for his kindness was reacting far better to his wife’s infidelity with another woman than Tyrion had.

She took a deep breath, and forced herself to meet his gaze.

“You…concerned Margaery, last night,” she said. “With whatever it was that you said to her.”

Euron stared at her for a long moment with his single good eye, cocking his head. “But she didn’t tell you what it was,” he said, the words almost pondering.

Sansa swallowed hard. “No,” she said, though the words felt like an admission of defeat, even if she couldn’t explain why.

After all, considering everything else that had happened the night before, she thought she ought to be happy with the way that things had gone.

Euron shrugged his shoulders. “She has nothing to fear from me,” he said, but the way he said it, he might as well have tacked on, ‘ _for now._ ’

Sansa shuddered, forced herself to take a step closer, to make him think that he didn’t terrify her, when they both knew that he did. Found herself rather relived that Margaery still hadn’t awoken in the other room, even if she hated the thought of facing this man on her own.

“What is it that you really want, Lord Euron?” she asked him, and then corrected herself, “Your Grace.”

She wasn’t entirely certain if he wanted to be called that, after declaring himself the King of the Iron Islands, but she supposed that it couldn’t hurt.

He eyed her sharply; she knew that he hated false pretenses, at this point. Perhaps that was why he did not seem so concerned with the thought of his wife sleeping with someone else, so long as he was aware of it and they attempted to hide it.

Still, a troubling thought.

“Why have you agreed to an alliance with the Tyrells, with the Crown, when you could have just as easily taken King’s Landing for yourself?” She shook her head. “You certainly had the resources, and we could not truly have stopped you.”

She shuddered again, still thinking about that creature she had seen in the harbor, reminding herself not to let her guard down around this man, however accepting he might seem of his wife’s relationship with her.

Whatever it was he was up to, he clearly couldn’t be trusted. He’d been happy just the other day killing dozens of Tyrells to get what he wanted; Sansa doubted she was any different. Doubted his own wife was any different, either.

Euron raised a brow. He stared at her for a moment, with that one good eye, as if he were trying to parse her out, and then, slowly, he smiled.

“Do you know what Shade of the Evening is, my lady?” he asked her, and Sansa blinked at him, entirely confused by the sudden change in topic. But then, perhaps this was his way of saying he was not going to answer her question at all.

“I’m not sure,” she said, slowly.

He lifted a brow, seeming more surprised by that than by anything else she had said this morning.

She didn’t like that thought, either.

“You might think to try it some time,” he told her, as if they were merely discussing a book that he’d found particularly interesting, academically. “It will expose you to those truths from which you hide, but yearn for, at the same time.”

Sansa swallowed hard, not wanting to think too hard about what _that_ meant.

“I don’t understand,” she said, slowly.

He leaned forward, and she could feel his putrid breath on her cheek, forced herself not to flinch back.

Joffrey may not have been the same type of mad that that his man was, but she had not flinched back from him in the end, either. She’d helped ensure his death.

And like she’d told Margaery, even if she had rather less confidence about it than she had intimated to Margaery, they could deal with this madman too, if they had to. She would ensure that.

No matter the cost.

She thought of that creature in the harbor, calm now only because Euron Greyjoy had ordered it to be calm, and took a deep breath.

“Things that have yet to come,” he told her, when she just stared at him, and Sansa sucked in a breath, suddenly understanding both the level of madness of the man before her, and why he may have so disturbed Margaery, the night before.

“You mean it gives you...visions,” she said, thinking of the last time that she’d been so concerned with the future, how Margaery had hounded the Red Woman.

She wondered if this was what the Red Woman had used, or if she was just speaking with another madman, now. She honestly couldn’t tell, at the moment.

His eyes were no longer looking at her, but staring off into the distance, and, despite herself, despite what she knew of him so far, Sansa found herself following his gaze, and seeing nothing but the far wall outside of her chambers.

“I see many things because of it,” he said, finally, and there was something about the way that he said it which made Sansa shudder. He pressed his lips together. “These days, I see a Queen, risen from the ashes of a final battle,” Euron said, quietly, and Sansa’s eyes flew to his face, then. “A woman. Naked. Remade.”

Sansa closed her eyes, and tried not to think of the way that Margaery had shuddered in her arms the night before, before they’d made love, of how fragile Margaery had seemed then, how…unmade she had seemed.

“She will rise when even They have all fallen,” Euron went on, still sounding...charmed, by the thought of her, whoever this woman was.

“All of them. When the world has ended and nothing more is left than the dying and the land to be taken, she will remain,” Euron went on.

When Sansa opened her eyes again, he was staring at her. For a moment, she thought he might see the truth of her fears in her eyes, thought she might have given away her doubt, but he didn’t react.

“And when she does, I intend to be there,” he finished, as if any of this made sense at all.

Sansa swallowed hard. “You think that Margaery is that woman,” she said, slowly.

This woman who, the more Euron spoke of her with that inflection that was perhaps as close as he could get to adoration in his voice, the less Sansa believed she was Margaery, even if he’d only said a few words.

Sansa had seen very little of Margaery, in fact, in her dreams of the future. And the Margaery she had seen, begging for her baby to be returned to her, had not been this same woman that Euron had seen. Had not been standing in flames, victorious.

Sansa wondered if that had been the reason he had sought out Margaery in the first place, simply because of this vision of his.

That was a terrifying thought.

He shrugged. “I am here, aren’t I?” he asked her, which wasn’t an answer at all, and Sansa wanted to tell him that he was wrong, wanted to tell him that whatever he thought of her, whether he thought her a survivor or not, whatever visions the gods might be showing him - Margaery was the wrong woman.

She had to be. Whatever it was that Euron had seen, it couldn’t be about Margaery.

Because Sansa had seen Margaery overcome so much, in recent weeks, had seen the other woman coming back to herself, getting stronger, but the way that Euron spoke of her…dear gods, Sansa had worried for some time that Margaery’s reign was doomed to be a short thing indeed, even if she refused to leave the other woman because of it.

But what Euron was speaking of…she didn’t know who They were, of course, but the more he spoke, the more the sinking feeling in the pit of Sansa’s stomach only seemed to grow.

“Margaery thinks that you were the captain on a pirate ship which took her captive, outside of Dorne,” Sansa said, staring at him. “Is that why you so strongly believe this Queen to be her?”

She could admit that, at times, Margaery’s resilience was inspirational. Perhaps that was…

His smile was thin, as he stepped back from Sansa.

“Well, I certainly don’t believe it to be Cersei Lannister,” he said, with a small smirk. “Not after what I did to her fleet.”

Sansa stared at him. He hadn’t answered her question. “Do you think you can trick fate like that, if these dreams are true?” She asked him. “That you can merely pick the queen you want to win?”

Even if she did think him mad, Sansa had seen enough of visions to not quite doubt them completely, regardless of how he might be producing them. And she wasn’t so arrogant as to think that she could change them, not after her vision of Margaery’s child being stolen from them had come true, not after the dreams she’d had of her brother.

She thought it strange that Euron didn’t seem to seek to change them, either, that he had told Margaery of Death and the end, but he still sought her out, wished only to change his own fate within those visions, by putting his backing behind one queen instead of the other.

Perhaps he didn’t believe that he could change fate, but then, if he didn’t, she didn’t understand what it was he wanted from her, from Margaery.

“I was not,” he said, and Sansa’s brows furrowed. “I was not the pirate who took her prisoner, before. Your little queen and I have only just met. I do not look like him, my men are mutes, and I have never been so close to Dorne.”

Sansa swallowed.

She believed him.

He smirked at her. “Perhaps you imagine that Shade of the Evening can do more than it does, my lady. I assure you; it only shows you that which you are brave enough to look for. It showed me the End of all things, and a queen in the ashes. I do not know what it would show you, nor does it do other than show us what we would see.”

Sansa stared at him, swallowing hard as she resisted the urge to tell him that she had seen too much of the future as it was, so far, and without the aid of whatever strange potion he was offering her.

She was almost surprised that in her bedroom, Margaery had yet to wake up from the sound of their voices. She had never been a heavy sleeper, Sansa knew, and even less so of late, according to her servants.

“And is this something that you would be...willing to share with me?” she asked, quietly. “Why?”

He blinked at her. Then, “The Drowned God shows those who seek the truth what they need,” he said. “I am well practiced in its use. But it would not suit your queen.”

She swallowed hard, taking a calculated risk as she stepped closer to him. “Because you will not allow it?” she asked. “Is there something that you don’t wish us to see? And here I thought I was sided with a survivor. I would have thought I might get some hint as to how.”

He eyed her, sharply. “Do you mock me, my lady?”

She flinched, had a sudden vision of her own, of what he might do to her for mocking him.

“No, I…” she backed up from him. “Of course not.”

He eyed her a moment longer, and then shrugged.“And why should I give you a head start by sharing these visions with you?” he asked her. “There are not many of us who will make it to the End.”

Sansa swallowed hard.

She still did not understand this man. She knew that he was insane already, from the scant amount of time that they had spent together and from the simple fact that he could control a sea monster, and knew that, at least, was part of why she could not understand him.

She knew that his brother’s dead corpse was still strapped to the prow of the ship sitting in their harbor, that the woman with whom he’d had a child was also there, long dead, from their Master of Whispers.

She knew, from what little he had said of the Future already, from the wild look in his eyes, that he intended to rule over the ashes of whatever was left when this...final battle happened. Whatever that was.

That that was why he had sought out a queen in the first place.

He didn’t intend to stop it, just to reap the benefits of a world broken by war, she realized, meeting his eye. He intended to rule over the ashes, as he’d said Margaery would.

She didn’t know who they were, these people who would be totally destroyed by all of this, and frankly, she was rather too terrified to ask.

There were some things, she thought, that one didn’t need to know about the future.

But she knew that his support hinged on his belief that Margaery would, somehow, be the last one left standing after all of this, now, and Sansa wanted to laugh and tell him that he had the wrong woman, because as much as she loved the other woman, Margaery was barely holding herself together at this point.

His best bet would perhaps be the Dragon Queen, the one they said was coming with three dragons and thousands of Unsullied, or Cersei, if he hadn’t so thoroughly fucked her, but Sansa wasn’t about to tell him that.

Because it meant that Margaery would lose his support, and perhaps her own head, as well. Having him here, alongside her, was the only thing keeping them alive at this point, and she damn well knew it. And if he turned on them…

But he wouldn’t give her a hint of that future. Was selfishly hoarding it for himself because he didn’t care about her, in the end. He just knew that she - the she he thought her to be - would survive, and so he had chosen to stay with her, for now.

The moment he realized, though...

So instead, she took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his single eye, to not think about the reports she’d received from Varys about the women he’d named as salt wives, about how he had first been banished from the Iron Islands in the first place for raping his brother’s salt wife.

She knew that salt wives were considered less than actual wives, in the Iron Islands, that they were little more than slaves.

The woman he’d had tied to the prow of his ship had been a salt wife, Sansa remembered, swallowing hard.

“You don’t seek to change the future, do you?” she asked, more for confirmation than anything else, cocking her head as she still tried to figure him out. “Merely to use it for your own benefit.”

He shrugged. “Some believe it can be changed. I don’t have the...aspirations for that, however.”

Sansa raised a brow. “Really?” She asked. “So you…accept destiny?”

Death, she meant.

She never had.

She still wasn’t certain why, but it felt strange to her, that a madman might when she herself did not.

Euron stared at her for a long moment, before finally shrugging a thin shoulder and half turning away from her.

“We are all going to die eventually, my lady,” he told her, finally, and Sansa blinked at him as he kept walking. “Do tell my wife, whenever she does wake up, that the Dornish need to be dealt with. They are an impatient people.”

Sansa stared after him. “And will you accept the choice that the Regent makes, regarding them, or do you have some other end in mind for them?”

She thought of his creature, in the harbor, which made it clear that he could say whatever he liked to Sansa now, and still not accept a single decision that his new wife made without anyone able to stop him from changing his mind.

A different sort of madness than Joffrey’s. A husband none of them could control, even if he didn’t wear the title of King of the Seven Kingdoms.

“You’re right,” he said, at her back, and Sansa went still, answering her previous question and not the current one. He didn’t sound angry, and she thought that was when he was at his most terrifying, so far.

It had been the same with Joffrey, sometimes, and with her husband.

“I have no interest in Margaery Tyrell’s hand, nor any other. I have no interest in an heir, when none of us shall last long enough to reap the benefits of a dynasty.”

She swallowed hard, and again, wanted to ask him what it was he had seen.

She didn’t.

“I have seen King’s Landing…burn, in a fire that consumes this land,” Euron told her anyway, and he was smiling, as though he relished that vision. “I have seen it burn all of the way to the ground, have seen the burning, melted husk that remains of that damned chair.”

Sansa jerked, because surely…surely those words could not be a coincidence, not when she had seen the same thing herself.

His smile grew, now, even as Sansa’s stomach clenched and her limbs grew cold.

It wasn’t possible, surely…Surely, they had not had the same vision.

And yet, that rather specific description made her shiver. Because that dream had terrified Sansa.

It seemed to exhilarate Euron Greyjoy.

“They say this Dragon Queen has dragons, with her. I have heard tell of their might, on the seas.” He paused, for a long moment, as Sansa’s eyes widened. “I want that power for myself, before we are all gone from this world, and I will have it. Your queen is a step closer to getting it, and I have seen her survival.”

Sansa swallowed hard. “I doubt that Daenerys Targaryen will just...hand her dragons over to you,” she said, softly, because she was afraid to speak louder, not bothering to mention that the Dragon Queen was nowhere near here, either.

Euron was no longer smiling. “I know,” he said, and he sounded like he relished that, too. “But I will not be asking her.”

And then, he was gone.

Sansa remembered to breathe again. This time, the breaths came in shallow gasps.

Slowly, she walked back into her bedchambers, shut the door behind her, leaned heavily against it.

From the bed, she heard the sound of Margaery shifting, and bit back a sigh.

“What was that?” Margaery asked, as Sansa crawled back into the bed with her. For just a little while longer, she wanted to be able to lay beside Margaery and shut out the rest of the world, especially after that unnerving conversation.

Sansa hesitated, and then pressed a light kiss on the other girl’s forehead. “Just a servant, come to tell us that the Small Council wishes to meet to figure out what to do about Dorne, now,” she lied, and barely felt a spike of guilt, for doing so.

Margaery groaned. “I won’t change my mind on that,” she said, a whisper against Sansa’s skin. “Even if Euron Greyjoy is here to threaten them into submission, I made a deal with the Dornish in good faith, and one that I mean to stand by.”

Sansa sighed, didn’t bother to point out that Dornish had broken that faith first, that the Dornish seemed to loathe them even now.

She had a feeling that was the very reason Margaery was being so stubborn about this, after all.

“I know,” she whispered, and kissed Margaery again, relieved when once again, Margaery didn’t pull back from her.

She may have dozed off a little; she wasn’t certain. But she still dreamt of the Iron Throne, covered in ash.

* * *

The Small Council was mostly assembled, by the time that Sansa showed up, just moments after Margaery had already entered the room. Euron had asked that they be a little more subtle, after all, even though at this point, Sansa would not put it past every single person in this room to know the truth about the two of them, already.

Margaery was sitting at the head of the table, hands clasped tightly in her lap, and it barely took Sansa a moment to figure out why; after all, Euron was all but hovering over her, clearly having invited himself here, as her new husband.

Randyl Tarly looked furious that he was here at all, but Sansa supposed it wasn’t as if any of them could ask him to leave. After all, he still controlled that beast in the harbor. No doubt they’d all seen it by now, even if it had stopped its killing.

She wondered what sea monsters ate, when they weren’t eating their masters’ enemies. She wondered how long Euron Greyjoy would be able to control such a creature, if he wasn’t using magic to do so.

After their earlier, enlightening conversation, she wouldn’t put that past him, either.

Varys glanced between Sansa and Margaery, his eyes narrowing slightly, and Sansa did her best to pretend not to notice, as she took a seat next to Olenna. The old woman was sitting in clear discomfort in her chair, back too straight, leaning too heavily on a cane that she hardly needed when she was sitting.

She barely spared Sansa a glance.

Sansa wanted to ask her what sort of miracle the other woman had been expecting from her. At the moment, as far as Sansa was concerned, it was a miracle that Euron hadn’t had his way with his wife, the night before, as he would have clearly been within his rights to do so.

No one spoke, for what felt like ages.

Mace Tyrell, much the same as Randyl Tarly, looked one misstep away from carving out Euron’s heart, though Sansa doubted he would survive the experience.

“There is still the matter of the Dornish envoy,” Varys said finally, quietly, into the silence, and Sansa no longer thought she was imagining the way that Olenna was glaring in his general direction, too. “Their ships might not present the same…” he glanced nervously Euron’s way, and for some reason, despite their troubling conversation earlier, that almost amused Sansa, that she had finally found someone who truly put fear into Varys’ heart, “problems that they did before, but they will not be put off forever.”

Mace hummed. “I dare say they can wait for their Regent to deal with them,” he muttered sullenly, and Olenna rolled her eyes, at that, Sansa barely resisting the urge to do so, herself.

“I made a promise to the Dornish,” Margaery said, suddenly, and the table fell silent once more. “And it is one that I intend to keep. I will not be known as a ruler who will not keep her promises.”

Sansa noticed the way that several members of the Small Council bristled at the way that Margaery called herself a ruler, but none of them dared to call her out on it.

Not with Euron Greyjoy, his single good eye blinking out at them, standing at her side, arms crossed over his chest, looking far too pleased with himself, for the things that he had admitted to Sansa.

Frankly, Sansa was almost surprised that Euron was remaining silent, beside her, was silently agreeing with her by not speaking up about what he would like to do with the Dornish. He had been the one, after all, who had proposed obliterating their ships in the first place, so long as Margaery married him.

But then, very little about what Euron Greyjoy did or said seemed to make any sense, to Sansa.

Olenna harrumphed, then. “Forgive me for pointing out the obvious,” she murmured, “but those promises were made under a great deal of pressure, a pressure that we…” her eyes swept towards Euron, “no longer need to worry about.”

Margaery ground her teeth together. “And yet, I stand by them.”

Varys cleared his throat. “Pardon, Your Grace, but to fulfill that promise will lead to a dangerous precedent. We have already risked much to acknowledge King Euron,” he said the title disdainfully, “would you be the Regent who divided up the rest of Westeros, as well?”

Margaery flinched. No one came to her defense.

“And yet, to keep the Dornish where they clearly do not want to be will do her no favors,” Euron rumbled, then. “At least, not when there are challengers to your queen’s rule.”

Mace grumbled, “She is your queen, as well.”

Euron hummed. “For now. She won’t be if she cannot defeat these Targaryens. And the Dornish seem to rather like Targaryens, these days.”

Olenna jerked.

Sansa narrowed her eyes at the older woman, struck by the strange reaction.

“And here I thought you were in favor of laying waste to anyone who disliked the Crown,” Olenna said, almost dismissively, and Sansa couldn’t help but stare at her.

After all, Euron may have called off his creature, but surely everyone at this table realized that he could call it back again at any moment, that surely it was a bad idea to piss him off.

“Surely you, a man of war, can understand that if my granddaughter the Regent is seen as unable to hold onto the throne, that she will not be able to keep it,” Olenna went on coldly, eyes never leaving Euron’s good one, now.

Euron hummed. “I would say that we have more pressing concerns than the Dornish now, at any rate,” he said, and Olenna rolled her eyes.

“Do we?” She asked. “And who are they? Your so called rebellious niece and nephew?”

Silence.

Euron’s fist pounded suddenly, angrily, on the table. Margaery, sitting so close to him, flinched.

For a moment, Sansa thought she might have seen something like guilt flash across Olenna’s features, but it was gone in the next moment.

“Do _not_ speak of them,” he gritted out, and Olenna almost looked scared, before she quickly hid that reaction, too.

Margaery cleared her throat then, taking back control of the situation. “Dorne is undergoing a power struggle that may soon see it without any sort of Prince or Princess at all,” she pointed out, in a tone that almost sounded reasonable.

It was only then that Sansa realized Lady Nym, usually always careful to be present at Small Council meetings, was not here, today.

Neither was Trystane, though he was usually absent even when he was there, though Sansa could hardly fault him for that.

She swallowed hard.

She had been with Margaery up until moments ago; whatever it was the other woman was planning to get out of this situation anyway, she hadn’t had time to plan things out, surely, before the Small Council meeting began.

Which meant that someone else had ensured that the two people in King’s Landing representing Dorne, besides this envoy, had not been present at a meeting having very much to do with them.

Sansa’s eyes slid over to Olenna, once more.

“I do not see why promises that are made to them in a war ought to matter when that war is done,” Randyl Tarly said then, clearly finishing up a thought that Margaery had not quite been brave enough to put into words.

Sansa closed her eyes; but not before she noticed the way that Olenna’s lips twitched, into the barest hints of a smile.

She thought about earlier, when Euron had told her he saw Margaery as some sort of queen of the ashes, of how he had seen a queen surviving to the end. Thought about how she had considered, to herself, whether Margaery would even still be queen, by then.

She supposed promises meant to be broken meant relatively little, in light of that. Kings and queens, as her husband had once said, seemed to drop like flies, in Westeros.

Still, Sansa found herself a little disturbed. She knew this was how the game of politics was played, and that it was suicide for Margaery to chip away at the kingdoms until she had nothing left to rule; that was not what disturbed her.

What disturbed her was that she had truly believed Margaery had thought she was doing the right thing, in promising Dorne its freedom, earlier. The thing that would bring peace.

Not that she needed it now, with a one man army standing over her shoulder.

Still, Sansa had thought she and Margaery understood each other rather well, these days. She didn’t think she ought to still be so easily surprised by the other woman.

But Margaery did not bother attempting to correct Randyl Tarly, either.

Olenna harrumphed. “What the Dornishman said earlier still stands,” she said, slowly, “and especially now. What would make them agree to our terms, when they have to know they are nothing more than false promises?”

Margaery gritted her teeth together. “Because Gerold Dayne is not his wife,” she reminded her grandmother, “and because this is something that he wants very much. And because we will offer him something else that he wants very much, as well. Enough rope to hang himself.”

Olenna’s brows furrowed. “And what would that be?”

Margaery smiled bitterly. “Don’t you trust me, Grandmother?” She asked. “ _I_ did not call this Small Council meeting, after all.”

Silence.

This time, very uncomfortable, Sansa couldn’t help but think, grimacing slightly.

Because, with perhaps the exception of Euron Greyjoy, though she honestly wouldn’t put it past him, at this point, Sansa couldn’t help but think that every person in this room knew how Lady Olenna no longer quite trusted her granddaughter as she once had.

Finally, Varys cleared his throat. “And how will we convince them that we are serious, when your new…husband threatened to lay waste to all of the Crown’s enemies, before your wedding?” He asked, and somehow managed to make it sound a little better than Olenna had, when she had asked the question.

“We will say that it is a wedding present,” Margaery said, half turning to face her new husband, then, and forcing a smile that Sansa knew well to be fake. “A kindness.”

Euron hesitated for a moment, though Sansa doubted a man like him ever hesitated in his life, and then dipped his head, once.

Sansa wanted to ask the other man why he was allowing it, when he had all but told Margaery she would let him lay waste to her enemies, or he would lay waste to her.

She was certain that whatever this was, this act that he was putting on before the entire Small Council, as if he thought that they might find a whipped husband more appealing than the madman they had dealt with only yesterday, she was certain that it was only an act. He had no reason to pretend sanity, after all, when they already knew what he was capable of.

So she didn’t understand why he was pretending. Didn’t understand why, in his madness, he had seemed almost sane to Sansa, earlier. Or, perhaps, saner than he did now.

She didn’t understand his mask, and that unnerved her, especially because it was so obviously fake, and yet he pretended at it, anyway.

She didn’t quite work up the courage, however. Not before the Small Council was dismissed, and Margaery stood, her hands tremoring, just enough that Sansa noticed them but hoped that no one else did.

* * *

“My husband, in his kindness, has offered me a wedding gift of my choosing,” Margaery announced to the Dornish envoy, as he was dragged before the throne once more, this time finding himself in a far worse position than previously.

Margaery did not want to admit the small thrill she felt, at that knowledge, that this man who had been so arrogant before her before could hardly be so, now.

Gods, she sounded like she was still married to Joffrey, though.

And she didn’t want to admit how easy it was, to slip back into that way of thinking, to speak of “her husband,” and to therefore shove all of the responsibility for what she was about to do off of herself, unless, of course, it was responsibility for the good.

She glanced nervously out towards the crowd, towards where her husband wasn’t present presumably because he was off raping servants or plotting where next to send his sea creature, or whatever it was a man like Euron Greyjoy did in his spare time.

It had been unnerving enough, having him stand over her shoulder the entire time she’d been forced to face her Small Council; she was glad to be rid of him, even if his not being present meant that she was now worried about where he might actually be.

Still, she thought this might go over a bit better with the Dornish ambassador, after what her husband had done to his ships earlier, if the man himself was in fact present, now.

After all, Margaery’s promises would mean nothing if her husband, with a mind of his own, decided to turn around and renege on all of them, and everyone in the throne room knew it, now.

She thought of what he had said he wanted from her, before their marriage. How he wanted the chance to merely lay waste to her enemies.

She stared down her nose at the Dornish ambassador, and hoped that the stubborn man knew she was doing her best to save his people.

After what her husband had done to those ships in the harbor, Margaery very much believed him capable of succeeding where the Targaryens had once failed, in overtaking Dorne, and she would like to avoid that, if she could.

Would like to wash her hands of this whole affair, if she could, but Margaery knew she would not be so lucky.

She was the one who had wanted so badly to be the Queen, after all.

She wondered if she would have whispered those same words to Baelish at the time, if she’d known the outcome before her.

A sinking feeling in her stomach told her she might have.

The Dornish ambassador, Gulian, sneered at her. “Oh?” He asked, feigning disinterest for the rest of the court, she knew, and for his own men.

Lady Nym, where she stood in the crowd, a hand already on Trystane’s shoulder as if she knew what Margaery was going to say before she did - impossible, for she’d once made a very different deal with Nym, after all - stood a little straighter.

“I was making a deal with you, earlier,” Margaery said, lifting her chin, forcing her attention back to the ambassador, pretending that it didn’t feel strange, not to have her husband here, but to be very aware of the fact that Sansa herself was here, was watching her worriedly, as every other member of her Small Council was.

She was aware that she had lost their faith in her, earlier, the last time she had made this deal. That perhaps they thought her mad, to try and let go of a kingdom of Westeros, when that was the very justification for which she clung to power.

Perhaps, if they’d had a bit more time and Euron had disagreed with her, if they had thought her a little less movable, her Small Council would have insisted that a Regent be placed instead of her, someone who wouldn’t hand over pieces of the kingdom without a fight.

But they hadn’t had that chance, not when Euron Greyjoy had seemed to agree with her. For now.

Just as she had lied to the Small Council and made them believe that this, too, was just for now. That she meant none of the words she was about to say to the man before her.

“I do not see why we should not still honor that deal, though I believe our positions on the matter have been reversed,” Margaery said, forcing a smile. “Now you are the one in need.”

Gulian narrowed his eyes at her, no doubt sensing a trick in her words. She forced herself to spread her arms and seem a little more inviting.

“However,” Margaery said, just at the other man was about to open his mouth, “Now that those positions are reversed, I’m afraid that I must insist on a few more…stipulations. As I’m sure you have some of your own.”

He ground his teeth together. “I thought you had offered quite a few…stipulations, the first time around.”

This time, when Margaery smiled, she almost meant it. “As, indeed, I did. So you must understand that, now that I no longer fear death at your fleet’s hands,” Gulian flinched, “I have a few more.”

He pressed his lips together. “I am sure that my lord Gerold Dayne, on behalf of his ill lady wife, would be…willing to hear such stipulations, now.”

Margaery hummed. “I’m sure,” she said. Then, “I would ask…now, of course, that not only do you stop seeking out an alliance with Aegon Targaryen, but also that you actively help us to defeat him. We cannot do it alone, even with my…newest alliance, I fear, and it will not bode well for you, having declared independence, should we lose against him, anyway.”

Gulian stared at her. “And why should we believe that, once he’s defeated and partially by the blood of our own, you will not sic your newest husband on us?”

Margaery smiled widely. “I’ve offered you my word, haven’t I?” She shook her head, smile fading. “Besides, I hardly think it suits your cause to seek alliances with Aegon Targaryen when your lord is even now championing the cause of the Lannister girl. A bastard makes a poor wife, if that is your lord’s plan, and I do believe Aegon would only be…insulted, by such an offer. And, from what I’ve learned of him, he is not the sort of man to take the killing of a child, even one that is his enemy, lightly.”

She wondered if that had any ring of truth to it; after all, none of them knew this boy who had swept in and taken Dragonstone so easily. But she had a feeling that it just might be the truth, considering what had happened to his mother, to his sister.

Then again, Myrcella was a Lannister…

She knew that Gulian would take her offer, on behalf of his new lord, before she had even made it, of course. Just as he had known that she would have to treat with him earlier, when his fleet had surrounded them and hadn’t lain half destroyed in the harbor by Euron’s sea creature.

He was at her mercy, and he knew it.

And for whatever reason, Myrcella was still alive, which meant that Gerold wanted to use her as the Sand Snakes once had. Which meant there was a hope she might remain alive, so long as Aegon Targaryen did not.

Margaery could figure out the rest of it, later.

She hoped.

“Dorne will, of course, require some proof that you mean to stand by your word to us,” he said, finally, voice shaking just slightly.

There; she had him.

“Name your price,” Margaery said; she supposed at the moment, she could afford to be generous.

“My lord Ser Gerold will, of course, demand the return of Trystane Martell, his goodbrother,” Gulian said, and Margaery pressed her lips together.

“I’m afraid that is something I cannot offer,” Margaery said, calmly, because yes, she understood that with this deal, she was directly putting Myrcella’s life in danger, even if she was trying to avoid that very thing, and that was something she could not fix at this time, but Trystane was already here.

And, whether Arianne was dead or not, or she was willingly going along with all of this, had intended this from the start, the moment he stepped foot in Dorne, a direct challenger to Gerold Dayne, a threat to him, Margaery had no doubt that Trystane would be.

And Margaery…for all that she wanted to appear generous, true in her offer, knew that she could not send Trystane back to Dorne. Not if his sister was locked away, and she had no doubt that Gerold Dayne would only see Trystane as a threat to his new stranglehold on Dorne.

Not when she had just possibly doomed Myrcella to save her own kingdom; she could not be responsible for more children’s blood on her hands, not like that.

It was obvious enough that the Dornish might attempt to betray her anyway, the moment Aegon was dealt with, and crown Myrcella as they had threatened, independence be damned; she did not know enough about Gerold Dayne to decide that.

But if they didn’t, if they truly valued their independence as Arianne seemed to have, they would have no more need of Myrcella. Oh, Margaery might be able to negotiate her release, then, but then again, they might slit the girl’s throat long before Margaery ever found out about it.

And, in any case, Margaery knew that she needed them, just now, if she was going to defeat Aegon Targaryen, before the boy inevitably decided to attack King’s Landing, too.

The game might be in her favor, these days, with a man like Euron on her side for now, but Margaery wasn’t an idiot. Knew that, for whatever real reason Euron Greyjoy had come here and lain claim to her, she could not trust him.

And she’d rather face off against one of the last Targaryens with an army she knew she could trust long enough to get a victory out of it.

So, she forced a smile and crossed her legs on the Iron Throne. It was more difficult than she had thought it would be, after what she had just been through.

Gods, she ought to have seen another maester, at the very least, before having sex with Sansa, even if she didn’t regret _that_ for a moment. She had a feeling her cunt would, though, and for quite some time.

“But what if I had another offer, one I think your lord might prefer?” She asked. She smirked, wickedly, then, as if her own future was not also in question, at the moment. “And one that, happily enough for him, I think his wife would not?”

Lady Nym stiffened; Margaery met her gaze.

She liked Lady Nym, had always thought of her as a friend, from the moment that they had returned from Dorne together, and their friendship had been tested over and over, from the moment Lady Nym had gotten to one knee in front of her and promised anything, so long as Margaery helped her get what she wanted, in turn.

But she knew when she was beaten; she thought that was something Lady Nym herself certainly understood, if she was willing to turn in her own sisters to their uncle, to let them be arrested just so that her own treasonous plans would not be known to the world.

Nym’s stiff jaw said clearly that she knew exactly what thoughts were running through Margaery’s mind, and Margaery felt a spike of what felt suspiciously like guilt before she spoke again.

Dear gods, Nym had bent the knee to her, before Margaery had ever become a Regent. That was the sort of thing that Margaery couldn’t quite forget.

But still, she opened her mouth and made the promise that she didn’t want to. Licked her lips, turned to Gulian Qorgyle, and said, “I will speak to the High Septon about annulling Trystane Martell's marriage to Myrcella Baratheon, and see to it that he is legally, in the eyes of the Faith, married by proxy to any girl Gerold Dayne so chooses for him.”

Gulian stared at her for a long moment; perhaps he didn’t understand what this meant, at first. Didn’t understand what she was offering.

And then, it seemed to become clear to him, just as Lady Nym’s features shuttered in the corner of Margaery’s vision, as she leaned forward to grab the shoulder of her cousin, as he tried to wrench free of her and shout that he wouldn’t abide such a thing, that he wasn’t going to allow anyone to annul his marriage to Myrcella.

And perhaps that was what cinched it, for Gulian, if the way that he smiled to Margaery, and dipped his head, and murmured, “That would be…acceptable, Your Grace,” was any indication.

After all, Gerold Dayne could choose any barren woman to marry Trystane and then, no matter how much of a threat the boy might be to him, at the very least he would not be able to have heirs that might also stand in Gerold’s way.

She had heard once that Myrcella might be barren, herself, but at least this way, Margaery was dangling Myrcella before Gerold as she pleased.

And, despite any guilt she might feel about that, she had a feeling Gerold Dayne would be far more grateful if he tried to slit the throat of a Lannister daughter than if he tried to kill a Dornish Princess by marriage.

She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and let it out slowly. Gods, she hoped she knew what she was doing.

She thought of Tommen, of how Sansa had him dragged all of the way here from the Rock, and wondered if the other girl might share her secret of how she had managed it.

Then again, looking at Nym, Margaery thought she might have a difficult time of that.

Trystane let out a noise that might have been a shout, and might have been a scream of rage.

Margaery thought of the words that she and Sansa had spoken together, in the privacy of Sansa’s rooms, and thought that if anyone tried to rend apart what they had made together, she would have reacted in much the same way.

And then she let out a wet laugh, as she realized that she had indeed done just that, by agreeing to marry Euron Greyjoy at all.

* * *

“So, whatever else you do after this, you will always be known as the Queen who gave away Dorne,” Olenna said, as Margaery walked down the hall back to her own chambers after making that announcement to the Dornish, after finally untangling herself from the sycophants around her, and the Small Council members who seemed to think she had finally gone mad, no doubt believing what Olenna herself had just said, though they did not have the courage to say it themselves, and Margaery jumped a little, surprised to not be alone, besides her guards.

She stilled then, turning around to face the other woman, to find that her grandmother was leaning heavily on her cane, had clearly been waiting for her, here in the hall outside the throne room.

She lifted a hand to signal that they calm themselves, when her soldiers tensed, not entirely sure why they were bothering with the charade, loyal though they were; after all, they were loyal to the coin that had brought them here, to this position of the Kingsguard. Family coin, handed over to Olenna Tyrell for the honor of filling a gouged out Kingsguard.

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she knew she would regret. She had been doing that a lot lately; every time she found herself face to face with her grandmother these days, in fact. Ever since she’d awoken to the knowledge that her grandmother had arranged the kidnapping of her son without even bothering to tell her about it.

Olenna sighed, clearly reading the expression on Margaery’s face for what it was, anyway. “Walk with me,” she said, and Margaery bit back the urge to tell her where she could walk herself, as she turned and followed dutifully after the other woman.

As she always had, long before she’d been a queen.

She swallowed hard; she loved her grandmother. Always had; loved her more than she had her own mother, sometimes.

It was hard, feeling this angry with her. Harder than she certainly wanted to let on to the woman beside her, as Olenna walked so slowly down the hall, obviously back toward her own chambers, the Kingsguard following slowly after them, the only sound besides their footsteps the sounds of Olenna’s cane scraping against the floor.

Margaery didn’t feel inclined to break the silence, or to respond to her grandmother’s accusation, until they were safe inside Olenna’s chambers and Margaery had instructed her Kingsguard to wait outside.

She didn’t bother to tell Olenna that she had given away Dorne because she truly thought it was still the best thing to do, even if they were not currently under siege, because she didn’t want to see Dorne destroyed by her husband and his sea monster, if that was indeed possible, when all they wanted was what she herself yearned for, these days.

Freedom.

The door shut behind them.

Then, Margaery rounded on her grandmother, that fury she’d been feeling since she’d first heard her grandmother’s voice in the hallway bubbling up inside of her.

“Why the fuck are you still here?” Margaery demanded, as she marched into her grandmother’s chambers, rather than her own.

She thought it was easier, this way, anyway, to stand in her grandmother’s rooms rather than Joffrey’s.

The other woman squinted at her, looking far too comfortable as she took a seat on the sofa and tossed aside her cane.

“Excuse me?” She asked, looking almost taken aback, but Margaery had had quite enough of her bullshit, for one day.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, gathering her thoughts, very aware of the fact that she wasn’tgoing to be able to make her case against her grandmother for long. Her grandmother may be known as the Queen of Thorns, but she was as stubborn as the Ironborn, Margaery was sure.

She needn’t have worried; the words came spilling out of her so fast, one grievance after another, before her grandmother might have had the chance to stop them.

“You…stole my son away from me, while I was sleeping because you knew how I would react to his going if I was awake when you did it, and you didn’t even have the decency to go with him! You’ve left him in the hands of servants and strangers, and you had no right to do it!” She threw her hands up in the air. “And to top off all of that, you have the audacity to stay here and rub it in my face, every single fucking day since then.”

Olenna lifted her chin, not a hint of remorse on her face. In fact, the more Margaery had spoken, the more resolved she looked.

Margaery hated that. She had always been like that, after all, with every argument Margaery ever tried to volley at her.

“I was doing what I thought necessary to protect him,” Olenna said, far more calm than any of Margaery’s accusations had been.

“Well, I fixed that problem for you, just now, so you can damn well bring him back,” Margaery snapped. “And then, you can go back to Highgarden and die, for all I care.”

Those words were out before she could stop them, coming from an anger within her that not even Margaery had been certain she was capable of.

Olenna flinched, sitting down hard on the sofa, when a moment ago she had looked about to stand. “With that beast Euron Greyjoy, and his pet, still here?” She asked, mildly. “And, do tell, how do you figure you’ll make it out of that alone? I can help you with that, Margaery, but we need to start working together again. All of this,” she gestured between the two of them, “is but a distraction from what matters.”

What matters.

The Iron Throne.

Margaery was no longer quite so certain.

She flinched away from that thought.

Margaery lifted her chin to meet the other woman’s eyes, and didn’t bother to say what it was she knew they were both thinking, about how Margaery had managed well enough the last time.

She did not want to become the queen who was known for killing her husbands, either.

“I’ll think of something, even without your stellar machinations, Grandmother, I’m sure,” she whispered, hoarsely, as if to make up for what she had just said.

It didn’t; the words still hung in the air, clinging to both of them. Margaery swallowed hard.

Olenna closed her eyes, breathed in deep, and let it out slowly. “I didn’t take him away to protect him from the Dornish fleet, Margaery. I did it to protect him from you.”

Margaery flinched hard, at those words.

Wanted immediately to deny them, only to find that her throat had gone terribly dry, at her grandmother’s words, at the accusation in them, the blame she was laying at Margaery’s feet.

“And clearly, I was right to do so.”

Margaery’s mouth opened and closed; her face went very pale. Her lips trembled.

When she had been a girl, too young and too stupid to realize that her grandmother would ever let her do something so stupid as to fall in love, this had happened too, she remembered.

She had given her heart to someone, without reservation, and Olenna had taken that person away from her without a second thought. Had seen to it that Margaery would never see her again.

She’d been nothing more than a lowly serving girl, Aniya, sweet and gentle and everything that a noblewoman couldn’t be, and there had been nothing that Margaery could do about it when Olenna sent her away, at the tender age of four and ten.

And there had been nothing that Margaery could do about it when Olenna had taken her son away from her, in her sleep.

Margaery knew the only reason that things had ever progressed this far with Sansa was because it was not as if Olenna could be rid fo the heir to the North, not when she was a Lannister prisoner, besides.

But she’d still managed to do it again, now, with Margaery’s son. To take the one person Margaery might have been able to love without reservation away from her because she didn’t trust Margaery’s emotions. Because she thought she was protecting Margaery from those emotions.

And perhaps her grandmother was right not to trust her, these days, but she hadn’t been then, and this was her child, Margaery would still never forgive her for it.

“You had no right,” she whispered, “no right at all to take my baby away from me.”

“I took him away because your last great act as queen was to name Petyr Baelish as Hand of the King!” Olenna snapped at her, and Margaery went very still, and very pale. “And after that, you gave away Dorne without a thought!”

Margaery flinched as if she’d been slapped.

Olenna had said that, had added what she had about Dorne, as if she thought that it justified what she herself had done. As if it was one of the reasons.

“I gave away Dorne to keep us safe, and to keep them safe,” Margaery gritted out. “I am still their Queen, after all; I owe them that, at least, with a man like Euron Greyjoy threatening so easily to go after them.”

Olenna scoffed. “You did it to spite me,” she said coldly, “because you knew that I didn’t want you to make a deal with the Dornish.”

Margaery crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t,” she said, lifting a brow, “though of course, I suppose I can’t expect you to believe that.”

Olenna stared at her for a moment, as if trying to parse that out for herself, and then sighed. “I don’t now where things went wrong with you, my dear. You always had…so much promise.”

She sounded genuinely remorseful.

Margaery flinched back from her.

So much promise. As opposed to her brothers, she imagined.

“I tried my best with you,” Olenna went on, tiredly, “but I…” she shook her head. “I don’t know what went wrong. I think perhaps it was when you married Joffrey…”

Margaery flinched again, standing a little taller at that low blow.

“I know how it is that I got here,” Margaery whispered, gripping her grandmother’s cloak hard enough, she felt, almost to tear. “And it was not all Father’s warmongering, or Loras’ plots. And it certainly wasn’t all you. It was also me. Joffrey fell in love with me, because I was able to convince him that he could. And _that,_ not Father’s armies or the might of the Reach, is the only reason that I became his Queen and not his plaything, the way Sansa would have been, the way those whores he so enjoyed were.”

Olenna flinched back, staring at her with something like shock in her eyes.

And Margaery…Margaery had seen that look in her grandmother’s eyes before, surprise and a little bit of hurt, and something else, something like disgust but not quite, but never directed at her.

At her father, surely. At Alerie, at Leonette, sometimes, but never at Margaery.

She felt something within her chest sink, when she realized that the look didn’t bother her nearly as much as she was expecting it to, just then.

“And I might concede that ultimately, your taking away Nikoelas was the best thing for him; we both know he’s safer, in Highgarden, than he would be here.” Olenna lifted her chin, as if Margaery had just given her blessing. “But you know that’s not why I’m angry with you, not really. It was how you did it. He is my son, and you didn’t even let me say goodbye to him. You did that on purpose, and for that, I can’t forgive you.”

Olenna stood to her feet then, leaning heavily on her cane, and reached out, clasping Margaery’s cheek, rubbing a thumb along her jawline and perhaps kindly, pretending that Margaery didn’t flinch.

“I came back here to help you, sweet girl,” Olenna told Margaery, and her voice was gentle, but so very sad. “Because you are so clearly in need of it.”

Margaery did flinch, then, did pull away.

Olenna shot her a long look, sighing as she lowered her hand. “But I am old, and…it pains me too much to remain here and watch you throw away everything you have been given,” she went on, as Margaery went very still, before her. “So. If it is what you want, then I will go back to Highgarden, as well.”

Margaery stared at her for a moment longer, and then scoffed, turning and stalking out of her grandmother’s rooms and slamming the door behind her.

The Kingsguard stood to attention, outside her door, shuffling between each other and looking almost…nervous.

Margaery almost snapped at them that surely, they had heard two women fighting before.

“Something wrong, Your Grace?” One of them asked her, and Margaery shot the man a murderous glare. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was perhaps a cousin of hers, a member of the Kingsguard whom Olenna had placed in her guard.

“Let’s go,” she said, and started walking.

She only got a pace or so before she was interrupted again by a voice behind her.

She was getting really tired of being snuck up on.

“Family troubles?” Euron Greyjoy’s voice rang out, then, and Margaery jumped as she spun around to find him leaning against the wall, legs crossed at their ankles, watching her in something like amusement as he carved into an apple.

Margaery found herself staring down at that apple in lieu of him, imagining that it was her throat as he sliced off a piece and bit into it.

She shivered, forcing herself to smile, to take a step closer to him when everything within her was yelling at her to move away.

“How long have you been there?”

Euron stood up fully. “Long enough. Something wrong?” He asked the question without a hint of inflection in his tone.

“Just a grandmother expressing her concern,” she said, waving a dismissive hand and moving slowly away from her grandmother’s door. She didn’t like the thought of him knowing she had fought with her grandmother, though she was certain he would have been able to hear their raised voices, even from out here, if he had been waiting. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

He raised a brow. “I do know the Queen of Thorns’ reputation,” he pointed out, and Margaery flinched again, wondered if she was wrong, and the whole reason she’d ever been able to manipulate Joffrey had been pure luck.

Instead, she forced herself to roll her eyes almost fondly. “She and I…disagree about some things,” she said, “often. It is nothing to concern yourself with when it has nothing to do with the Crown itself.”

He raised a brow. “Doesn’t it?” he asked, her pocketing the knife he’d been carving into that apple with. It disturbed Margaery that she hadn’t tried to flinch away from the knife earlier, that it had barely seemed like a threat to her that he’d still been holding it. “And here I would think that any matters concerning the new King of the Seven Kingdoms concern all of us.”

Margaery bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grimacing. “My dear husband…” she began, intent on throwing him off the scent as best as she could, but she didn’t get the chance to finish the thought, not before he lifted a hand to stop her, and she somehow found herself listening to him.

“If you’re so…concerned about missing your child,” Euron went on, proving that he’d heard more than she’d thought, “I know we made certain…agreements, but perhaps I could fill your belly with another, if it would get you to stop blabbering about the first one and to be the Queen I need you to be.”

Margaery flinched at those words, at the implied threat in them, and then slowly shook her head. She’d momentarily forgotten what sort of a man she had married; she woudln’t again.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she pointed out, in a fragile whisper.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then shrugged, biting into another piece of apple. “Just a thought,” he said.

Margaery hoped he didn’t have it again, felt her arms reaching down awkwardly to wrap around her womb, despite how vulnerable she knew it must make her look.

“Is there some reason you’re skulking in the corridors around my grandmother’s rooms anyway, dear husband?” She asked him, forcing some command back into her tone, a demand for an explanation.

He smirked at her, then, as if he knew exactly how hard she was trying.

“Yes. You married me because I promised to unleash seven hells on your enemies, Your Grace,” Euron said, his voice almost cold. “Now let me do that.”

Margaery bit back a sigh. “Husband…”

He stopped, then, and so did Margaery.

“We had a deal,” he reminded her, voice icy. She shivered. “Don’t make me rethink it. I know your destiny, Your Grace; you must embrace it eventually yourself, though.”

She licked her lips. Thought of all of the men his sea monster had killed in the harbor in the scant few hours she had spent debating whether or not she should marry him, as he demanded.

She had married him to save her people, but she had also married him because she could not bear the thought of even more lives being lain at her feet, like they had been at the Sept, because she refused to do what needed to be done, to make the sacrifices necessary to save them. Because she refused to marry a man she found distasteful.

He wanted to see Death, he’d all but told her. He’d spoken of it as if he thought it a woman he could court.

She did not want to be responsible for his actions, did not want to be responsible for the havoc that he would unleash. Every time she closed her eyes, she thought about that creature still sitting silently now in their harbor, waiting for the right moment to attack.

And yet.

She had married him knowing that she was trading the lives of her men, of the people in King’s Landing, for others.

She had all but begged him to save Dorne because of that, to let her make her deal with Dorne, to spare them that. Had made a deal with Kevan Lannister to keep the Lannisters and Tyrells from fighting one another again, though Euron had apparently made rather short work of them already, as well.

But she had to protect King’s Landing from his sea monster now, as well as the other kingdoms she considered under her protection as their Regent, and she had married him to do just that.

And she knew only one way to accomplish all of that at once.

And…much though she hated herself for even having the thought, Aegon Targaryen was not under her protection; she was not even certain that he was Westerosi. And he was her enemy, much though she would have liked to resolve all of this without conflict. After all, she had made it clear to Gulian that they would be going to war with Aegon in any case.

Her husband was still staring at her womb, for all his protestations earlier that he was not interested in her. Whatever this was had to do with destiny, she worried that the closer she came to it, the more willing he might be to embrace his duties as a husband.

Just as she worried that the longer she kept him waiting here in King’s Landing, she’d get them all killed, as well when he eventually lost his patience. For whatever reason, he’d played the dutiful husband up until now, when he did not strike her as the type. Clearly, he thought that the longer he waited, the more worth it his eventual prize. She did not want to give him that satisfaction, not when she had seen how pleased he had been with his sea creature.

“Perhaps, if you are so eager to defend my honor, there is something that you could do for me…” she began to offer, slowly, glad that he was no longer so openly staring at her womb.

* * *

Sansa rubbed at her temples, feeling something like a migraine coming on.

“That bitch,” Nym snapped, as she paced back and forth in Sansa’s chambers, where she had come almost directly after that disastrous meeting with the Dornish ambassador in the throne room. “That fucking…”

“Lady Nym,” Sansa interrupted her, shortly.

Nym ground her teeth together, twirling back towards Sansa in a way that made Sansa want to reach for the sword she usually had in Lady Nym’s presence, but of course, all she had was a simple knife, buried in her clothes.

Still, Sansa tensed a little, all the same.

“How dare she?” Nym demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. “We had a deal. My cousin was off limits.”

Sansa rubbed at her temples again. “He’ll be fine, here in King’s Landing,” she pointed out.

“Yes, and forced into a marriage with some bitch of Gerold Dayne’s choosing, a girl he’s likely never even met as that bastard will pick the first girl off the street, or…” her eyes narrowed. “Or…you know, I’m suddenly reminded that Gerold has a cousin, a sweet little girl of three and ten, he’ll probably marry my cousin to, to cement our Houses further.”

Sansa grimaced; she was probably right, after all.

Lady Nym let out a silent scream, arms falling to her sides. “How dare she,” she muttered, hoarsely.

Sansa bit back a sigh. “She’s not going to let anything happen to him,” she began, but Nym cut her off.

“This wasn’t the agreement,” she hissed out. “The agreement was that Dorne belonged to my family, that it would be independent under Trystane, who at the very least wouldn’t attempt any of Arianne’s crazy schemes, and that I would ensure that with my loyalty to her. How dare she!”

Sansa went very still. “That…I thought the agreement was that Arianne…”

Nym huffed out a bitter laugh. “She didn’t tell you? Hm, seems to be a bit of that going around.”

Sansa grimaced, again. “Nym, whatever deal she did make with you, I’m certain she meant to stand by it. The situation now is…”

“Complicated,” Nym finished, for her. Then shrugged her shoulders. “Do you know what was complicated? My having to sneak into the Rock to fish out a Lannister boy whom I would much rather have left to his fate in the siege Euron Greyjoy leveled on that place solely because of his name, but whom I brought back anyway, unharmed, presumably so he could sit around King’s Landing eating cakes, from what I can tell. I had to kill men to get to him, Sansa. For you, because that’s what you asked of me, and because I’ve been here, pledging loyalty to your woman, all of this time. Never mind the fact that the rest of my family would likely kill me more than look at me, should I ever see them again, for that betrayal, or that I’ve stayed here far longer than I believe Arianne ever intended me to, or that I want nothing more than to go back to Dorne and do something to solve this shitshow, since it is obvious to me now that Margaery isn’t capable of that, like she promised. That’s complicated.”

Sansa pressed her lips together. “I do know what that’s like,” she whispered, as Nym jerked around to face her, “to not know where you stand, while you’re just trying to do the right thing in a castle full of people who aren’t. But I promise you, we’ll figure this out.”

Nym stared at her. “I believe you,” she said, and Sansa heaved a sigh of relief. But Nym wasn’t quite done. “I believe you,” she went on, “that you mean what you say. I no longer believe that Margaery does.”

Sansa flinched.

“She just gave away my home,” Nym continued, and it was only then that Sansa saw the tears lingering at the edges of her eyes, about to fall. Nym reached up, rubbing at her temples. “She gave away Dorne, and not because King’s Landing was surrounded, or because she thought that her family was about to be killed if she did not. We had an agreement, an agreement that has been nearly a year in the making, and she…!” She cut herself off then, half turning away from Sansa. “So no, I can no longer believe that she means what she says. And frankly, I’m surprised that you can.”

Sansa flinched again. Then, “I trust her,” she said, softly. “Because, despite the tricks she may have up her sleeve, she’s never given me a reason not to.”

Nym rolled her eyes. “How naive of you,” she said. Then, “Every monarch gives you a reason not to trust them. Eventually. Especially the ones you love.”

Sansa met her eyes. Nym’s, in that moment, seemed very far off.

Sansa swallowed hard.

Just then, the door opened, and Rosamund popped her head in. She glanced uncertainly between Nym and Sansa, as if she didn’t know whether she might be punished for interrupting them, and then cleared her throat.

“My lady…” she said, slowly, as Sansa forced her attention on the other girl, “You have a visitor.”

Nym grimaced. “Well, I suppose that’s my cue,” she muttered, as she stalked towards the door to Sansa’s chambers and let herself out.

Sansa sighed, reaching out to put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder before she could fully leave. Nym turned back to her, raising an expectant eyebrow.

“We’ll talk more about this later,” Sansa suggested, even though they both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Nym scoffed, and finished making her way out the door, leaving Sansa and Rosamund alone. Sansa bit back another sigh.

“Keep an eye on her,” Sansa instructed, as Rosamund dipped her head in a shallow bow. Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Who’s this visitor?”

For a moment, Rosamund almost looked guilty, which was…not promising, Sansa thought, almost idly. “Lord Garlan’s manservant to see you, my lady,” she said, nodding towards the door.

Sansa stared at her for a moment, confused, and then her eyes narrowed. “What does he want?” She demanded, because, as far as she could remember, Olyvar had not bothered to abuse his situation since being placed into it, since he had been freed of the poisonous influence of Baelish as they had all been.

And Sansa was not naive enough to think that they were rid of the man for good, simply because Margaery had told him to go, but she would ave thought that a man like Olyvar would not seek to push his luck. He had already approached Baelish’s whores, and gotten less than favorable responses, though Sansa understood that they had been perhaps more than Margaery had originally hoped for.

At least they knew that Baelish was not quite so focused on King’s Landing these days, because of those whores. And that the sickness was still ravaging King’s Landing, for all that the people seemed content not to kill their queen over the so called curse, today.

Sansa bit back a sigh, wondering what new flame she was going to have to put out, today. “You may go,” she told Rosamund, who hesitated a moment longer before making her exit, as she’d been told, leaving Sansa alone with the man who had been able to give her wife a son when Joffrey had not.

When Sansa could not.

She’d never realized quite how bitter she was about that until this moment, standing before the other boy. It was only then that she realized she’d been avoiding him since he’d become Garlan’s manservant, almost, or as much as she was able to.

“The Queen says that Lord Garlan is pleased with my work as his manservant,” Olyvar said the words slowly, as if he thought there was a chance Sansa might not understand him, and Sansa felt her eyes narrow, felt something like annoyance flitting through her.

Sansa blinked at him; much though it annoyed her, he was right. She didn’t understand what he was saying, why he was bringing this to her.

“Yes…?” She asked, slowly. “Have you been given some reason to think otherwise?”

Olyvar reached into his robe then, slammed something on the table between them so hastily that Sansa found herself reaching fo rate knife that she kept within her clothes at all times. She flinched a little, at the sound of the parchment hitting the table, and then she moved forward.

“When I agreed to give the Queen…” he paused then, “…what she wanted, she made a certain deal to me, in turn.”

Sansa cocked her head at him. She had figured as much, after all. “And she did not deliver?” She asked, quietly.

He shook his head. “I have done…” his face twisted briefly then, in something akin to agony, “everything that Her Grace has asked of me, from fucking her and putting a child in her to taking over Baelish’s operations here, though I admit I have not done as well with them as I might have hoped.” He took a deep breath. “And all the while, I have gotten something that I wanted out of it, too.”

Sansa’s brows furrowed in confusion. She had assumed that he had become Garlan’s attendant as an excuse for why he spent so much time with Margaery these days, when he brought the whispers of the brothels to her, though it was a rather piss poor excuse.

She had not thought it was something that he had deliberately sought out.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t…I had no idea that you felt that way.”

Olyvar stared at her for a moment longer, and then burst into laughter. “Oh!” He said, and shook his head, stopped laughing. “No.”

Sansa blinked at him.

“My son is in Highgarden,” he blurted out, into the silence, and Sansa resisted the urge to surge forward and throw her hands over his stupid mouth. He kept talking, though. “My son is in Highgarden, and no one thought to ask me if I was all right with him being whisked across the Seven Kingdoms in the night when I might never see him again.”

Sansa squinted at him, and then moved forward, all but pushing Olyvar into the far wall of her room, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “Shut the fuck up,” she hissed at him. “Or do you want to bring the whole palace down on us?”

Olyvar at least had the grace to look chagrined. “He’s my son,” he gritted out. “I should have known that he was being taken from us for…for perhaps forever, the way things seem to be going lately.”

Sansa grimaced, letting go of him, but only reluctantly. “Well, you’re not alone there,” she muttered, and when Olyvar only blinked at her in confusion, she explained, “It’s not as if Margaery knew enough to give you a warning, when he was taken.”

Olyvar blinked at her. It took Sansa a moment to realize the look on his face was one of pure fear; she hadn’t seen such an honest emotion on a human face in so long, she felt, save for when Margaery had sobbed in her arms, the other day.

It made her shudder.

Of course, Margaery had chosen the one honest whore she could find when she needed one to desperately keep a secret.

“Taken?” He finally echoed, and, slowly, Sansa let go of him the rest of the way, took a step back from him, feeling something like nervousness climb its way up her spine. “He…he was taken? But I thought…”

“I…” she shook her head, wondering why she suddenly felt the necessity to comfort the man before her, not when he was not supposed to have a relationship with the child, even if it was, technically, his. She’d meant what she had said to Margaery that one time, after all.

This child was theirs, now, even if they’d barely even gotten the chance for Nikoelas to be that.

“Olenna had him taken to Highgarden even moments after he was born,” Sansa said, softly, the words coming out more painfully than she had expected them to. “Margaery barely got the chance to look at him. When she awoke after she named him, he was gone. It was so that if anything happened with the Dornish…”

She trailed off, still fighting the confusion over why she was explaining herself to Olyvar, in any case.

Olyvar’s lips parted; he looked terribly disheveled, where he had come into this room looking almost…fine, before.

“I never even got that chance,” he said, softly, and Sansa fought back a flinch, for as much as she wanted to remind him that had never been a part of their deal, that he was meant to be nothing more than the father that they needed to convince the world that Margaery’s child was Joffrey’s, and was certainly never meant to have a relationship with the child, she couldn’t help but feel some pity for him.

After all, she could imagine all too well what might have happened had Margaery still married Joffrey but Sansa had never been saddled with another Lannister for a husband. Could imagine how Joffrey might use her for his own amusement, without Tyrion there to protect her, if he thought he could get away with it.

She imagined that he would have enjoyed parading around her bastard child, and he would have been far more cruel than Margaery about it; he would have made sure that Sansa never had a relationship with that child, if such a thing did happen.

It was a horrifying fantasy she had thought about far too many times, while Joffrey still lived, so she supposed she could understand his pain.

After all, Margaery had not meant to be cruel, when she had asked him for a child, but surely it would still be hard, to stand in the shadows and pretend that child wasn’t his, if he felt anything like affection for it.

So she said nothing, just stood there awkwardly, arms crossed over her chest, trying not to think that she and Olyvar might have anything in common, for she didn’t like the thought at all of comparing Margaery and Joffrey, especially not these days.

“I have done everything that she’s ever asked of me,” Olyvar said, laying his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. “I think I was owed that. Especially after what I last did for her. After I risked that child’s life on her orders, too, when I went to the trouble of giving her one.”

Sansa flinched back from him, genuine confusion flashing across her features. “I…what?” She asked, then shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

Risked his life…

If he’d done so, Sansa found herself losing the sympathy she had been feeling for him entirely.

He scoffed, opening his eyes then, to meet hers. She found herself swallowing hard, at that unreadable expression. “Oh, don’t act like you don’t know. I imagine it might have even been your idea, despite your…state at the time, given Her Grace’s own state before Cersei came to King’s Landing.”

Sansa blinked at him.

He shook his head, looking disgusted with her lack of knowledge. “I’ve had enough of this. I gave her the child she wanted, and I didn’t even love Loras, no matter what she thought. I did feel sorry for him, but I didn’t do this because I loved him. And I certainly didn’t do it for Margaery. And no matter how much I may have benefited from it, I hardly think it’s fair that she thinks she can ask whatever harrowing thing she wishes of me just because…”

But Sansa wasn’t listening to any of that. Instead, Sansa took a slight step back, and then another. “Risked his life?” She gritted out, crossing her arms over her chest and resisting the urge to call out for Brienne, before she remembered that she only saw Brienne these days at night, when she came to guard Sansa’s rooms and would not tell her much about her day.

“You mean…” Olyvar blinked at her, stupidly, falling silent, for once. “You didn’t know?”

Sansa stared back at him, slowly, lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “I…” she shook her head, slowly, and saw something that might have been pity flash across Olyvar’s features, before he buried it deep.

She sat down hard on the bed.

Nym’s words rattled in her brain, and she forced them out, told herself that she was not Arianne Martell and she was not about to end up blindsided by the woman that she loved, not when they depended on each other so heavily.

“What are you talking about, exactly?” Sansa demanded. “What is going on?” And then her eyes narrowed. “Cersei?”

Olyvar flinched. “I…” he backtracked suddenly. “Never mind,” he said, and moved as if to make a run for the door. “I didn’t realize that you…”

“Olyvar.”

He stopped.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sansa demanded. “What did Margaery ask you to do with Cersei?”

Olyvar flinched again. “Lady Sansa, I…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t think this is something I should tell you. I think it’s something that…” he shuddered. “I think it’s something you should hear directly from Her Grace.”

Sansa took a step forward, towards him, and then another, letting her arms fall down to her sides. “Olyvar,” she gritted out, “What did you do?”

He swallowed hard. “I…” he took a deep breath. “Margaery told me to make it seem like…to get caught by Baelish trying to leave the Seven Kingdoms for my own protection, to make it seem like I had something to hide from him, because she was certain…” he took a deep breath. “Because we were certain that he already knew the truth about the two of us, anyway.”

Sansa squinted at him, felt her stomach dropping out. “Baelish knows?” She demanded, even though she supposed she ought not be surprised.

After all, he knew everything else about them. She supposed it shouldn’t surprise her at all that he had parsed out this one more thing, and decided to use it for his own gain.

Olyvar shook his head. “I…Margaery said that she knew he would find out eventually, if he didn’t already and was simply waiting to use it against her. Against us.” He reached up, rubbing his forehead. “And that she didn’t want to think of how he might eventually end up using it, so she wanted to control how Cersei found out, at the very least.”

Sansa felt her lips go white around the edges. “She…what?” She demanded.

Olyvar held up his hands, almost as if he was about to start defending Margaery to her. She gritted her teeth, then. “She had me approach Cersei, so we’d at least know when she found out, or if Baelish had already told her. She…she was just finding out, we figured that out quickly enough.”

Sansa stared at him. “You told her that you were the father of Margaery’s child?” She clarified, because for the life of her, even if she thought she might understand this convoluted idea, she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what he was saying.

Around what Margaery had been thinking, in doing something like this, and especially without ever once even approaching Sansa about it beforehand, without even thinking to come to Sansa about it before Sansa had been stuck in a sleep like death.

And perhaps it hadn’t happened until after Sansa had fallen into her sleep, she didn’t know, and was almost afraid to ask Olyvar, but she found suddenly that she didn’t want to know the answer to that question.

Wincing, Olyvar nodded.

“And then…Margaery just…let her go back to the Rock, all by herself?” She demanded.

He shook his head. “I…From what I understand, she thought that Lord Kevan would be able to…” He swallowed thickly. “But I still went along with it, even though I had my doubts. And now, the boy, he’s…”

She held up a hand, and Olyvar fell silent. Sansa half turned away from him, feeling that migraine rearing its head once more.

Because Cersei was still healthy and alive at the Rock, for all any of them knew, and now she knew that the child Margaery had crowned King was not really her son’s.

Margaery had always made the mistake of underestimating Cersei. Had, perhaps, not wanted to kill the mother of the man she had also killed. Sansa hadn’t.

“What the fuck was she thinking?” Sansa demanded, more to herself than to Olyvar.

And something else occurred to her, then, not Nym’s words moments ago, but something Baelish had said to her, months ago, had asked her about when he was beginning to wonder whether Margaery had a plan at all.

When he had asked Sansa if she thought it was possible that Margaery was faking her entire reaction to Joffrey’s death, if she was using her apparent vulnerability to gain power over them in the shadows, to get them to underestimate her when she finally made her move.

Sansa thought of how she had been the one to suggest that they at least try to treat with Cersei, for the sake of the Seven Kingdoms, for the sake of Tommen, who surely hadn’t chosen to be king, and Margaery had agreed with her, with barely a second thought, but had probably known that Baelish knew the truth about her baby even then. Had probably already been planning how she was going to control the way Cersei found out.

Her hands fisted at her sides as she wondered if Margaery had ever been planning to treat with Cersei in the first place, or if it had always been her intention to spit in the other woman’s face, even though their attempts at treating had been disastrous in either case.

Baelish had thought that Margaery was faking it; Sansa had just thought he was jealous, jealous of the way that Sansa was all but pining over Margaery while he was trying to make her his wife, for whatever machinations he had regarding Sansa.

And Sansa, who had seen the way that Margaery cried herself to sleep, the way that she flinched away from anyone, man or woman, who tried to touch her, had disagreed with Baelish at the time, had insisted that Margaery wasn’t acting, because she couldn’t be.

Because Sansa would know.

She didn’t like that feeling, twisting in her stomach. The feeling she got when she realized she wasn’t certain she knew the answer to that question, any more, even with the way that Margaery had reacted to even the thought of marrying Euron, even as she insisted that she would.

* * *

It took her some time of wandering through the Black Cells beneath the Keep to find the rooms that Qyburn had claimed as his own, since arriving here, though she still didn't understand what he was still doing here. He was technically a prisoner, she supposed, after what had happened with the Mountain, but the chain keeping him in this little room seemed much too long, in her opinion.

She did not like it down here, either, Margaery thought, as she reached down to wrap her arms around her womb. It reminded her far too much of when Sansa had been a prisoner, down here. 

“You were Cersei’s creature, in the several long years that you were in King’s Landing with her, making whatever potions she demanded of you,” Margaery said, as she stepped into the man’s rooms.

There was one potion in particular her mind was already drifting back to, as she walked down here from her unnerving, horrifying conversation with Euron. As she thought about what she had just agreed to in order to spare any of her other "enemies," and her own men. 

He was a disturbing creature, to be sure, not quite as much as the dead man walking that he had created, but she could not forget that said creature had come from his mind.

She licked her lips, glancing around the rooms. For a man who lived in the Black Cells of the Keep, his rooms were strangely...ordinary. Devoid of furniture, perhaps, but there were no hints, in these rooms, that Qyburn mutilated women, that he tortured them and...enjoyed it.

Well, she could not say if he enjoyed it, but he certainly didn’t seem to have any qualms about doing it.

Qyburn went very still, where he stood at the table in the middle of the room with his back to her. “Are you here to finally kill me for such, Your Grace?” he asked, in his far too patient, calm voice, and Margaery squeezed her eyes shut.

Oh, she wanted to. She wanted to take this man, and have him burned at the fucking stake for what she knew he had done.

He had created a dead man, and that man had come to kill her. Cersei was not in King’s Landing, but this one was, and either Rosamund had sent him Cersei’s missives to keep from being caught as a spy for Sansa, which Margaery had yet to rule out, or the missive had gone straight to him, and he had ordered his creature to kill her.

Either way, she knew him to be responsible for what had happened to her, for the fact that she had nearly died at the hands of the Mountain.

Arresting him would, perhaps, be the sensible thing to do. There were no more Lannisters they had to appease now, not really, not with Kevan already fairly appeased, after all, save perhaps for Pycelle, who hated this one with a passion, and the smallfolk hated him for what they thought to be necromancy.

No one would stand in Margaery’s way, if she arrested him.

But she was not here for that, and she thought that if Qyburn turned around, he would find that to be self-evident. Despite her brother’s protests that she should never be alone again, especially after what had just happened, Margaery had come here without her guard.

“No,” she said, forcing her voice to remain light. “I just want to talk.”

Qyburn turned around from the table of assorted herbs that he was working on, his hands sheathed in gloves. She wondered how many of those herbs were poisonous.

She wondered how many of them Cersei had thought about using on her.

“I was, Your Grace,” Qyburn said, and he did not sound at all disturbed by the admission, by the title that she had given him.

Margaery eyed him. His face was carefully blank.

He struck her as a far more dangerous creature than Cersei Lannister had ever been.

“I need something from you,” Margaery said, finally, coming forward and sitting down in the single chair in the man’s chambers. He eyed her at the action, but didn’t dare tell her off for it.

Instead, he leaned back against the table he had just been working at, eyes examining her as if he had never given her much thought, before.

“You are not going to ask about my loyalties, now?” he asked, quirking a brow. “One would think that would be a...prudent worry.”

Margaery pressed her lips together. “I don’t need to ask about your loyalties for this,” she said. “The thing that I want from you is something that I imagine would pleasure your mistress very much.”

He blinked at her. “Your Grace is...unusually blunt,” he said, leaning off of the table now, crossing his arms over his chest.

She thought about this man often. About what this man had done to create a dead man, what the smallfolk whispered about him.

Necromancer, they said.

She thought about the things, the horrible punishments, that Megga had gone through in the dungeons of the Keep, not too far from these rooms, at the hands, or the bidding, of this man.

She thought of the things, worse still, that he had done to Rosamund Tyrell, a girl that he had never thought he would have to give up.

“I need a potion that will keep me from ever bearing a child again,” she said, and out of all the things she might have asked of him, she thought this one surprised him.

He took a step forward then, and faltered. “Your Grace...wants to keep herself from having another heir?”

Margaery shrugged. “I have an heir, now,” she said, her mind still agonizing over what Euron had said, earlier, the casual way he had disregarded the son he'd heard her screaming at Olenna about. “My son, whom I would die for, and who I will not allow to die for me. I need to...ensure that he never does, and keeping myself from being able to have another heir, with another man, is the one way I know to ensure that.”

Qyburn raised a brow. “You think those who might wish to marry you would target the son who gives you the right to sit on the Iron Throne?” he asked. “Or do you think my mistress might do so?”

“My son is her grandchild,” Margaery said, smirking. “I know that she hates that, but she would never kill him. If she had wanted to kill him, she would have poisoned me, and not Sansa, at the funeral feast. She didn’t.”

Qyburn didn’t look like he could argue with that logic.

“Then from whom do you think the threat comes?” he asked her, but Margaery was hardly in the mood to inform Cersei’s creature of her fears.

She would not lose her son because Euron wanted the throne, before the end of the world, or whatever it was he thought was coming.

And she no longer knew what her grandmother was capable of.

And she could not allow that.

“Do you have something that could give me what I want?” she asked, instead of answering Qyburn’s question.

For a moment, she thought she saw something like pity flash across Qyburn’s face, but he had not pitied her ladies as he had tortured them.

“I do,” he said, and this time, he looked almost relieved.

“How fast can you make it?” Margaery asked, and yes, perhaps she was impatient. “Do you need to gather ingredients?”

Qyburn’s smile looked ironic. “I already have them, Your Grace. This is how I know that my mistress, as you called her, would be happy to allow me to do such a...service to you.”

Margaery’s own smile was thin. She well remembered a time when Cersei had tried to give her wine, and it had smelled putrid, while she was still early married to Joffrey, but clearly a threat to Cersei.

She was not at all surprised to learn that Qyburn had made the sample for his mistress.

“You have a day. Get to it.”

She turned, then, and marched from the Black Cells.

She did not feel as if her skin had stopped crawling until she could breathe the fresh air again.


	48. Dorne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're all staying safe out there!

_“Uncle,” Myrcella said, and her voice was soft and sweet, the sort of sweetness that he had never heard from Joffrey, even when he had brought him presents that the boy was actually interested in, “Do you think that I will like it, in Dorne?”_

_He stared up at her, felt something like a twinge of guilt that the thought that she might had never occurred to him, while he had been making his plans for her departure, for seeing which one of the members of the Small Council was one of her mother’s creatures._

_He took a careful, measured breath, and resolved to lie to her, because she may have looked just like her mother, but even around Joffrey, she had always been so sweet. Especially around Tommen, and she didn’t deserve to spend the entire trip to Dorne worried about how they would treat her when she got there._

_She deserved to be just a little girl for a little while longer._

_“I’ve never been,” he told her, which, at least, was the truth. “But I’ve heard that it’s always sunny there, that the food is spicier than it is here, and that women are allowed to do more things.”_

_Myrcella’s face scrunched up. “Mother says that they do things they shouldn’t, that they abuse the privilege,” she said, and dear gods, she almost stumbled over the last word._

_The Martells would eat her alive._

_It wasn’t her fault; she had grown up with Joffrey for a brother, after all, and despite all of the sweetness inside of her, despite the kindness with which she treated her poor, neglected brother, he knew that there had to be a bit of steel in there as well, for her to have survived Joffrey this long and still be so sweet at all._

_But the Martells would know just where to strike, in order to find blood, and he’d known it from the moment Cersei had burst into his chambers demanding to know why he was sending her little girl to Dorne, cementing the plan altogether._

_A lamb to the slaughter._

_He closed his eyes, opened them again. “Your mother is…a wise woman,” he said, slowly, because his entire life, he’d tried to be kind to Cersei, even when she wasn’t kind in return, and she was furious with him now, and he didn’t want to turn her own daughter against her as some of the last words he might ever say to the girl, if indeed Stannis did come to these shores. “But she’s never been to Dorne, either.”_

_Myrcella gulped. “She says…she says they won’t be nice to me,” she said, and Tyrion closed his eyes, furrowed his brow as he remembered his argument with Cersei over this, how she had screamed at him for taking her children away from her, proving to her that he was the monster she’d always thought him to be._

_“Tell me, Myrce,” he said, the nickname that only he, Jaime, and Tommen ever used for the girl, and she blinked down at him, so sweetly, “Are you happy here?”_

_And…just like that, a shadow spread over her sweet features, turning her eyes dark and her mouth down into a little frown. She half stepped back from him, as if he had tried to strike her, and he almost regretted asking._

_He had seen the signs, over the years, of course. He did not spend as much time with his youngest niece and nephew as he would like, with the way that Cersei hoarded them away in King’s Landing and his own father had kept his trapped within the Rock, but the few times that he could see them, he had been able to tell._

_There was a steel underneath that sheen of sweetness that did not belong to a carefree, happy princess. A steel that emerged whenever Joffrey reached out and grabbed her arm a little too tightly, that came out when her mother told her to do something with the sort of clipped tone that implied she would not be disobeyed._

_When Myrcella smiled, there was always a hint of brittle, beneath it._

_Jaime had seen it, too, if the way that he kept an eye on her so closely was any indication, but he had never brought it up with Tyrion, not once._

_And Tyrion had never asked, because Jaime was allowed to be in King’s Landing with his sister’s children, while Tyrion was not, and he knew that if he ever brought it up to anyone, Cersei would hear of it._

_And he didn’t think that she would ever forgive him for running the perfect little life she thought she had created for her children, whether it was that or not._

_Perhaps that was cowardice._

_But then, so was, perhaps, telling Myrcella that she might be all right, in Dorne, when the experience would either turn her to glass or force her to become more like the steel he often saw in her._

_When she got back, eventually, if she ever did, he wondered if he would recognize her at all._

_If he were not already dead because of Stannis Baratheon, he reminded himself, told himself that he was doing this for her own good as much as the good of the realm._

_As he’d told Cersei, the Martells wouldn’t truly hurt her, not when they needed the goodwill, at the moment._

_“I…” Myrcella chewed on her lower lip for a long moment, before staring at him, long, searching. Whatever she found there made her step a little closer to him and whisper, “I think I could be happy in Dorne, so long as Joffrey isn’t there.”_

_He swallowed hard. “Then I think you can survive there, if you try,” he told her, and she blinked at him a moment longer, before stepping back and becoming the meek little cub she always pretended to be, to survive in her brother’s presence._

_Her smile was as radiant as the sun, as radiant as the smiles that Cersei only ever reserved for Jaime, and never for him or anyone else, not even her children, these days, or when she was still at Robert’s side, lest Robert notice them at all._

_And later, when Cersei told her daughter that she was a proud lioness and not to let them see her tears, he saw that bit of steel return to her once more._

* * *

“For you, Princess,” the old common woman said, holding the desert rose out to her.

And Myrcella…Myrcella knew a great deal about the ploys of the court, by this age. She’d known quite a bit about them before she had ever even left for Dorne, but she wasn’t entirely certain that the common folk themselves did. Otherwise, she would never have accepted a rose from any of them.

But surely, she thought, as she took the delicate flower by the stem, being careful not to be pricked by the thorns, the common people of Dorne did not want to bend the knee to House Tyrell any more than Arianne, or even Gerold, did.

No, she didn’t think that was what this was meant to represent, this woman holding out a rose to her.

Perhaps there was more significance in the fact that the rose had been plucked, snipped off rather too high for Myrcella to get a good hold on it.

Still, she smiled at the old woman, and thanked her prettily, far too aware of the fact that her position at court rested solely in the hands of the people these days, with the way that Gerold Dayne sometimes looked at her like he’d like to know what she looked like without her head, and tucked the rose behind her ear.

Tyene was there, instantly, a hand on her back, guiding her forward through the throng of people, and Myrcella was almost relieved by the contact, by the knowledge that she didn’t have to keep making smalltalk with these people with which she had nothing in common.

Myrcella took a deep breath, and kept walking through the throng, fighting back the sudden nausea pressing against her stomach.

Not everyone within the crowd seemed as happy to see her. She knew that the guards would have made sure that Myrcella was safe; after all, Gerold needed her, at least for now. She was his ticket to power; without her, he was nothing more than the usurper husband of a Martell princess.

But Myrcella was doing her best to ignore the glances coming her way, the muttering amongst these people wondering why their prince had gone to all of the trouble of usurping Arianne, even if he had never put it into those words, and was now championing the cause of a Lannister.

She knew that was what many of these people believed; perhaps they thought her a whore who had seduced Gerold and convinced him to take up their cause. She’d heard worse about noblewomen before, after all.

Perhaps…perhaps she shouldn’t have insisted on coming out here, perhaps she just should have stayed in the castle, like Lord Gerold wanted of her, to be kept away, hidden, the way that his wife was, but in a more gilded cage.

But Myrcella was tired of being a prisoner, even within that castle. She had insisted on going out to the Sept in a feeble attempt to get out from under Gerold’s control, from his dark glances, to get away from her uncle’s pitying glances, away from the guilt that she felt on her shoulders every time she thought about Arianne, even if she had not been the one to have Arianne arrested in the first place, she hadn’t been the one to start all of this happening in the first place.

No, that had been Arianne, and Myrcella knew she ought to be furious at the other woman, and a part of her was, still. But another part of her…

Another part of her couldn’t help but wonder if Arianne were even still alive. If the reason that Gerold Dayne was keeping his wife under such lock and key, “for her own protection,” was actually because she was long dead, because she had tried to work against his plans.

She had no proof in this little theory, of course, and hadn’t tried to share it with anyone out of fear of how Gerold might react if it was true, but Myrcella was staring to wonder.

After all, if she was still alive, one would think that Gerold would want to make the people look on her, make the people believe that she agreed with his new future for them, if he wanted to keep their support.

Myrcella knew enough about the people of Dorne to know that not all of them agreed with Gerold Dayne’s politics, just as they hadn’t agreed with Arianne’s, when she had decided to overtake her father.

They hadn’t fought back against it then; perhaps they all had thought Doran too weak to fight back even with an army behind him, but Myrcella wasn’t blind. She knew that this time, there was far more pushback. There were far too many people concerned with the direction Gerold Dayne was taking them in, even if they did want their vengeance against the Lannisters.

They didn’t want it at the hands of a Lannister puppet, of course, even if that had been Arianne’s plan for her, once.

But she didn’t think that had been Arianne’s plan for some time.

And if that was the case…

She glanced back over her shoulder, at Tyene, where the other woman was walking behind her, her faithful guard. Tyene, who smiled at her, and gestured for Myrcella to keep walking, not giving away a hint of the fear that Myrcella had felt wafting off of the other woman in waves, in recent weeks.

As if she knew something was desperately wrong about all of this, and had something to hide.

Tyene was one of the few people who Gerold Dayne still allowed to meet with Arianne, at any given time. Her, Lady Mellario, though Myrcella had made no real attempts to reach out to that woman, and Obara Sand, who was solidly by Gerold’s side, these days.

And if Myrcella was right, if, somehow, Arianne really was dead…

She turned forward and closed her eyes, told herself that giving away what she was feeling to Tyene wasn’t going to help any of them, even if Tyene was one of the few people she wished that she could still trust, at the moment.

She took the rose from the woman before her, and didn’t say a word, just smiled in thanks and kept walking, towards the Sept, one of her few freedoms these days, one of the few places she was allowed to go without anyone save for Tyene skulking over her shoulder.

And at least with Tyene, it was mostly all right, to Myrcella.

At least with Tyene, she didn’t have to pretend she was all right with any of this, and, even worse, tell her uncle Tyrion what she was thinking, at any given moment.

She knew that he was concerned - hells, of course she was, too - but her uncle’s constant need for reassurance that Gerold Dayne wasn’t raping her nightly, or demanding things from her that he didn’t yet know about, was hardly doing wonders for Myrcella’s own sense of safety, here.

Things were already insane enough.

Myrcella took a deep breath, and turned at the next shout for her attention. She had become like that, she realized, a dancing monkey, turning and smiling at everyone who approached her because she knew that one day, her life might depend on it.

It was only because she had already turned in that direction that she saw the knife, gliding through the air, angled down towards her belly.

This had happened before, she realized, in something like slow motion, too horrified by what was coming to move away from the knife’s projection, from the hand bringing it down towards her. She heard shouting, as if from far away, but didn’t know if someone was yelling for her to get out of the way, or for her to die.

Perhaps that would be her final service to Dorne; her death the final, sad chapter in what had once felt so like a fairytale. She felt Trystane’s arms around her on their wedding night, his gentle whisper that they didn’t have to do anything that she didn’t want them to, her whispered words for him to fuck her already…

That knife was about to take the life of their child, the child that they had made together, the child that she had never thought she would be able to have.

Myrcella remembered herself then, threw herself out of the way with all of her might, told herself that she was a Lion of House Lannister, even if she wasn’t a stag, and she would not die by the hand of some nameless assassin in a crowd of people who may cheer her death, if they didn’t mourn it.

The knife still sliced into her. Myrcella still screamed, as she fell to her knees in front of all of them, reaching up blindly, reaching for her belly, hearing the startled screams of the crowd around her, wondering if she was destined not to have her prayers heard by the Seven, answered by them.

Perhaps, she thought woozily, as she felt blood streaming down her face, blinding her, she was cursed by the Stranger, because she was nothing more than the bastard of two siblings, and that was why the gods had always ignored her prayers so easily.

She could believe it.

Her ears were ringing. Ringing so loudly that she could hear nothing beyond that noise, for several moments. Ringing, and she could not even hear the sound of her own screams, over that awful sound.

She listed to the side, hands still groping blindly.

And then she realized that it was not her stomach that was bleeding, not her stomach that had been punctured.

She shook her head, confusion filling her as she blinked through blood down at her stomach, as she felt hands reaching out to her and flinched away.

Her belly, still protruding through her gown because of the pregnancy, because it was visible to all, vulnerable to all, was not bleeding, she realized, but only distantly.

And then blood flooded her vision again, and Myrcella screamed again, as the pain made her so dizzy she nearly fell forward, nearly slammed her pregnant belly against the cobblestones, and perhaps she would have, if someone had not grabbed her just in time.

She could just barely make sense of the shouting, by then, could hear people screaming that the Princess had been assassinated, could hear Tyene, as if from far away, despite the fact that Myrcella could recognize the hands wrapped around her, shouting for the guards to protect the Princess, to find the damn assassin.

Myrcella was shaking.

She could no longer see Tyene at all, or even her belly, for that matter, with all of the blood covering her. She could only hear Tyene’s rasping breaths, as the other woman moved closer to her, begged Myrcella to be all right, to tell her where it hurt.

Tyene was pressing down against her, so close that Myrcella could feel the other girl’s breath on her cheek.

“Myrcella,” she could hear the other girl whispering, as she pressed down against Myrcella while the guards cleared the path back to the palace, or so Myrcella assumed. She could see nothing, after all. “Myrcella, look at me. Where does it…what hurts?”

And Myrcella…tried to answer that question, she truly did.

Instead, what came out was a fragile sob, a gasp, as she realized the truth. Realized what the blood still flooding her vision meant.

“I can’t…I can’t see,” she gasped out, reaching out blindly, crying out when Tyene forced her arms back down. “I can’t…” Fuck. Oh, gods, no. “I can’t see!”

She couldn’t breathe, suddenly.

That ringing noise in her ears was only growing, overpowering her. Myrcella screamed again, and was aware that she must look like a madwoman, laying on the ground, screaming underneath Tyene, though the danger was passed.

And…perhaps it wasn’t.

For all that the shouting around her seemed to have subsided into a disturbing silence, she could still hear that horrible ringing, in her ears. Ringing, ringing, ringing.

It was all she heard, when she finally passed out in Tyene’s arms.

* * *

“We need to talk,” Tyene snapped, as she burst through the door into the war room, as she’d started calling it since Obara and Gerold had taken this council chamber over, pushing past the guards as she did so.

Obara glanced up, looking nowhere near as surprised to see her as the guards had. “Tyene,” she said, and gestured to the single chair in the room. “Sit down. I heard you’ve had…quite a shock.”

Gerold looked…almost amused, by that description, and Tyene’s eyes narrowed, before she resolved to pretend she’d seen nothing at all.

Because she knew that if she followed that thought to its logical conclusion, she wasn’t going to like the way that Obara was standing so closely to Gerold.

Tyene knew that had always been part of the plan; she didn’t entirely know what the plan itself was, didn’t want to, because she knew that something was up with all of this, that Arianne had maneuvered things to be this way even if Tyene couldn’t imagine how Arianne’s imprisonment was helping their situation, but she still didn’t like how close Obara and Gerold seemed to have gotten, in recent weeks.

And she knew her sister. She knew when the other girl was playing a part, and when she wasn’t. Knew when she was pretending for the sake of the people around her, and when she felt genuinely about someone.

And while Tyene couldn’t see a shred of decency within Gerold to cause something like feelings, she was still…worried about her sister.

That wasn’t like Obara, after all. To fall for a man, of all things, or to let that change her plans, once they’d been made.

“A shock,” Tyene repeated, dryly. “Did you order that hit?”

They glanced at her in surprise, before exchanging glances.

“Tyene, how could you think that…”

“They knew our exact route,” Tyene snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “They knew exactly where to be within the crowd that the guards would be blind to them, when they came at Myrcella. And it didn’t look that different from the time that Myrcella was nearly killed here, not so long ago.”

Gerold’s eyes twitched.

Tyene’s narrowed.

“Her blood is on your hands, if that little girl and her child happen to die because of this, or because some other threat on her life,” Tyene gritted out, meeting Obara’s eyes, and she was vaguely aware of Gerold behind her, smiling a little, but she forced herself to ignore the man.

She shook her head, half turning away from Obara, before she turned suddenly back.

“Myrcella is a child,” she reminded her sister, and was gratified by the slight flinch that Obara gave, in response. “A child that we’ve helped raise, a child who has become something of a sister to us, and you damn well know that. So if you knew anything about this…”

She trailed off then, allowing the threat to hang in the air. Obara hesitated only a moment longer, before meeting her eyes.

“Of course I didn’t know anything about this,” Obara hissed out. “How could you even think that of me?”

Tyene flinched. Because it was true, what she had said; the two of them had raised Myrcella, or as good as, since that poor girl had stepped foot in Sunspear and looked around like she thought they were going to eat her alive.

And yes, perhaps they had been a bit more than confrontational with her in the beginning, perhaps Obara had enjoyed one too many times teasing Myrcella as if she truly were going to destroy the girl, but she hadn’t meant it, not even then, not even when the girl was nothing more than a Lannister to them.

And now…Now, Tyene was certain that Obara loved Myrcella as much as Tyene had. She had wanted to crown her, as Tyene had.

But she had thought that about Arianne once, as well.

But Tyene had noticed, during this whole discussion, that Gerold, who was normally so fond of hearing himself speak, had yet to say a word about this. She spun back to him, eyes blazing, then.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, and saw the flash of anger in Gerold’s eyes, at the implied accusation in that tone.

Gerold raised a brow. “And you’re certainly being belligerent,” he muttered, and Tyene resisted the urge to roll her eyes, then. “Especially to your Regent.”

She didn’t bother to point out to him that the only reason he was still on the throne, as still claiming anything like Regency, was because she was allowing it. Because, for whatever reason, Arianne was allowing it.

She suspected something like that would only go over his head, and that she herself was a little too furious at the moment not to say something that she might regret.

After all, she had just left Myrcella in the hands fo maesters who had taken entirely too long to get to her chambers, for a kingdom who now claimed her as their heir to the Iron Throne, citing Gerold’s orders when Tyene had, in a fury, demanded to know why they were taking so long.

And, when they had finally gotten there…

Tyene shuddered, remembering what Myrcella had looked like, when she had left the other girl in the hands of the maesters and her horrified uncle as Tyene had gone off to confront Gerold and Obara about it.

The maesters were saying, before Tyene had left her, that it was possible that Myrcella was going to lose an ear.

The girl had managed to twist out of the way of an assassin that Tyene had been unable to reach in time, an assassin who had clearly been after her child if not her, as well, but that didn’t mean she had escaped unscathed.

Tyene suspected that the scar which ran from her eye down to her chin would never heal, that the maesters were right about her not having the rest of her ear, by the time the day was done.

The girl had been screaming, in front of so many people, when she was normally so concerned about what others thought of her, and Tyene was trying not to think too hard about that.

She was also trying not to think too hard about the fact that Myrcella had not stopped complaining about the ringing in her ears even when Tyene had left her there.

She’d seen the accusing way that Tyrion Lannister had looked at her, as she left Myrcella with those maesters to come here.

Gods, everything felt so…fucked. She’d believed in Arianne, in what her cousin was planning, when all of this had started.

And now, here she was, accusing her sister and her cousin’s husband of trying to kill a Lannister.

“Many of the people no longer believe that standing behind Myrcella Baratheon, when there are so many kings and queens to choose from, these days, is in our best interest,” Gerold said, and Tyene almost believed that he sounded sad about that, except she knew him. “And they are…not wrong, entirely. I cannot blame them for this, even if it was…a foolish mistake, on their parts.”

But the look that he exchanged with Obara suggested that he didn’t think it so foolish as he was saying, and Tyene straightened her back, as she glanced between the two of them once more. She took a deep breath.

No, no it didn’t make any sense for Gerold to want Myrcella dead. His whole claim to Dorne, at the moment, was through control of Myrcella and Arianne, but mostly Myrcella, and the promise freedom from the Tyrells and the Lannisters for good, through her.

It didn’t make sense that he might want her dead, it truly didn’t.

“They tried to kill her,” Tyene spat out, furious that neither of them were reacting in the way she had expected them, or, at the very least, for Obara, to. “Tried to kill a child, a woman pregnant with a prince of Dorne.”

Obara flinched again.

But finally, Gerold lifted his chin, meeting her eyes. “Tyene, there’s something that you should know,” he told her, and Tyene blinked at him. “Something that we were trying to keep quiet until we knew the outcome, but something that I think you ought to know, all the same.”

Tyene met his eyes, and knew the truth, the moment she did.

She stood to her feet. Took a step back, and then another.

Shivered.

“No,” she breathed, before he even once spoke. She swallowed hard, glancing between Obara and Gerold. “No. Tell me that’s not…”

“We may no longer need her, dear cousin,” Gerold Dayne murmured, reaching out to take Tyene’s hands in her own, and his voice was almost gentle, which only made Tyene want to slap him more. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard of the…situation, in King’s Landing, but things are changing rapidly.”

Tyene flinched slightly, pulling her hands free of him. “What the hells do you mean, we may no longer need her?” She demanded, face going white.

She glanced between him and Obara, who was studiously not meeting Tyene’s gaze, and then crossed her arms over her chest.

“What do you mean?” She repeated.

Gerold grinned. “Your sister, for all of her incompetence, seems to have finally gotten us what we wanted,” he said. “Or, if she didn’t, our…ambassador certainly did.” He chuckled, and Tyene glanced between them, saw the sly smile on Obara’s face, and didn’t understand what was so amusing. “We attacked King’s Landing. Sent our fleet there, when it became clear that the Tyrell girl wasn’t going to be holding onto the place, or her sanity, for much longer.”

Tyene’s stomach dropped out.

“But they…made a deal with us of their own,” Gerold went on, shrugging slightly, and now his hands on Tyene’s felt almost…slimy. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away, couldn’t even bring herself to move.

Was frozen, with indecision or something more, staring at the man before her in horror. Staring at Obara, and not recognizing either one of them.

She had grown up with these people.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she thought she might have hidden some of that shock from her face, but couldn’t be certain, not with the way that Obara was looking at her, as if she was seeing right through her.

“What was the deal?” She asked, even though she already damn well knew.

Gerold met her eyes. She couldn’t read his at the moment, either. She didn’t know if that was a good thing, or a bad. “Dorne’s independence,” he said, and Tyene’s eyes shut again. “For Myrcella.”

Fuck.

“And Trystane?” She asked, softly.

She glanced over at Obara in time to see the look the other woman shot in Gerold’s direction, before she said, calmly, “He would remain in King’s Landing, as an…honored guest.”

“A hostage, you mean,” Tyene said, her mouth dry.

After a moment’s hesitation, Obara nodded. “But he would be safe,” she went on. “They know better than to hurt him, when doing so would only invite a war they clearly don’t want to fight.”

But the stiffness of her shoulders, the warning looks she kept sending Gerold’s way…there was something they weren’t telling her, and Tyene knew it. And they knew she knew it, she could see that clearly enough in their eyes.

“Is he already dead?” She voiced the main concern she had, the one thing she thought they might truly be trying to hide from her.

Again, that damned look between the two of them.

And then, finally, Obara spoke. “He’s not dead,” she spoke slowly, but the tightness in Tyene’s chest didn’t abate. “And neither is Lady Nym. But…we didn’t have much choice, from what I understand, in accepting these terms.”

Tyene’s brows furrowed as she glanced between the two of them. “What happened to you attacking them?” She asked, slowly.

Gerold had the grace to grimace. “I suppose one could say it didn’t go as we’d hoped,” he muttered, and Tyene barked out a laugh that had little of humor in it, at those words.

Finally, she met both of their eyes, as she leaned forward over their little table in this weird little war room, struck by the sudden feeling that she’d left Myrcella alone, even if she was with her uncle, for too long.

“That little girl may die because of this,” Tyene said, shakily. “And if she does, that blood will be on your hands.”

Gerold met her eyes. “You know, it’s funny,” Gerold said, into the silence, “You and my wife certainly have one thing in common…The one thing she ever asked me, when I went to visit her since I imprisoned her, was please, husband, make sure that Myrcella survives this.” He spat to the side. “As if the little girl isn’t proof enough of what the Lannisters took from all of us. What a disloyal niece she turned out to be, my wife.”

Tyene went very still.

Because that…didn’t sound very much like her cousin, she had to admit. She knew that Arianne could be fairly sentimental, but Arianne wanted Dorne for herself. She didn’t really want Myrcella crowned as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Tyene knew that, whatever it was she was really planning. And Tyene wasn’t stupid enough to think she still knew what that was, either, unless things had gone desperately wrong for her cousin, despite her protestations that Tyene trust her.

Or she wouldn’t have played so fast and loose with Myrcella’s life up until this point. Wouldn’t have gotten herself arrested so that Gerold Dayne could take the credit for finally crowning Myrcella Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

No, there was something else going on here, and Tyene hated that it was taking her so long to figure out what the fuck, exactly, it was.

Tyene shook her head, knowing that anything she said at this point would be useless. After all, whatever it was Arianne was planning, or whatever plans of hers had apparently been ruined, Gerold and Obara clearly knew more than she did.

And she had her answer about Myrcella, and her safety here in the future, in the sneer Gerold had used when speaking of a girl he had insisted on crowning.

“What is the blood of one innocent, or a Lannister, in exchange for Dorne’s freedom from all of this, Tyene?” Gerold asked, sincerely, and Tyene had to bite back what she wanted to say, in response. She was far too aware of Obara’s eyes on her, at the moment. “I would have thought your father’s daughter would understand that price. Would be willing to pay it.”

Tyene glanced between them in horror, felt her eyes going toward Obara, almost pleading.

But Obara met her gaze steadily, where she stood tall and proud beside Gerold, and Tyene did not see a shred of guilt in her gaze.

Tyene shivered, though it was hardly cold, today.

Oh gods, they were serious. They really meant to do this.

“And what of Arianne?” She asked.

Gerold scoffed. “My little wife will still have her part to play, believe me,” he said. “But she was not the one that Margaery Tyrell offered Dorne’s independence to, sweet cousin. No. The conditions were fairly specific. Dorne would belong to me.”

Oh, gods.

It felt like Tyene had once had a very specific nightmare about all of this.

She wasn’t sure how they had gotten out of it in the dream, either.

* * *

The maesters said that she would live, but that it was possible she might never hear out of her left ear again.

They said it into her right ear, where they were now, at the very least, certain that she could hear them, and Myrcella had flushed and grimaced her way through it, had pretended that she wasn’t about to break down in front of strangers who had not so long ago been congratulating her for having such a normal pregnancy, while her uncle stood in the corner, looking far too guilty.

She swallowed hard.

She had insisted on seeing what she looked like in the mirror, when she awoke from their stitches, the ones they had insisted she sleep through, despite the fact that both of the maesters and Tyrion had tried to stop her.

Had insisted on looking upon what the people of Dorne had done to her.

She had not recognized the woman staring back at her. She looked like some ugly, disfigured thing, some creature that would have been thrown out if she had been born of her mother looking like this.

Had not recognized the long, inflamed scar running down her face, had not recognized the face of the young woman staring back at her.

Had not recognized the fact that she felt no tell tale patters of feet against her stomach, as she had been so often recently.

She swallowed hard, as she tried to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, or the stub that remained of it, and found that she could not even manage that.

In the corner, she heard the sound of her uncle’s choking.

The maesters had left her alone for now, at her insistence though they had offered to do a more thorough examination, had offered to look at the child in her womb to make sure all was well, or at the very least to give her something to help her sleep longer, if she needed it, but Myrcella had refused them.

She didn’t want to sleep. Didn’t want to be out of her own control again.

She felt like she was losing far too much of it, of late, after all.

And so they had left, all of them looking guilty at the loss of her beauty, she supposed, or the fact that they had come so late in treating her, so that she would most definitely scar now, though Myrcella supposed that must be some sort of lesson, from Gerold.

She didn’t bother to ask what it meant, not of her uncle, and not of the maesters who finally treated her once Tyene had insisted they do so.

Tyene.

It was nice, she supposed, to know that Tyene did care about her. That she had not been wrong about the other woman’s loyalty, that Tyene truly was loyal to her, as she had thought she was. It was nice to know that Myrcella could still be right, about things like that, even if she had been wrong about so many others.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” Tyrion offered from the corner of the room, moving closing to her and cracking a small smile, as he reached up and gestured toward his own, the one he’d received during the Battle of Blackwater. “Gives you some character.”

Myrcella sniffed. “I don’t need character,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ve grown enough of that since coming here in the first place.”

Tyrion flinched. “Myrcella…” he began, but she held up a hand, forestalling him. She didn’t want to hear about how this, too, was her fault. How she had been the one to choose to come here, the second time, not him.

She didn’t even want to blame him for any of this, anymore.

She was just so tired. Tired of what lay before her, tired of Dorne, this place she had once considered home.

Tired of all of it.

And, more than that, paralyzed by a terror that only seemed to make her feel more tired. Made her want to lay down and never wake up, if that was what it took to face it.

She shook her head, struggling to clear it as she voiced for her already concerned uncle the thing that had been terrifying her since she had awoken to find herself being cleaned by the maesters, the terror that hadn’t been there before when she had shoved an assassin out of her way but certainly was now.

In a paralyzing sort of way.

“Uncle, I…” she slowly lifted her eyes to meet his, and he could see the fear in her eyes, then. “I felt something, when the assassin struck me,” she whispered, hoarsely. Slowly, her hand lowered to her stomach. “Right here.”

Tyrion flinched again. “Myrce…” he started, but she cut him off.

“They were going to stab me in the belly,” she whispered, and he could see the tears that she was struggling not to let fall, now. “I saw them. That was why I turned, at the last moment, and made sure that the knife went for my face, first. But I still fell on my stomach, and something is wrong, I’m certain of it.”

The fear did bleed into her voice then, by the end of it.

Tyrion grimaced. “Myrcella, if you want a maester to look over you…”

“I don’t need a maester to tell me that something’s wrong,” Myrcella whispered. “I’m a mother, and I haven’t felt my child move since…” she shook her head. “Something’s wrong, Uncle. Something’s wrong with my baby.”

Tyrion shook his head. “I’ll speak with Gerold about the maesters coming back to…” he began, starting to stand, but Myrcella’s hand snatched out, stilling him as easily as her cry.

“No!” She cried out, and he flinched again. “No, he can’t know. If he even thinks that something is wrong, you know as well as I, that…” she trailed off, but then again, as she’d said, she didn’t need to finish that sentence.

It broke Tyrion’s heart, a bit, to realize that Myrcella was just as aware of her precarious situation as he was. But then again, he had found that poison on her.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Myrcella sniffed. “You took the poison from me,” Myrcella whispered, hoarsely. “And I dearly wish you’d have let me keep it. If you had, we might have avoided this situation altogether.” She rested her hand back on her stomach. “I might have avoided this situation altogether.”

Tyrion flinched. “Myrce…”

She lifted her eyes to meet his. “You owe me,” she murmured, and when he started to speak, started to shake his head, she cut him off. “Get me out of here, Uncle, if you’re not going to let me control my own fate.”

He stared.

“Myrcella,” he finally began, slowly, “if you think that there is a problem, then surely you realize that leaving, and in such a state…”

Myrcella cut him off. “This place was once full of happy memories for me, whatever I told you in King’s Landing the first time I went back there,” she informed him, softly, glancing nervously back towards the door, where Tyrion remembered Tyene was still standing outside. He remembered to lower his voice, as well.

“But now, it’s my prison,” Myrcella went on. “I should never have left Jaime and Tommen, I realize that now. If I’d gone with them…”

“If you’d gone with them, you would be back with Cersei,” Tyrion interrupted her, though he didn’t quite understand why he felt the need to defend her decision, back then. He certainly didn’t approve of it. Still, he kept going. “Or even now a prisoner in King’s Landing, once more.”

Myrcella let out a wet laugh. “And they’d had no need of another spare, considering all of the ones they’ve been collecting so far,” she said, shrugging slightly. “I suppose that doesn’t matter. But I…” she licked her lips. “I don’t want to die a prisoner anywhere, Uncle. Please.”

She was all but begging.

Tyrion closed his eyes.

He had come all of the way from Lys to help her, and what had he accomplished since arriving here? Nothing, he realized.

Oh, he’d learned quite a bit about how chaotic Dornish politics were, to learn that, despite all of Gerold Dayne’s reassurances, all of the people around him reassuring him, he was not so secure in his position as he seemed to think, that the nobles of Dorne were just as fickle as they were everywhere else, and if Tyrion truly wanted to play the long game, he could have easily played them against one another if he needed to. If he had the time.

He didn’t.

Despite Gerold accepting Tyrion’s offer of help, he had told Tyrion very little, since his time here. Bronn, for fuck’s sake, had manage to find out more than Tyrion had, simply by spending time at the local brothels and inns, and Tyrion found himself rather irritated to realize that.

He had come here to save her, after all. Had come here to get her out of here, after all, and he still meant to do just that. He had been playing along with Gerold Dayne all of this time, hoping that things might not be so bad as he thought, but he had waited for a long time in King’s Landing, as well, and look where that had gone.

He had to get her out of here, as she said. He already had some plans towards that end that he had not mentioned to her, not wanting to get her hopes up, but he needed allies. After all, he didn’t know Dorne, not as its own people did. Even Bronn’s ties within the brothels were of little use to him, if he was going to smuggle a very recognizable young woman out of the kingdom.

Still, he found himself clasping her hands and nodding. “Yes,” he said, as her eyes widened, “I’ll get you out of here.”

She met his eyes. Her own were full of tears.

“I…” she took a careful breath, and then another. “I’m so scared,” she whispered, the tears slipping down her cheeks, then. “I’m so…”

And Tyrion wrapped his arms around and her pulled her in for an embrace.

* * *

Tyrion took a deep breath, reaching up to run a hand through his hair as he stepped out of his niece’s chambers and leaned against the doorway.

For a moment, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

When he opened his eyes again, he expected to find Shae staring back at him in disappointment. Instead, Tyene Sand was staring back at him, leaning against the opposite wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked, for the first time since he had met the girl, less than pleased about the situation.

She was always smiling, he’d noticed that long ago, even when the situation hardly called for it.

And she wasn’t trying to flirt with him either, he’d noticed, something she never failed to do with anyone she came into contact with, it seemed.

With some effort, Tyrion forced back some of the stress that he felt. “Tyene,” he said, sighing. “I thought you had gone to investigate Myrcella’s attack.”

She had gone, he remembered, looking absolutely furious as she had brushed past him, just as the maesters and Tyrion had finally returned. Myrcella had not been aware enough of her surroundings to explain where the other girl had gone, but when she had finally awoken, she had explained how Tyene had thrown herself down on top of the girl, earlier.

Had potentially saved her from any other attacks.

And Tyrion…didn’t know what her agenda was, was certain that she had one, but she seemed willing enough to lay down her life for Myrcella, and Tyrion supposed that, at the moment, that was all he could expect of her.

After all, if he was going to make good on that promise to Myrcella, he was going to have to start trusting someone besides Bronn, around here.

And he did truly intend to get her out of here. He had lingered here long enough, trying to figure out if there was anything good about this situation, anything that might benefit Myrcella more than going on the run with an uncle her mother hated, and had yet to find it.

Hells, the longer they stayed here, the more certain Tyrion was that she was in more danger. Gerold Dayne clearly did not have Myrcella’s best interests in mind, never mind that he had named her Queen.

But Tyene…Myrcella seemed convinced that Tyene did, and Tyrion was no longer certain that he could wait around much longer to decide that for himself.

In any case, Tyene did not give him the chance to wonder too much longer about it.

“Why are you here?” Tyene demanded of Tyrion.

He blinked at her. “I’m sorry?” He asked her, and then cocked his head back in the direction of his niece’s rooms. “I should have thought it was obvious. I’m here to see my niece.” His brows furrowed. “Or, do you mean in general? I thought I was done, having to explain myself to you people.”

He was almost bitter about that fact. Gerold had all but named him a member of his niece’s Small Council, though Tyrion was not foolish enough to think that was for anything more than show, and yet, every single person he seemed to come across was wondering what a Lannister wanted with this place.

He supposed he almost deserved that for the name alone, but it was not as if the name had done much for him of late, anyway, besides gotten him a few free drinks at the local taverns, much to Bronn’s chagrin.

Tyene snorted, leaning forward to meet his gaze, now.

“Gerold keeps you like a pet,” she said, lips thin, and Tyrion grimaced, “you accomplish nothing at all for your niece, by being here, save for the illusion that someone in House Lannister might appreciate seeing her on the throne when her mother has already made the truth of that clear enough. So. Why are you here? Do you honestly think,” she looked him up and down, “That when Gerold inevitably turns against her, that you’ll be able to do anything to stop him?”

Tyrion flinched.

Tyene crossed her arms over her chest, some of the urgency that he was feeling from her growing deeper, now, more harried, as if she knew that at any moment they were going to be interrupted, or she was going to lose his attention.

That, in the end, was what made him pay attention to what she was saying.

“That assassin almost killed her,” she said, and again, Tyrion flinched. “It was not the first time that someone has attacked her since she came back to Dorne. And I’m not certain…” she chewed on her lower lip. “I’m no longer certain that, had I not been there, she would have had anyone else attempting to keep her safe.”

Tyrion’s head jerked up. “You think that Gerold ordered this?” He demanded, his voice rough, but Tyene was already shaking her head.

“I don’t know anymore,” she said, in a small voice, hugging herself. She could admit, at least in her own mind, if not to the Imp, that she was no longer certain what Arianne was capable of, no longer certain that she couldn’t lay all of this down at Arianne’s feet, despite the other woman’s protestations.

Tyrion swallowed hard, as if he had heard what Tyene hadn’t said, and perhaps he had. They said he was a smart man, after all.

That was why she was even bothering with this in the first place.

“Myrcella intimated to me that you were someone I should speak to, if I wanted to get anywhere in…keeping her safe, here in…Dorne,” Tyrion said slowly, crossing his arms over his chest in a mirror reflection of what she had just done.

Tyene lifted her chin. She knew that he was testing her, he supposed.

“I saved her life, today,” she said, and then flinched a little. “Well, perhaps that is not entirely true. I…she did much of that saving, herself. But I was the one who covered her head and kept her down, when she was screaming like that. And I would do it again.” She looked down her nose at him. “In a heartbeat.”

Tyrion flinched; for some reason, he felt like she was trying to blame him for something, though he couldn’t with any certainty say what. He was here, after all, which was more than he could say for the rest of their family.

He was here, and Tyene was here.

“I need to know that I can trust you,” Tyrion said then, deciding to just go for it, and Tyene stared at him for a moment, lifting her chin. There was a look in her eye that he didn’t quite like, like she was trying to figure him out just as he was trying to figure her out.

He forced his expression back to something resembling normalcy, tried not to think too hard about how that had felt, wrapping his arms around his niece and promising her something that he wasn’t entirely certain he could deliver.

The last time he had done that, the woman he’d promised to save, if save could even be the right word, had been dead in his arms in the morning.

Tyene lifted her chin. “Ellaria Sand was the one who ordered Willas Tyrell’s death, not your sister,” she said, and he stared at her, jaw falling open, because that was certainly not what he’d been expecting her to say.

“You didn’t know?” Tyene asked, and, despite their circumstances, she looked amused.

Tyrion swallowed hard, because the idea was so…impossible, he could almost believe it. Or perhaps Tyene simply did not know what Cersei Lannister was like, as a wife.

“Cersei…” he shook his head. “Cersei certainly had motive to kill the boy; she was forced into a marriage with him. And I understood that Oberyn Martell and Willas Tyrell were…close.” His brows furrowed, trying to figure out why Tyene was bothering to lie to him about something so obviously wrong. “What makes you think that she didn’t?”

Tyene smiled sadly. “You don’t know the rest of it, either, do you?” She asked, almost as if she pitied him. She shook her head.

Slowly, Tyrion mirrored her action. “I…my sister killed him,” he said, softly. “Because she was angry that they forced her to marry him, angry that she’d been separated from the rest of her children. I can assure you, she took…”

“The Tyrells and the Martells plotted together to have your father killed,” she said, before he could even finish wrapping his mind around the thought that he had falsely convicted his sister, even if only in his own mind, and Tyrion did flinch, then.

He knew that the Tyrells had saw fit to lay the blame for Willas’ death on Oberyn, just as Tywin’s had been. But he had thought that they were simply looking the other way out of a desperation to hang onto the Iron Throne, that they had decided not to act against Cersei, even when it meant the death of one of their own children, to hold onto their power, because that’s what the Tyrells were like.

But…gods.

They’d plotted with the Martells to kill his father.

Margaery Tyrell had made it no secret that she wanted Oberyn Martell dead because of what had happened to her brother, had all but persuaded Sansa to do the dirty work for her, in implicating him, never mind that the man seemed to want that rather badly.

Olenna Tyrell had seemed almost happy, the day of Oberyn’s fight against the Mountain. At the time, he’d thought she was just happy that the alliance was in place still, but if Oberyn really had been involved in Willas’ death, and not Cersei at all…

The words spun around and around in his mind, not making any more sense than they had when Tyene had first said them aloud.

Gods, it was a strange feeling, to realize that his sister might _not_ be guilty of something.

“That old witch and my uncle, Doran, plotted it together. Had some sort of coup in mind, for when he was dead. It wasn’t my father, whether he knew about the plot or not, who killed the man, but that spider, Varys. He used poison so that the Martells could not claim they were not part of it, at the last minute.”

Tyrion heaved a breath, but Tyene’s poisonous words continued even when he held up a hand to try to stop her.

No.

No, this was impossible, because…

Because Shae had killed his father, he knew that. Shae, and Varys…

He closed his eyes. Breathed in. And out.

Opened his eyes again.

Tyene didn’t appear to notice his current disposition, if the lack of inflection in her voice as she continued was any indication. She spoke the words almost gleefully, as if she enjoyed the thought of what had happened to his father.

He supposed he couldn’t blame a Martell for that, even if she was just a bastard.

He shook his head. “No,” he said aloud, because he felt like he had been shouting it up until that moment, though he knew he had not been. “No, that makes little sense. Why would the Tyrells have pushed so hard for your father to be…why wouldn’t they have gone through with the coup, then?”

It would have certainly made more sense, and been easier, than everything that had followed it, if the Tyrells had attempted their coup then. They wouldn’t have had to deal with all of the insanity that had followed, with Cersei and her vengeance, with kingslaying…

Joffrey would have been easier to deal with then, as well, if Mace Tyrell had been Hand of the King because he took the position by force. And the Tyrells had shown that they weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, no matter what Sansa seemed to think of their little queen.

Tyrion felt something like a migraine coming on, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

She was lying.

She had to be, because Shae had been involved in his father’s death, and while he knew that she might have just been a pawn, knew that she had gotten the poison from Varys…

Fuck. Why would the man see fit to kill his father twice over, with two different poisons? And why involve Shae at all, even if the woman had made it clear that she might be willing to kill Tywin for her own reasons?

Then again, why did Varys ever do anything?

“My father only took the blame so that he might have an excuse to fight the Mountain,” Tyene went on, merciless, it seemed, in the face of…whatever it was Tyrion suddenly felt like he was facing. “When the Tyrells backed out at the last minute, it because my father tried to have Sansa Stark secreted away from King’s Landing.”

Sansa. Of course this was about Sansa Stark.

Because everything seemed to come back to her these days, didn’t it?

Gods.

But that…made a disturbing amount of sense, Tyrion could concede that. If Oberyn had decided to take her for her own safety, or to make her his wife, or for whatever other reason, the Tyrells, who had always been intent on gaining the North, would have seen that as a betrayal. And Oberyn Martell was certainly known for his passionate, impulsive behavior.

It was what had gotten him killed, after all…

And that also explained why the Tyrells had been so quick to pin Willas’ death on him, if they truly didn’t know that it had not been Cersei. So that he couldn’t tell the Lannisters about the alliance between their two houses.

But then, that didn’t explain why Doran had simply sat back and let it happen, Tyrion mused.

Not that he could ask the other man, at the moment, given that he was currently locked up in the Water Gardens. He wondered if he’d been locked away, even then, by his own daughter.

“Ellaria took that as proof that they couldn’t be trusted,” Tyene went on, her voice softer, now. She didn’t seem at all worried about anyone overhearing them here in the open hall, either, which made Tyrion wonder how many people actually knew, at this point.

Gods, he’d been such a fool, keeping Myrcella here for as long as he had. He should have figured out a way to get her out of here, however impulsive and dangerous it might have been, the first night he’d arrived.

That was what Jaime would have done.

And he’d only come back here because he felt he owed it to Jaime, to Jaime’s children.

“She’s always been…stubborn, about things like loyalty,” Tyene said, as if she were far removed from the situation, herself.

Tyrion stared at her, blinking rapidly, still trying to wrap his head around the rest of this. “Varys…”

Varys had been involved in this plot. For all Tyrion knew, it had been his idea to bring two houses who were famous for loathing each other together, for it.

And he’d gone along with the Tyrells, when they had turned on the Martells. Over Sansa.

For whatever reason, he hadn’t wanted Oberyn taking her, either, enough to sacrifice a perfectly good alliance and a Martell Prince over it.

Gods, Tyrion was even starting to believe her.

“He used poison,” Tyene said, shrugging a shoulder again. “Perhaps he knew that my father would want to fight the Mountain and had already conceded his death, I know not. Or perhaps he knew that an alliance between House Martell and House Tyrell would always be doomed to failure, so he tried to…speed it up a little.” She shook her head. “In which case, I don’t understand why he might have joined it.”

Tyrion took a deep breath, swallowing hard. Who ever knew what the Spider’s plans were, after all?

“All this time,” he breathed, finally, “and I was convinced that Cersei had done it, that the Tyrells might have retaliated by killing Tywin and framed Oberyn because they disliked him, but that Oberyn also might have managed it, himself. I…”

But that wasn’t true, either.

Because he’d heard from Shae what she had done, too. Her own involvement, her own sin, in all of this, in helping to kill his father because he had found out about her and Tyrion, because he was trying to use it against them, was trying to use Shae to spy on Sansa, and on Tyrion, both. Because she thought Tywin suspected Margaery and Sansa’s relationship, too…

But that was the truth about Cersei; he had believed she’d killed Willas, from the start.

And he had heard the things that Sansa had accused Oberyn of. Had known she did not admit those things, did not condemn a man to death, of her own free will, not after what had happened to her father.

“Perhaps you’ve been wrong, all this time,” Tyene informed Tyrion, with a slow, cold smile that stretched unnaturally over her lips. “Perhaps your sister isn’t the monster you thought she was.”

He lifted his chin, seemingly broken free from his thoughts. “When Margaery Tyrell was here…” he chewed on his lower lip, still trying to figure out what it was he wanted to ask. “Did she suspect, even for an instant, what had been done to her brother? The truth about…who had done it?”

Because if she had, he saw no reason for her to have agreed to team up with the Martells, either, whatever her ambitions. He had seen how furious she had been about her brother, when she had done whatever it was she had done to force Sansa to testify against him.

She may think herself an ambitious little thing, but he thought he knew her well enough, at this point. She would never have agreed to that.

Unless, of course, she’d thought it was that or her own death…She was, after all, quite the survivor.

She’d survived his nephew, after all.

Tyene scowled. “Of course not,” she said. “Do you really think that headstrong flower would have agreed to do anything with us, if we hadn’t made sure she had a reason to?”

Tyrion stared at her. “Ellaria Sand is in prison now,” he said, slowly. “I thought that she had been imprisoned long before Arianne Martell.”

Tyene pressed her lips together. “She was imprisoned alongside Arianne’s father, when she refused to take Arianne’s side in the war we all knew was to come,” she informed Tyrion, shrugging slightly. “She’d already ordered the assassination by then, of course.”

Tyrion swallowed hard. “Of course,” he said, dully. Then, “And the Tyrells…Sansa…” He shook his head, a wry laugh twisting its way past his lips. “It all seems to come back to her, these days, doesn’t it?”

Tyene shrugged. “I wouldn’t know that as well as her husband,” she muttered, and then met his eyes. “I can get Myrcella to safety, if that’s what you mean. But I can’t do it by myself. Will you listen to what I have to offer, now?”

He lifted a brow. “You’ll have my sellsword, with me,” he said, as if that was enough, when she was clearly intimating she would need more help than that. But after all, she had trusted him quite enough just now, in admitting something that could have turned him against her. He ought to return the favor, if he could. For Myrcella’s sake, if nothing else.

They could deal with the rest of it - dear gods - when Myrcella was safe.

“He’s a…trustworthy man.”

It almost hurt, to admit that, after the way they had parted ways, in Braavos, standing over Shae’s pyre. But he was.

He had come back, after all, when Tyrion could count on no one else in his life to do that.

Just as he had thought he was coming back for Myrcella.

Tyene’s smile was almost sweet. “Oh, I’ll appreciate the help,” she said, “but I didn’t mean him.”

He met her eyes. “Who, then?”

She shook her head. “You won’t like that answer, after what I’ve just told you. But I hope I’ve demonstrated that I can be…an ally, enough for you to trust me in this.”

He waved a hand. He didn’t have time for useless platitudes, after all. “Who is it?” He demanded.

He knew that the Daynes had a great many enemies, in Dorne, just as the Martells did. And he knew that Tyene would be more easily able to sniff them out than he might be.

Her smile was almost wicked, then, even if her eyes were nervous.

“Ellaria’s father, Lord Harmen Uller.” She paused. “Lord of Hellholt. He’s the only one who can help Myrcella, now. The only one who will help us stand against Gerold. At least, for now.”

Tyrion choked. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, slowly, “but he’s no great love for Lannisters, or for the Iron Throne.”

He’d almost expected her to say the Yronwoods, though he knew that they had little love for Lannisters, as so few did, either.

“Yes,” Tyene agreed, “But he’s also got the men to stand against the Daynes. And, he hates everyone equally enough, which means he hates Gerold Dayne. And he especially hates that a Dayne is sitting as regent in Dorne, believe me. And Gerold wants to declare a Lannister girl our queen.”

She said it as if she was ticking off a list.

Tyrion shook his head, feeling that migraine coming on even further. “This…sounds like a terrible idea,” he admitted, finally.

She snorted. “Do you have a better one?”

He sighed.

* * *

“Arianne,” Mellario whispered, as she came forward, and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Gods, I thought that they would never let me come to see you.”

Arianne was…frankly surprised that Gerold had allowed it at all, unless Obara or Tyene had snuck her mother into this place, instead.

“Mother,” she said, instead of admitting any of that. Besides, she was happy to see the other woman. If nothing else, it was a welcome relief from the time she spent with Ellaria, the other woman always sneering at her from the corner, blaming her for their current situation.

Ha. If only she knew how responsible Arianne was for it.

She would have appreciated it if her husband had not stuck her in a cell with her uncle’s mistress, though.

It was awkward enough, being stuck for long hours in the cell of a woman who had helped to kill Willas Tyrell, evidently, but who had stuck by her uncle’s side when Arianne had staged her coup against him.

Who Doran had been happy to have by his side, when he’d been furious at Arianne for constantly questioning him, even though Arianne had never plotted to kill the leading heir of House Tyrell. As if Arianne had ever done anything as impulsive as killing the heir of a rival house…

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she met her mother’s gaze, and could almost pretend that Ellaria was not awkwardly sitting in the corner of the room, pretending not to be listening in on their conversation.

It was awkward enough trying to sleep in the same room as the other woman.

And she knew that Ellaria and Mellario had a…strained relationship. However loving Ellaria had always been toward Oberyn, however much a true partner, she had seen the way that Mellario and Doran’s strained relationship had affected everyone else in the palace. Arianne knew she had striven ever since then to keep her arguments with Oberyn private.

But she hadn’t uttered a word since Mellario had walked in the room, hadn’t made things awkward the last time Mellario and Arianne had seen each other, either.

Arianne supposed she was grateful to her for that.

There were tears in Mellario’s eyes. And Arianne…Arianne didn’t want her mother crying over her, even though she knew this must be very…unsettling for the other woman.

“How are you?” Mellario asked gently, as she finally pulled back from Arianne, touched her cheek. “Are they…do you have everything you need?”

Arianne forced a smile. “Of course,” she agreed. “My husband…is making sure that I have everything I need.” A bit of bitterness swept into her voice. “He wouldn’t want to be accused of mistreating his wife, after all.”

In the corner, she saw Ellaria roll her eyes.

Arianne lifted her chin. “Mother, you need to go home,” she said, finally, reaching out and removing Mellario’s hand from her cheek. “Please. You shouldn’t be here.”

Mellario shook her head. “I’m not…I’m not leaving you here, Arianne,” she said, gently, and Arianne closed her eyes. “I can’t. Not when I…”

Arianne raised her hand. “Mother, there are things going on here that you don’t understand,” she said, softly.

Mellario flinched. Then, “then explain it to me, Arianne."

Arianne shook her head. "Mother, there is..."

"If you won't explain it to me," Mellario went on, coolly, "Then why would you even invite me here? Why let me stay when you clearly don't want me to help you?”

Arianne stiffened. “I…” She shook her head, brows furrowing. “Mother, I didn’t invite you here.”

Mellario’s face, finally, softened, but Arianne realized a moment later that the other woman didn’t believe her.

“Arianne, my dear girl,” she said, and reached out to her. Arianne flinched back, glaring. Mellario let out a long sigh. “Of course you did. I only came when you sent me that invitation. I thought…” she shook her head. “I thought that you wanted me to be here to see your success.”

Arianne shook her head, backing up a step. “Mother, I…”

Ellaria cleared her throat, then. “Perhaps there was a misunderstanding,” she said. “Perhaps someone else sent the letter to get you here.”

They both turned to look at her.

“But…” Arianne bit her lower lip. “Who would have…”

Mellario went very pale, then.

“Mother?” She asked, turning back to the other woman, ignoring Ellaria, for the moment.

“There is something else that you should know,” Mellario went on, into the silence that followed.

Arianne laughed. “Oh?” She asked. “Mother, I don’t think…”

Mellario sighed. “It’s about your brother’s death, and about this Targaryen boy in the Stormlands.”

Arianne stilled; it was all she had left, at the moment, hugging herself because she thought that if her mother tried, she might attack the other woman.

“Quentyn died after he snuck into Daenerys Targaryen’s dragon pit and thought to tame one. All over the East, they say she planned the murder herself, because he dared propose to her. And Aegon? I’ve seen him, Arianne, though I wish to the gods I hadn’t, so I wouldn’t have to contribute to your madness myself. Whatever your plans are, I’ve seen him, and he…he is not your niece’s son. He dyes his hair. Has done so, they say, since he was a boy and his name was something…other.”

Arianne shook her head. “I…I don’t understand,” she said, slowly. “How would you know that?”

Mellario took a deep breath. “Arianne,” she said, gently, “There’s something that you need to know.”


	49. Highgarden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my darlings! I hope you're all staying safe out there.  
> I know a few of you have been wondering what Cersei's up to, these days...

Cersei Lannister screamed, banging her hand against the bars of her cell for the third time in the past hour.

No one came, just as they hadn’t the last few times, either.

They didn’t care, she had realized, after the first day or so, whether she screamed or not, because wherever they had her this time, it was somewhere she couldn’t be heard, either by the guards who came once a day to change her chamber pot or the ones who made sure that there was no escape for her, not when a servant came to help her bathe.

She had bit the serving girl, the last time. No one had shown up in the several days, since then. But Cersei didn’t regret doing so; these Tyrells deserved what they got, as far as she was concerned, for their little bitch of a leader turning them so fully against her, persecuting her like this solely because of her name, because her son was a threat to Margaery’s illegal rule, because she knew the truth about Margaery’s son.

She was in the right here, as far as she was concerned, and the moment she got out of this cell, she was going to shout as much from the rooftops, if that was the only way to ensure that anyone would listen to her.

How dare Olenna Fucking Tyrell lock her up in a Tyrell dungeon, as if she weren’t the Queen Mother of the Seven Kingdoms, as if she didn’t have the right to a fair trial, or a champion to fight for her freedom if they would not do her the courtesy of that. They had not even let her see Olenna, the woman who had unfairly imprisoned her here in the first place, though the woman certainly hadn’t had the courage to face Cersei herself, after kidnapping her here, even if she’d had Kevan’s consent, for whatever reason her mad uncle had given her up to these people, forgetting that their own fucking family came first.

But she had been refused both of those things since her arrival here, unfairly and illegally imprisoned from the moment Tyrell guards had dragged her here without her consent, thrown into a dungeon with the knowledge that Euron Greyjoy had destroyed much of the Rock, if not all of Lannisport, as well, without a shred of knowledge about whether or not her relatives and her men had survived the experience.

Gods, when she made her way out of this situation, she was going to destroy all of these ungrateful traitors. She was going to make them know damn well what it meant to fuck over Cersei Lannister, when she had done them the courtesy of getting them to where they even were today.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, pressing her forehead against the wall of her cage.

If it weren’t for House Lannister, if it weren’t for her son, House Tyrell would hardly be in the position it was now, would hardly be able to take the fucking throne for themselves. And of course, the moment they had the chance, the moment House Lannister was vulnerable, they had shown their true colors.

And now, they had falsely imprisoned her here, had convinced her own uncle to give her up without a fight, had stolen her son from her and were keeping him as a prisoner in King’s Landing, and Cersei knew that her son would not live much longer there, not under their kind protection.

And somehow, worse than all of that, worse than the knowledge that Cersei was being held here against her will, worse than the knowledge that her son was about to follow Joffrey into death, was about to be murdered as he had been, even if not by the same person, was the knowledge that Margaery’s child, this little brat she’d propped up on the Iron Throne, wasn’t even Joffrey’s son.

Was the by-blow of some random person who had been willing to commit treason to fuck that girl, to pass that child off as Joffrey’s, to make him think in the last moments of his life that he was to be a father.

And Cersei would never forgive the Tyrells for what they had done, but she would never forgive Margaery Fucking Tyrell for everything she personally had done against Cersei.

She swallowed hard, pulled her head back from the doorway at the sound of the door opening.

A Tyrell guard, one of the few who had been allowed to interact with her since she had been brought here, stepped into the room, raising a hand when she opened her mouth as if to speak.

“I’m just here to change the chamber pot, Your Grace,” he informed her, and it made Cersei’s teeth grit, for all of these guards who came in and out of her rooms each day, changing her chamber pot, bringing her food, checking that she wasn’t hiding any weapons in her bedding, that they all called her ‘Your Grace,’ as if they gave a damn at all about it.

As if they cared at all that she was the Queen Mother, that they had no right to keep her here.

She swallowed hard, moving back as she’d been snapped at to in the past, as the guard moved across the room, giving her chamber pot a sneer as he picked it up and started back towards the door.

She swallowed hard, knowing that she had little choice here, that her uncle had given her up and stolen the Rock from her, that her brother was up in the North and had no idea she was even missing, that if she was going to get out of here, it was going to be on her own power.

And this particular guard, of the four or so guards who ever did come into her cell, seemed to at least find her more attractive than any of the rest of them. At the very least, he looked at her.

She could use that, if she had to.

For her freedom. To get out of here, to save her son, she would do just about anything, after all.

And, she thought, as she looked him over, she’d certainly done worse things.

“Please,” she said, reaching out to touch the guard’s arm, making him pause on his way to the door.

He looked…strange, she noticed, and it took her a moment to realize what the expression on his face was. She glanced down, and fought back a grimace.

Dear gods, she was the one who had been locked in this little cell for months on an end, and yet this man was acting as if he’d never seen a woman before.

Well, she thought, almost wryly, at least she wouldn’t have to work very hard at this.

Still, she’d been trying with this particular man for what felt like months but was probably more like weeks, and Cersei was exhausted with playing this game.

She wanted to know that she’d managed anything at all, at this point.

And she was running out of time, if she wanted to leave this place before it was too late, before she lost even more to the Tyrells.

He swallowed hard. “Your Grace…” he began, but she cut him off, reaching down between his legs.

“Cersei,” she corrected him. “You needn’t call me that,” she shifted her hand slightly, “when it is clear enough that I am not that, here.”

The guard shifted, looked like he might want to move away from her, but didn’t.

That was fine with Cersei; she knew a bit about shame and lust being intertwined, after all.

“Your Grace…” he hesitated, again. “I should…”

But she knew that she already had him.

“Please,” she repeated, as he shifted slightly under her hand, “Please, I need you,” she whispered. “Please. I…every time you come in here, every time, I want…” she licked her lips, forced herself to meet his eyes.

For Tommen.

For the Rock.

To put the Tyrells in their rightful place, after everything they’d done to her.

Compared to all of that, this was nothing. She could do this.

He groaned, under her ministrations. Cersei bit back a smirk, waited until she was sure she had him before she pulled her hand back.

He groaned again, this time in frustration, turning slightly to face her, slamming her up against the wall.

Cersei smirked down at him, as her back hit the wall, as he fumbled with his trousers to free himself.

So. She could still do this, at least.

When it was over, while she thought of Jaime and fantasized that she already had everything she wanted, Jaime’s arms wrapped around her, punishing and brisk, the two of them safe at home in the Rock where the Tyrells would never get to them because the Tyrells had been eradicated, with Tommen and Myrcella down the hall, where they would be safe from all of the wolves baying at the doors, just now.

And the man spreading his seed inside of her, the man panting over her, begging her for release, as if he had forgotten that she was the prisoner and he the guard just now was Jaime, of course.

She closed her eyes, arching her back as she pulled at his hair, as he groaned under her ministrations, as he pleaded so nicely when he had spent weeks pretending to ignore her, though she knew he wasn’t capable of that.

Cersei closed her eyes, and smiled.

“You’re going to deliver a message for me,” Cersei gasped out, as she felt his body spasm beneath her hand. “Aren’t you?”

It wasn’t a question, this time, as it had been the last ten times she’d asked it of this particular guard, chosen specifically for what she knew he would do for her the moment she first saw the lust in his eyes.

“I…” he hesitated, panting, glancing at the doorway nervously.

“Please,” she begged, getting down on her knees before him. “Please, you know as well as I that it is wrong they are keeping me here. They are keeping the Queen Mother from her son, and I beg of you… please, I worry for him. I just want him to know that his,” her hand squeezed a little harder, “that his mother is still thinking of him. The way that we parted…I regret it. I do not want…” She allowed a few tears to wet her eyes. “It would be so kind of you, if only you could send this letter to him for me. Please.”

The guard swallowed thickly.

* * *

Leonette had always so wanted to be a good wife. The sort of wife whom any man was proud to call his own, the kind who was good and compassionate and performed all of her wifely duties as she was meant to.

She hadn’t thought she would fall in love with Garlan quite as much as she had, when she had first been introduced to him. Hadn’t thought she would fall so hard for him, would grow to love his brothers and sister, as well.

She had never grown to love his grandmother, which she knew was a failing on her part, as his wife. In any other family, perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered, but here, it did, and so much. Olenna Tyrell was not just the matriarch of House Tyrell; she was its patriarch in every way that mattered, as well, and Leonette had not realized it until it was too late.

To be fair, apparently, Alerie had not realized it either, and in the beginning, she had been worse than Leonette had ever been, for at least Leonette had known her place from the beginning, considering what family she had come from.

Alerie was a Hightower, and a proud woman at that, and she had not much liked the idea of bowing and scraping before a woman from House Redwyne just so that she could stay in the other woman’s good graces.

She hadn’t realized that Mace was content to let his mother rule their family with her thorns; had thought, apparently, that she might be able to convince him to take on more responsibility himself, as she knew him not to be a fool as many thought he was, and had slowly attempted to manipulate him, though not cruelly, in that direction.

It had not ended well for her; now, she was little more than a figurehead in her own home. No one saw her as the Lady of Highgarden, even if that was technically her name, and Alerie was merely a shadow of the fiery young woman she had been. She could order about the servants as a Lady of the House might, could prepare and plan for parties and gatherings, because that was not the sort of thing Olenna could be bothered with, even if she was to be asked about the monies for used for it, but little else.

She hadn’t raised her children, hadn’t been involved in their education; Olenna had done that, without a word of anger from Mace about it, ensuring that she had grandchildren loyal to her in the same way that Mace had always been loyal to her, even when some began to wonder about the manner of his father’s death.

Leonette did not want to become the next Alerie. Did not want to become irrelevant, both as the future Lady of Highgarden, as she was now slated to be, nor as the mother of her own children.

Yes, she’d given birth to girls, to twins, further muddying the waters of who was to become the next Heir of Highgarden, disappointing House Tyrell, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Garlan, if he were here. He would have loved her no matter what the sex of the children she gave birth to, would have listened to her even when Olenna did not.

Perhaps Olenna would have even hated her less for it had the children been born after Margaery’s own child, but that was hardly Leonette’s fault. It had taken her long enough to have children, as it was.

Leonette had not been allowed to be near her girls, in their earlier days. Since Olenna had left for King’s Landing, she had done what she could to spend time with her children, but with no one else left in Highgarden to step up, it had been left to her to see to the day to day operations of the palace.

Alerie would have done it, she thought, if the woman was not still deeply in mourning for her two dead children.

Leonette swallowed hard.

But Olenna was finally gone, returned to King’s Landing to deal with her wayward granddaughter and with the shambles that the Seven Kingdoms seemed to have fallen into since King Joffrey’s death, and the moment she was gone down the Kingsroad, Leonette had marched into her daughters’ rooms and demanded to see them.

The servants had protested, at first, but they had learned enough from their time under Alerie not to protest too much, especially when Olenna was not here to back up their orders, and had handed the children over.

Leonette had not let the children out of her sight, since. Her girls. Her beautiful, twin girls, and dear gods, they looked so much like their father.

So very Tyrell.

Their names were Tyrell, too; Kaenna and Maelysa.

Leonette had not chosen those names, though she was reasonably sure that Garlan had been told she had. She didn’t know who had; whether it was Olenna, or Alerie, but those were the names her babies had been given.

She swallowed hard, where she sat with them in one of the many parlors of Highgarden, eating as a harpist played in the corner, wishing that her life could always be so simple.

Alerie was sitting across from her, also smiling down at the girls. She’d been allowed more access to them than Leonette, and Leonette knew that was some sort of message from Olenna, that at least, despite Alerie’s past attempts at rebellion, she’d given birth to boys, but neither of them had spoken of that, since Olenna’s departure.

Instead, they were content to spend their time with the children, and to not think about the prisoner that Dickon Tarly had brought here not a few days before. To not think about the game the rest of their family was playing back in King’s Landing, a game that had stolen so many lives before theirs, and that Leonette knew would steal so many lives, after.

Of course, even now their lives were not so simple.

After all, they were here because they were waiting.

Neither of them were comfortable enough to speak; they both knew what they were waiting for, after all, and both had insisted on being present when the delivery was made, but the fact that it was being made at all…well, it spoke volumes towards the fact that King’s Landing was perhaps not as safe as her husband, as Alerie’s husband, had convinced them it both was up until this point.

Leonette let out a shaky breath as the door banged open just then, as one of her girls began to cry at the loud noise which had interrupted her sleep.

Alerie lifted a hand, and the harpist fell silent.

“My ladies,” the serving boy who had caused the commotion said, panting slightly as he came to a screeching halt before the two of them, “he’s here.”

Leonette paused, her hand still running through her daughter’s hair. She exchanged a tense glance with Alerie, and then the two of them both stood, and Leonette could feel the nervous energy bubbling up inside of her.

It took several minutes, but soon enough, the door opened again, and a familiar young woman surrounded by guards walked into the room, cradling a small bundle in her arms that made Alerie gasp, beside Leonette.

Leonette would admit, after hearing that the child was being brought here, that she had not expected Elinor Tyrell to be the one bringing him.

Alerie didn’t waste too much time thinking about that, however, rushing forward and all but scooping the child out of Elinor’s arms. Elinor, with a tired smile, didn’t attempt to fight it, handing over the little bundle silently.

Alerie cooed down at the bundle in her arms, eyes very wide.

The guards left the room then, after escorting Elinor, shutting the door behind them, and Leonette found herself rather relieved that they had this time to themselves, to meet the newest member of their rapidly shrinking family.

“Oh seven,” she breathed, happily, “he’s…beautiful.”

Leonette’s breath caught.

A son.

The message had said there was a son, of course; or rather, it had been implied, in the knowledge that the new King of the Seven Kingdoms was being brought to Highgarden for his own protection.

And yet.

Leonette glanced back at her daughters, swallowing hard.

A son.

She knew that Garlan didn’t care whether it was a son or a daughter, and yet.

And yet, the fact that Margaery, on her very first try, had given birth to a son…

She closed her eyes.

She knew that Margaery had struggled miserably for years, in her marriage to Joffrey, to give birth to a son, and that she should not be jealous of the other woman for finally giving birth to that child and freeing herself from her husband for good with that birth, for that was what it seemed had happened to her, but still, Leonette’s heart ached, a little.

There was something ironic about the fact that Leonette’s babies had been separated from her because they were girls, and Margaery’s son had been taken from her.

“Oh,” Alerie murmured again, totally lost to the turmoil rising up inside of Leonette, “what a sweet boy.”

Leonette moved closer, not sure why she suddenly felt so nervous as she peered over Alerie’s shoulder at the small child in her arms.

Not a child, she reminded herself, remembering why she felt so nervous, but a king.

Alerie was right; the child was beautiful, just as Margaery had always been beautiful, just as her wicked husband had been beautiful, despite the drawbacks of his personality.

There was a tuft of chestnut hair peeking out of the blanket Alerie was holding, his little fists wrapping around the edges of that blanket, eyes squeezed shut.

Leonette had never met the Tyrell children when they were small, but she had a funny feeling that the child in Alerie’s arms looked exactly like Willas might have, as a babe. Or, perhaps, what Margaery would have looked like.

She swallowed hard.

“What’s his name?” Alerie asked Elinor, shifting slightly so that Leonette could get a better look at the child, and it made Leonette’s heart hurt a little, that they didn’t even know the name of the child, with the note that had foretold his arrival.

Elinor flinched, perhaps realizing that she should not be the one introducing the child, after all.

“Nikoelas,” she said, very quietly. “I…I believe that Margaery chose the name, herself.”

“Nikoelas,” Alerie breathed, and the glance she sent Elinor’s way was less than pleased, though, in this moment, Leonette could not quite understand why. “A Tyrell name.”

Ah. Alerie thought that the name Margaery chose for her child should have been more Baratheon, even if it was clear her husband had not been, to help solidify his legitimacy, she supposed.

And it made sense, but Leonette still thought Nikoelas was a perfect name, for the child in Alerie’s arms.

Elinor shifted uneasily. “I…she was very firm, about the name,” she said, softly, and Leonette flinched slightly, sure she did not want to think too hard about why that was.

About whether Margaery had chosen the name on purpose, because the child did not have a shred of Baratheon, or Lannister, in him, but Leonette had always known Margaery to be a smart woman; she could not imagine her doing such a thing.

“Hello, Nikoelas,” Leonette said, smiling down at the child in Alerie’s arms. She bent her head down, kissing his forehead. “You look so like your mother.”

And he did; he had her chestnut hair and her wide, hazel eyes, Leonette thought, not the blonde hair and green eyes of his father, her dimpled cheeks and rosy skin.

He was beautiful, she thought. All the more for the fact that he did not resemble a Lannister too well.

Or a Baratheon.

Alerie sniffed, then. “I…he is beautiful,” she said, softly. Then, “We have rooms prepared for him, near Margaery’s old rooms, here.”

Again, a flinch from Elinor.

“I…all right,” she allowed. Then, “I’ll hand him over to you, then. I know that my husband and…and Willas have already gone to rest, since my arrival here. I’m sure they’ll be missing me, soon.”

Leonette sucked in a breath.

Willas.

She had forgotten that Elinor had named her child after Willas.

She also wondered how Elinor had ended up being the one to bring Nikoelas to Highgarden in the first place. She had never known the girl to want to leave Margaery for long, husband or no husband.

She opened her mouth as if to ask just that, but something in her expression had already caused Alerie’s own face to close, had already killed a little of the light in her eyes, as she had been staring down at her first grandson.

Alerie swallowed thickly. “Margaery didn’t want her son sent here, did she?” She asked, quietly, and Elinor tensed. “That’s why you were the one to bring him here.”

Another flinch, from Elinor.

“I…” a harsh breath. “Olenna thought that it would be best if the child was brought here, for his own protection,” she whispered, which was not quite an answer, and yet one, all the same.

Leonette sucked in a breath.

Of course.

Of course Margaery had not wanted her child brought here, where she could not keep him safe herself, where she could not physically see him, when she had never professed much faith in her own mother.

Of course Olenna had stolen yet another grandchild away from his mother.

Alerie cleared her throat, and Leonette suddenly found a small babe thrust into her arms.

“I…I need to go,” Alerie all but blurted out, taking a step back. “I should…It seems that it has been a long day, for me. I should go.”

She all but fled the room.

Leonette swallowed hard, staring down at the small bundle in her arms, slightly surprised by how small he felt, though her own girls had been just as tiny in her arms, the first time.

Nikoelas.

Even if it was true, that Margaery had not wanted him brought here at all, she vowed to herself, she would do whatever it took to keep this child safe.

Elinor leaned forward, touching the babe’s cheek. “it is a cruel thing,” she whispered, obviously hesitant to wake the child. “For them to do this to Margaery, to take her child away like this.”

Leonette stiffened. Elinor had been some time in King’s Landing, after all, and she did not know some of the things that had gone on here, while she was gone. She did not know what Elinor thought she was doing, speaking out like that.

Even in Olenna’s absence, her presence was felt here, everywhere.

But Alerie was already gone; she supposed Elinor felt safer to speak about it, because of that. She knew, after all, that Leonette’s own relationship with the rest of the Tyrells, or at the very least with the heads of this House, were rather strained.

Still, Leonette sent her a warning glance.

Elinor licked her lips. “I stole him,” she whispered, and Leonette’s head shot up. “Olenna had me take him out of Sansa’s arms, just moments after he entered this world. I…”

And Leonette could see what Alerie must have seen, moments ago; the guilt in Elinor’s eyes, as she stared down at Nikoelas.

“I would do anything for them,” Elinor whispered, and Leonette didn’t know if she was speaking of Margaery and Olenna, or Margaery and Nikoelas, and her heart clenched a little, “but I…I am so glad, that Olenna allowed me to come home with him, so that I did not have to meet Margaery’s gaze again, after that.”

Leonette grimaced. “She didn’t even…do you mean to tell me that she didn’t even know you were taking him?”

That sounded…Gods, at least she had been warned about her daughters, about Olenna’s extensive plans for them.

She couldn’t imagine waking up after giving birth and finding that her children had been taken to the other side of the Seven Kingdoms from her.

Elinor flinched. “I…” And now, she woudln’t meet Leonette’s eyes, either.

Leonette took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she stared down at the child in her arms. A child who had probably been allowed to see his mother for a few scant moments before he was ripped away from her, if the things she was hearing about the recent attacks on King’s Landing were true.

King’s Landing, where all of those damned Tyrells insisted on staying, despite the fact that it had never brought them anything good, despite the fact that it only seemed to be picking each of them off one by one.

And her husband was still there. Her husband was still there, and Margaery was still there, but Olenna had seen to it that the new King was not.

Leonette swallowed hard, forced a smile for he child in her arms, though he was sound asleep.

“Go and get some rest, Elinor,” she told the other woman. “I can look after him from here.”

Elinor sagged a little, where she stood. Leonette could tell that she had come directly here, from the Roseroad, and that she was probably exhausted, so she would have been touched, under other circumstances, that Elinor had insisted on coming here, next.

Would have been, if not for the fact that Elinor had just all but admitted that Olenna had helped kidnap this child, that Leonette was now one other person who was keeping this child from his mother. From a woman that Leonette may not have known or liked particularly well, but who still didn’t deserve to have her son stolen from her like that, even if it had been for his own protection.

Nervously, she glanced over at her girls, where they lay in their crib in the corner of the room, having been brought there earlier so that Alerie and Leonette could sit with them.

She sighed again, moving over to their cribs with the small child in her arms.

Kaenna let out a small cry, waking as Leonette neared her.

“Hello, my darlings,” she said, smiling at them as she reached out to touch their heads, knowing they would not understand her words any more than the babe in her arms did, “Meet your cousin, Nikoelas.”

* * *

Elinor took a deep breath, as she sat back down in the bed she had left so long ago, to go back to King’s Landing.

At the time, she had not wanted to be in Highgarden. Had hated the thought that she was stuck here, under Olenna’s thumb, because Margaery was supposedly dead and her husband was now possibly dead as well, in King’s Landing.

She closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply.

Gods, this place had not felt quite so much like home in years, the years since she had come here to be Margaery’s lady in waiting when she married Renly.

It had not felt like a home, when Olenna had been back here, when all of the Tyrells had gathered here, mourning Margaery’s death, and Elinor could see Margaery’s shadow on every corner.

It felt like home now, without Olenna or Margaery here.

She bit back a sigh.

She knew that Margaery had made the choice to remain in King’s Landing, to name her son the King of the Seven Kingdoms when she could have fled to Highgarden after Joffrey’s death, no matter what her state of mind had been at the time she had made that decision, but dear gods, Elinor wished that Mace Tyrell had bundled his daughter up and dragged her back to Highgarden for her own protection, when that had happened.

If he had, Elinor thought that perhaps everything would feel…better. Happier.

Safer.

Elinor would not have had to kidnap Margaery’s son straight out of her poor cousin’s bedchambers, and dragged him off without a word to her, without even a goodbye.

If Elinor could have just come home with her husband months ago, the guilt now weighing down on her chest wouldn’t exist. She wouldn’t have spent the entire journey here from King’s Landing wondering if she would ever gain back Margaery or Sansa’s forgiveness, fully believing that she didn’t deserve either, at this point.

Gods, this was all such a fuck up.

Years ago, when she had been both Margaery’s beloved cousin and her lady in waiting, she never would have imagined something like this. Never would have imagined that she would become Olenna’s creature, that she would have betrayed Margaery in such a way.

And yes, she knew that Olenna had a certain amount of justification for her actions; just a little while after Elinor had stolen the child from a city besieged by Dornishmen, after all, Euron Greyjoy had apparently attacked them, as well.

And Elinor’s heart ached for her friend, that she had to deal with all of that also in the knowledge that she could no longer trust members of her own family, but at least the guilt weighing down on her shoulders had been a little less crushing, knowing that.

Not much, but a little.

She closed her eyes.

A moment later, she heard a knock on the door, and Elinor’s eyes flew open.

She forced a smile, as she had been forcing smiles from the moment Olenna had made her agree to this in the first place, as her husband stepped hesitantly into the room.

“Do you want me to go?” He asked, still hesitant; she appreciated that, she really did, and she thought that the smile she gave him then might actually be genuine.

He reached out his hand, and Elinor took it, giving him a small smile as he led her toward the door. She squinted at him in confusion as they stepped out.

“Where are we…”

He opened the door next to hers, and Elinor’s breath caught as she realized that his own chambers were right next to hers.

“Did Leonette decide this?” She asked, and then shook her head, realizing that there was no way her husband would know the answer to that.

There was a crib sitting in the corner of the room, where Elinor realized Alyn had already brought Willas, while she was busy delivering Nikoelas to Leonette.

Well, she had meant to deliver the child to Alerie, but Alerie…Alerie was better at reading Elinor than Leonette had been.

Well, she always had been good at reading Elinor. Had understood her long before Elinor had been Margaery’s lady in waiting as a queen, had known how Elinor felt about Margaery before Elinor herself even understood those feelings.

That was the thing that Margaery had always underestimated about her own mother; Margaery may have felt that her mother was neglectful at worst and simply indifferent to all of Olenna’s ministrations at best, that the other woman cared more about her boys than her girl and even then, only in the broadest of terms, but Elinor didn’t see that.

Not with the way that Alerie used to stare across the dining hall at her daughter, as if she were trying desperately to figure her out but was coming woefully short, not with the way that Alerie had all but begged Elinor to keep Margaery out of trouble, when it had first been decided that she would marry Renly.

As if she had known that Margaery would be less than happy in that marriage, and was just trying to keep her from being miserable. And the way she’d said it, the way she’d looked at Elinor, as if she’d known how Elinor was going to do just that, how she was going to keep Margaery from trouble…

Elinor let her breath out slowly.

She knew that it had killed Alerie, the way it was no doubt killing Margaery just now, to be so separated from her child throughout the girl’s life.

She knew that it was common enough, had happened in her own family, even, for noble children to be fostered, for them to spend much of their adolescence away from their parents’ sides, and a part of her had used that justification for the fact that she had taken Margaery’s child, even if it wasn’t the same situation at all, and yet…

And yet, still, she remembered the way that Alerie had always looked, knowing that she would never have a real relationship with her child, whether she had wanted things that way at first, or not.

She took a deep breath, as she all but sagged against her husband’s bed, wondering why Leonette, or Alerie, or whoever it had been, had given them separate bedchambers, now that they were actually wed.

She glanced over at her husband, at the sweat on his brow, at the strain on his features, as he slowly sat down beside her.

He would never be a fighter again, but at least he was not the cripple that the Tyrells seemed to think him to be, these days.

Alyn gave her a small smile, where he sat beside her, as Willas started to cry, from his crib.

Elinor gave her husband a small, understanding smile before she got to her feet and walked over to the crib, picked Willas up and carried him back to the bed where her husband sat.

Alyn gave their child a look that was a cross between amusement and impatience as Elinor pulled down the front of her gown and started to feed him, tried not to think of how painful her breasts had been in the first days after her pregnancy, tried not to think about how that would be a constant reminder, perhaps, for Margaery…

She had to stop thinking about Margaery.

She didn’t think she could.

Alyn, clearly knowing something was wrong, reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “What is it?” He murmured. “Are your rooms…”

“They’re fine,” she whispered, hoarsely, not meeting her husband’s eyes, keeping her attention totally focused on the child in her arms. “I took Nikoelas to Leonette. She seemed…he’ll be all right.”

She was sure of that.

He had to be.

After all, she didn’t think she had the constitution to care for both children, while she was here, even if it was her fault that Nikoelas was here without a mother to care for him.

Hers, at least, and not Nikoelas as well, though her swollen breasts had gotten used to his need, as well.

She’d been feeding Nikoelas from her own breasts as well, on the journey here, trying to keep both children fed a rather exhausting experience in itself, not to mention while one was traveling on horseback.

It felt nice, today, to not have to do that.

She swallowed hard, took a deep breath.

Queens didn’t normally spend much time with their children in those first few years, after all. Wet nurses were always brought in to care for the child, so that the Queen could attend to her husband for the most part, as she should. Septas and servants, too, to make sure that the child was never alone while his mother was attending to the duties of the Crown.

And as his Regent, she doubted that Margaery would have had much time to see her child, anyway.

She glanced around this fine room, the room that Nikoelas’ kidnapping had finally bought for them, and wondered if it would be enough.

“Did we do the right thing?” Elinor whispered before she’d made up her mind not to ask it, staring down at Willas in her arms.

When her husband didn’t answer, she lifted her head. “What is it?” She whispered, not liking the considering look on his face.

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I…”

Elinor’s heart sank.

“He’s a beautiful child,” her husband said, finally. “I…I don’t think that he would have been safe, in King’s Landing, like Lady Olenna said. I think…I think that you did the right thing.”

Elinor sniffed, shifting Willas in her arms. “We won’t be here much longer, anyway,” she promised him, though Alyn seemed confused about the sudden shift in topic. “We’ll go back to your home to raise our son, and Nikoelas will be safe here.”

“I just…” Alyn licked his lips, glancing down at the little bundle in her arms in lieu of Elinor now, and for that she felt relief. “Already, I would die for Willas. I can’t imagine giving him up, though.”

Elinor felt her heart stop, for the barest moment. Then, “You didn’t say anything on the road.”

He reached out then, wrapping one hand around the bundle in her arms, and the other tilting up Elinor’s chin, so that she was forced to meet his eyes.

She swallowed hard.

“Olenna isn’t here, Elinor,” he promised her, quietly. “She isn’t here, and from the way things are going in King’s Landing, perhaps she will never give you orders again.”

Elinor’s breath caught.

“I think that’s what’s important, just now,” he went on, and Elinor swallowed hard, pulling her child back, not meeting her husband’s gaze, anymore.

“I…I need to go for a walk,” she said, sniffing. “Ch-Check on everything, how things have changed, since we were last here.”

She passed the child off into his arms, and Alyn stiffened. “Elinor…”

She kissed Willas’ forehead. “I’ll be back soon. You should get some rest. It was…it was a long journey, to get here, and I know you must be tired.”

Elinor certainly was, but she didn’t want to rest here, suddenly. She felt suddenly, despite their long journey, terribly restless.

Alyn let out a soft sigh, shifting to take Willas a little better into his arms, and Elinor could feel his concerned gaze on her back, as she left the room and walked out into the hall, ignored the guards and the servants that she passed as she walked, as she made her way to Margaery’s bedchambers and paused, outside of them, having not even realized this was the direction she was walking in until she made it here.

She swallowed hard.

Gods, everything had gotten so complicated. She could remember a time when her biggest concern was whether or not Garlan Tyrell, with his big mouth, was going to walk in on her and Margaery while they were…

She swallowed.

And now, she had potentially destroyed whatever friendship she still had left with Margaery with this latest betrayal, even if she had been just trying to keep the child safe.

“My lady?” A voice called, and she turned slightly where she stood, found herself facing a rather disheveled looking guard.

She cleared her throat. “I…Yes? What is it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing, my lady. Only…you looked…are you all right?”

Gods, she was getting tired of people asking her that. She didn’t know if anyone was asking Margaery that, these days. Her ladies all seemed to live in fear of offending her, these days, and Sansa…sometimes, Elinor wondered if Sansa paid nearly half as much attention to Margaery’s strange moods as Elinor did.

“I’m fine,” she gritted out, annoyed, though not with him. She cleared her throat again. “On your way, soldier.”

He pressed his lips together, and then kept walking, and Elinor’s eyes narrowed as she followed him with her gaze.

He was holding a letter in his hand, crumpled, slightly, passing it between both hands now, as she paid attention to it.

“Love letter?” She asked, into the silence, and he paused again, looked terribly guilty. Cleared his throat, and now he was the one who looked annoyed with her.

“I…” he shook his head, and she realized it wasn’t annoyance then, but something…other.

Something painfully familiar, these days.

“Not from me,” he said, finally, eyes shifting over her, and oh, now he was flirting, Elinor realized.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Oh?” She asked. “Does Leonette have some other lover we don’t know about, and she’s having you deliver her secret correspondence?”

He flushed. “I…It’s not like that,” he said, and that, at the very least, piqued Elinor’s attention.

Perhaps her husband was right, and she truly had been spending too much time spying for Olenna Tyrell, these days.

“Give it,” she said, and he blinked at her.

“I…can’t,” he said, finally.

Elinor lifted a brow. “Fine, then,” she said, coolly, “We’ll just take it to the Lady of Highgarden, and see what she has to say about whatever it is you’re trying to hide from me.”

He went very pale, then. “It’s just…correspondence. But it’s private,” he said guiltily, but she could see him sweating now, could tell that he was lying to her.

She lifted her chin. “Well, I’m good at keeping secrets.” She held her hand out, expectantly.

He sighed, handing it over, perhaps realizing that whatever was within the letter wasn’t worth the effort of fighting with her over it, or going before Alerie.

Elinor had known he would; she had used that particular threat often enough. It was far more effective when threatening to take such letters before the Queen, or before the Queen of Thorns, but clearly this man was a rather lowly guard.

By the time she had opened the letter and read its first sentence, she found herself wondering why the guard had given it to her at all.

Elinor went very pale, as her eyes scanned over the letter, before she lifted her eyes to the guard’s.

“Did you read this?” She demanded, and was ashamed to admit that her voice was shaking - from fury, she told herself.

Not from fear.

He ought to be the one shaking from fear though, the absolute idiot.

She closed her eyes, breathing in a deep breath, and then opened them once more. “Have you read this?” She demanded again, a bit more bite bleeding into her tone.

The guard flinched. “I…No, my lady,” he offered, lamely. “She said…She said she just…she had the right to ask for help, my lady. She is a noblewoman, and the mother of a king. She is right that she has the right to ask for someone to represent her, not to be illegally imprisoned like this…”

Elinor slapped him. “You stupid fool,” she murmured, as he finally lifted his head once more, hand cradling his cheek. “You have no idea what this said?”

Face red, he shook his head. “No, my lady. I swear. She told me what she was writing, but I was going to go back to my chambers to read it…”

Elinor tutted. “Then you’re an idiot, but at least you’re not a dead traitor,” she muttered, “like you would be if you had any idea what this really said.”

He went very pale, then. “But…what does it say?” He asked, slowly.

Elinor rolled her eyes, turning on her heel and marching on her way.

She didn’t get very far before he grabbed her by the arm, twisting her around to face him.

Gods, what she wouldn’t have given to go straight to Alyn’s childhood home, rather than stopping here. She licked her lips, as she was spun around to face the guard, as he all but shoved her into the wall.

“Get your hands off of me,” she snapped at him, lifting her chin, the exhaustion from the day making the bite in her tone a bit firmer, if anything.

He glared at her. “I can’t let you tell on me about that letter,” he said, coldly. “I can’t…There’s a war going on, you know. I’m not…”

A traitor.

She lifted a brow. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have taken a letter for an enemy of House Tyrell,” she told him, primly, and grimaced slightly when he all but slammed her into the wall.

“You won’t say a word,” he said again, as her teeth rattled.

Elinor glared at him. “Get your hands off of me this instant, you fucking coward,” she hissed out, “before I have you arrested for assaulting a noblewoman, next.”

* * *

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Cersei demanded, as Elinor stepped nimbly into her cell, and Elinor’s nose wrinkled at the smell that accompanied the cell.

Somewhere between stale piss and sex, it was hardly an appealing place to fuck, as she was now gathering the guard and Cersei had done.

Perhaps Cersei’s options had been rather limited, Elinor supposed, though she was sure that there were more attractive guards in Highgarden, the last time she was here.

After a moment of silence, as Cersei got up from her spot in the corner, hair greasy, dress torn, Cersei squinted at her. “Wait, I recognize you. One of Margaery’s girls.” Her lips curled into a sneer, despite the fact that Elinor could see just how tense Cersei was, stuck down here. She could imagine this place was a rather difficult one to call home, over the amount of time she’d been locked in here.

And dear gods, Elinor had not even realized, just as she doubted Margaery or much of the Small Council had realized it, that Cersei was even imprisoned in Highgarden, rather than back in the Rock, plotting Margaery’s demise.

She could understand why Olenna had not told anyone in King’s Landing, especially after Mace had made such a big show of letting Cersei go and appearing to be the better man, but still, Elinor thought it rather cruel, to have kept her all of this time and not let Margaery know that she was at least safe from the other woman.

Crueler than tearing a mother and child apart without letting them say goodbye? Elinor thought, and grimly shook the thought away.

“Come to gloat?” Cersei asked, Elinor’s silence clearly making her nervous, despite her best attempts to hide it.

Elinor swallowed hard. “I…No,” she said, feeling a bit sick that she was here at all, suddenly.

Gods, she hadn’t come here to gloat, even if a part of her wanted to.

Now that she saw Cersei down here, dirty from weeks of captivity and fucking guards just to get them to pass messages for her…gods, she didn’t want to admit that she pitied the other woman, especially this woman, but…

Cersei just kept squinting at her, shifted her legs a little bit, opening them. Elinor looked away and down.

Cersei sounded amused, when she next spoke, as if she knew that minor pitied her and didn’t quite want to, either. “What, then?” She demanded.

She sounded…defeated, and, even though Elinor had been there for most of Cersei’s machinations, had seen what the other woman was capable of the moment anyone gave her a shred of courtesy, Elinor couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity for the other woman, in her current, pitiable state.

After all, she knew what it was like to be bested by Olenna Tyrell.

Elinor took a deep breath.

“I saw the letter,” she said, and was slightly gratified by the way that Cersei flinched, at her words, reminded herself that this woman had done her level best to foil all of Margaery’s plans, since her friend had married Joffrey, had locked away Megga and Rosamund without a second’s thought, and didn’t deserve a speck of Elinor’s pity. “The one that you were trying to get to your…loyal friends, in the Westerlands.”

Elinor had her doubts about how many of those Cersei had left.

Cersei lifted her chin, and Elinor could see the light, the relief, dying in her eyes. She wanted to find pleasure out of that. She couldn’t.

“I see,” Cersei said, slowly. “And now you truly have come to gloat.”

Elinor shook her head. “I…” she took a deep breath. “You’ve hurt so many friends of mine. Hurt them…” she closed her eyes, thinking of Rosamund, of the girl that she had once been, before Cersei had gotten her hands on her. So full of life, so happy. Contrasted with the girl she had been after she left the Black Cells, Elinor could not even recognize her. “Irreparably.”

She thought of Margaery, of the way she had been after Cersei’s man had raped her, after sh had lied about it in order to hang onto a husband who didn’t appreciate weakness in a wife.

She thought of Megga, also imprisoned in the Black Cells who, the last Elinor had seen her, was always trying so hard to pretend that she was fine, that she hadn’t been affected by her time there, when Elinor could see so clearly how it had, all the same.

Cersei lifted her chin. “Fine, then,” she snapped. “Go run to your little queen and let her know what I’ve done, my little treason. Make sure you mention, of course, that she’s keeping me here illegally, and that-”

“I’m not letting you get that letter to the Westerlands,” Elinor interrupted her, and Cersei gritted her teeth. “But I will send the one you meant them to send to your son.”

Cersei gaped at her for several moments, and when she did manage to recover her voice, she still sounded shocked. “You’re…what?”

Elinor swallowed hard, trying to convince herself that she hadn’t just made a terrible mistake, despite her next words.

“I know what it is to make a mistake,” she breathed, not quite able to meet Cersei’s eyes. “And gods forbid that I prevent even someone like you from trying to fix that.”

Not when she had spent so long, had worked so hard lately, trying to fix her own mistakes. Trying to redeem herself. To Margaery.

She took a deep breath. “So I’ll take the letter,” she went on, “because for once, I truly think you believe everything that you wrote in it.”

Cersei stared at her. “I…thank you,” she breathed. She got to her feet, reached out toward Elinor, but paused when Elinor flinched back from her, hands falling back down to her sides. “Thank you,” she whispered, again, hoarsely. “I swear to you, I…I won’t forget this.”

And later, when Cersei’s retribution did come, she kept that promise.


	50. Dragonstone

“You’re beautiful,” Aegon said, as he ran his hand down Maela’s arm.

She shuddered, stuck in a post sex haze where she lay tangled around his legs in the bed, sending him a small smile as she twisted in the bed to face him.

“Am I?” She asked, licking her lips. “So are you, Your Grace.”

He flushed, having never quite been called ‘beautiful,’ before. He wasn’t sure that he liked it.

He forced a smile, anyway. “I wish we could stay like this forever,” he said, and was surprised by how much he meant it, surprised by the lack of guilt that he felt for even saying it.

He knew why he ought to feel guilty, knew that was the thing hanging over his head for so much of life, could hear Jon Connington’s disapproving tone as he spoke of Rhaegar and Elia, of how good of a wife she had been, of Lyanna Stark and the way that she had corrupted Rhaegar, how he had left a wife and two children with a madman to be with her.

He closed his eyes, licked his lips, suddenly feeling very much like he didn’t want to be there anymore, despite his words a moment ago to Maela.

“I…” he half sat up, struggling to find an excuse to get away from her that wouldn’t make him sound like a naive fool.

After all, he was not a married prince, and she was not Lyanna Stark.

With his hesitation, Maela seemed to take the aborted movement as an excuse to continue kissing him, running her lips up and down his shoulder blade, and Aegon bit back a sigh as he settled back into the bed with her.

Because dear gods, it was so much simpler to sit here with her, to be with her, than to think about the shitshow outside the doors of a room Stannis Baratheon had once claimed as his own.

While he was still here, he could pretend that everything was fine. That they had taken Dragonstone with ease, while successfully keeping Storm’s End, and that he was the true King of the Seven Kingdoms, without having to fight half a dozen armies to keep that position. He could think about the fact that objectively, things were going fairly well, here. He had thought things would be worse…bloodier, from the moment he stepped foot on Westerosi soil.

But they hadn’t.

And he didn’t hate being a king, either. In fact, though he was truly only ruling one castle at a time, Aegon didn’t think he was half bad at it.

Jon’s grip on him might be slightly stifling, but Jon was like a father to him, and he didn’t resent the other man’s attempts to protect him. He did find it concerning, wondering when Jon would ever see him as a true king, but he knew why the other man was so protective of him.

Had known the answer to that ever since he had first asked Jon about his father, about the man he had served so diligently.

And yes, they had managed to take Dragonstone, though the little effort it had taken almost made Aegon feel like a fool. He had wondered with Jon had agreed so readily to let him come and fight in the battle, when Jon had always been so protective of him, and now he knew.

Because the Tyrells had been far too distracted with…the new little usurper to bother with Dragonstone when they realized that the Golden Company was going after it.

And he also didn’t appreciate the fact that somewhere along the way, he seemed to have lost the respect of the Golden Company. He didn’t know if that was because he was not as decisive a leader as they wanted, though it was not as if Jon disagreed too strongly with his feelings on the matter, or simply that this was taking longer than they had anticipated, but he could feel them slipping through his fingers, recently, and he was going to have to do what he could to keep them.

To keep Ser Harry.

It felt like a hollow victory, knowing that was the case.

He bit back a sigh as Maela sucked on that spot between shoulder blade and neck that always made him moan. She let out a tinkling laugh, and slid down the bed to meet him, and for a moment, Aegon forgot about the fact that he had a Small Council meeting today, that he knew exactly what Harry and Jon were going to pressure him into, during that meeting.

And that he had a terrible feeling that it would not take as much convincing as he feared.

After all, he was going to have to deal with the Usurpers eventually, and it was naive to think that there would be so little bloodshed forever.

Maela’s thoughts were clearly on other matters, as she let the sheets drop from around her and applied herself to her new task with vigor.

“You know, there is something…infinitely enticing about fucking Your Grace in a place where Dragons once lived,” she told him, with a small smile, as she reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes.

Aegon fought back a flush. “I am a Dragon,” he reminded her, but Maela shook her head, reaching out to put a hand on his arm, perhaps realizing that she had offended him.

He didn’t know how much she knew about him, didn’t know if she realized that he had never met his mother and father, that he couldn’t remember them, but Aegon was just as much of a dragon as any of them, he was certain of it.

“Oh, you know that I did not mean that, Your Grace,” she teased him. “I meant…” she licked her lips. “I meant dragons, Your Grace. Real ones.”

Aegon blinked at her. “Real ones,” he echoed, fighting back a smile.

Maela was smiling now, too. “Oh, I know that it has been a long time since dragons lived in Dragonstone, Your Grace,” she said quietly, as she settled back into the bed, “but the idea that dragons once lived here, it’s…I’ve always wanted to see a dragon. To know what they’re like.”

He kissed her. “Well,” he said, a slow grin spreading over his lips, “technically, you…” he started to lift the sheet off of himself, as well, and Maela stared at him a moment, before she swatted at his arm.

“Dear gods, that was awful,” she said, and Aegon couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t mean it, not really.

Maela squinted at him for a moment, before half sitting up in the bed, her expression shuttering.

Aegon felt his stomach drop, and immediately chastised himself for the feeling. “Is something wrong?” He asked her.

Maela shrugged a thin shoulder. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Your Grace,” she reminded him, almost gently, but there was something sad about the way she said it. “I certainly don’t expect it. You are a King.”

Aegon grimaced. “I’ve hurt you,” he said, though, looking back over the last few days, he could not say how he had done so, only that she had seemed more melancholy since they had arrived in Dragonstone.

“No,” she denied instantly, reaching out to place a hand on his chest. “No, not at all, Your Grace, I assure you. It’s just…”

He reached out then, taking her hand in his, kissing it gently. “What is it?” He asked her.

Maela looked down at their entwined fingers. “I am a servant of House Tyrell,” she reminded him, and Aegon’s stomach sunk, not wanting to think about that anymore than he had the first three or so times that Jon had mentioned it to him, “And I…I have family, who serve among them. I wouldn’t…” she shook her head. “I don’t regret,” she gestured between the two of them, “this, but I worry about them, with everything…going on.”

‘Everything going on.’ Aegon thought that was a rather astute way of encompassing recent events.

He grimaced slightly; he didn’t want to think about the fact that she had once been loyal to House Tyrell, that Jon still had doubts about those loyalties, but he also knew what it was to yearn for a family he couldn’t see again.

“What are their names?” He asked her, not entirely sure why he was asking.

After all, it was one thing to promise that he might try to spare them, but he knew as well as any man the way that soldiers got in the heat of battle, especially soldiers like the Golden Company, who had been kept from their spoils for so long.

Jon had warned him of such things, and he had seen it firsthand, himself. He didn’t know why he had asked her; he could not guarantee their safety, and she had to know that as much as Aegon did.

But then again, if she did know that, she wouldn’t answer the question, he thought, almost idly.

“House Lyelle, Your Grace,” she told him, and Aegon felt his stomach sink. “Like I said, we are just a lowly House. I doubt you’ve even heard of us; we’ve only been recently serving House Tyrell, and…”

“And how many members of your family are there?” Aegon asked, and felt something deep in the pit of his stomach growing heavy.

“I…My father, myself, and two younger brothers,” she whispered, hoarsely, clearly realizing the depth of what she was asking for. “That’s all.”

Oh, was it?

He nodded, though. “I see,” he said, and wondered how he was going to go about explaining to Jon that he wanted Maela’s family spared, king or no. Then, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Her face…lit up, for lack of a better word. She beamed at him, moved forward to kiss him on the mouth, a liberty.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she whispered, and kissed him again. “Thank you.”

He waved a hand, gesturing her back. “Your family is important to you,” he said. “And as long as they do not stand with House Tyrell when the time comes, they are…my loyal subjects.”

Her smile seemed slightly more strained now, but still, she smiled.

“Thank you,” she repeated, and he felt his heart sink.

Jon was making sure that she wasn’t sending out any ravens, not to King’s Landing, not anywhere, and certainly not to the Reach.

But she did not seem as worried about her family standing with House Tyrell as a loyal, lowly servant of that House ought to have, he felt.

He felt something cold settle over him.

“At this Small Council meeting,” he said, changing the subject so that he did not have to endure her gratitude, “I think that Jon is going to insist that we act on King’s Landing, finally.”

The small widening of her eyes made him flinch.

She shook her head. “I…I see,” she said. Then, “Why are you telling me this?”

Why, indeed?

“I want you to be my companion for the feast that we have, before we depart,” he told her, and Maela blinked.

She squinted at him. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” She asked.

Aegon shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said, forcing a smile. “I’m tired of hiding you like some dirty secret, when I am the King of the Seven Kingdoms and ought to be able to be with who I wish.”

She blinked at him. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you, Your Grace…”

He shook his head again. “The deal I made with…Jon,” and dear gods, it still felt strange to call him that, “was that I would give you up if we had our meeting with the Tyrells. Now, it doesn’t seem like that will happen…”

She squinted at him. “Like I said,” she repeated, “I don’t want to come between you. You are…I am just a servant, and you are a queen, and Lord Connington is your fiercest ally and advisor…”

“My father ran off with Lyanna Stark rather than honoring his duties to my mother, to my family,” Aegon said, sobering quickly. “She died because he was not in King’s Landing to protect her.”

Maela opened her mouth, and then closed it. “I do know the story, Your Grace,” she told him, almost gently. “If you don’t want to speak of it…”

“Jon thinks that you are a liability for me,” Aegon said, sitting up slightly in bed. “That you will spy on me, or betray me in some way, or that I will get too distracted with you to fulfill my duties.”

She swallowed hard.

“But I am a product of that…distraction,” Aegon went on, and perhaps the way that Maela was shifting showed how uncomfortable she was, but Aegon needed someone to understand this, even if it wasn’t Jon, even if he thought that perhaps Jon never would.

He did not think he was better than his father. Did not think he was immune to the charms of a woman, if that’s what Jon thought he believed.

But he was capable of learning a lesson from his father’s mistakes.

And no, his father wanting to sleep with Lyanna Stark might not have been the reason for Robert’s Rebellion, there may have been so many other issues, but it was the one that Aegon had taken to heart the most.

After all, many kings had mistresses, many kings took other women to bed when they were married to a queen who had given birth to their children, but starting a war over a woman, a girl, really…

Aegon could not imagine it.

After all, he had never gotten the chance to know his mother, but he imagined that she had died believing her husband didn’t care enough about her to keep his vows to her, whether he had mistresses or not, and King’s Landing had fallen after Rhaegar’s death, leagues away.

No, he would not be that sort of leader.

Maela would not be the distraction that Jon believed her to be, and perhaps she needed to understand that as much as Jon did.

“And I understand the risks that such a thing would involve,” he went on, shaking his head. “I would not make that same mistake.”

Maela glanced away, slightly. For a moment, he thought he saw something like hurt flash across her features, but she buried it quickly.

“My dragon,” she said, and leaned in to kiss him. “I will never be a distraction for you, my lord. That, I promise.”

He shook his head, pushing her back gently. “You don’t understand,” he told her, “You could never become that distraction for me, no matter if I allowed you to, no matter how hard you tried. I would never allow myself to make that mistake. So you don’t have to worry about Jon’s disapproval, or making me look foolish for being with you. And you don’t have to worry about my apologizing to you, either, if that’s what I want to do.”

She swallowed hard, meeting his eyes. Something in the back of her eyes shuttered, and she whispered, “All right.”

He suddenly wasn’t certain that it was, but before he could ask her what was wrong, there was a knock at his door.

Maela bit back a groan, clearly as annoyed as he felt.

Aegon gave her a good natured sigh, and then called out, “Come in.”

He was glad, a moment later when his senses had returned to him, that it was merely a servant opening the door, and not Jon.

Gods, what had he been thinking?

He glanced nervously over at Maela, and wondered if everything he had just said to her was a lie, no matter that he firmly believed it.

A person was capable of lying to themselves easily enough, after all; he had seen it often enough.

He had simply hoped not to become one of those people, himself.

“Your Grace,” the servant said, pointedly looking at the wall over their heads rather than at the bed, “Lord Jon requests your presence in the Small Council chambers.”

Aegon took a deep breath, and got to his feet. He had ordered the servants not to tell Jon about his clandestine meetings with Maela, but he still did not know their loyalties, did not know whether they would keep secrets for their new king, or report to Jon.

And a part of him still hated keeping secrets from Jon. If the man was not so stubborn about Maela, perhaps…But he hadn’t protested when Aegon had insisted on her being among the servants that they brought to Dragonstone, and he knew that his father was not a fool.

It was just something that the both of them had agreed not to speak of, again, and Aegon was content with that…for now. Would have to be, if he didn’t want to find himself in the middle of another argument with the man.

Aegon glanced sideways at Maela, giving her an apologetic smile. “I have to go,” he told her, not entirely certain why he felt the need to explain himself, when he had told her before their…coupling that he would have to leave for this specific meeting eventually.

Thankfully, despite the sad look in her eyes, Maela did not seem too perturbed.

“I’ll be here,” Maela promised, smiling at him. “Your Grace.”

And this time, he did understand how he had hurt her.

He couldn’t say that he felt as guilty about it as he wanted to, though.

But it was nice to finally know House Tyrell’s response to his message, even if that sinking feeling in his gut would not go away for a long time.

* * *

Ser Harry was tapping his gauntleted fingers on the table.

He’d been doing that more and more lately, a physical manifestation of his impatience, no doubt.

Aegon knew that rolling his eyes would seem very unseemly, for a king.

“Your Grace,” they both greeted him, and no matter that everyone was calling him that these days, especially since he had fought in the battle for Dragonstone, the title still felt uncomfortable, formed around Jon’s lips.

He nodded to both of them, and sat. Glanced between the two of them, and bit back a sigh.

“What is it?”

“It seems that this Lord Gerold,” Jon said, exchanging a glance with Harry, “Attacked King’s Landing in the name of Dorne, and Myrcella Baratheon. He would have succeeded in wiping out some of the Tyrells for us, perhaps, if Euron Greyjoy had not come to their rescue.”

“To their rescue?” Aegon echoed, incredulously. “Euron Greyjoy?”

Considering everything that he had heard about the pirate who had possibly killed his own brother to take the Iron Islands, that made little sense to him.

Again, Jon made a face. “I fear that we are running out of time, Your Grace,” he said, but the way that he said it made it clear Jon thought they had run out of stalling time some time ago.

Harry cleared his throat. “The Golden Company fears the same, Your Grace,” he said, and though he had the decency to refer to Aegon by his title, he looked as though he regretted it.

Aegon shook his head, fighting back a sigh. “I would have preferred it if my mother’s people could have been our allies,” he said, hoarsely, and truly meant it. “But it seems that we have been underestimating them.” He licked his lips. “And the Tyrells? They have made no attempt to negotiate with us?”

Jon and Harry exchanged those looks again.

“I am afraid not, Your Grace,” Jon said. “I fear that because they now have the alliance with Euron Greyjoy, they feel they have no reason to meet with us at all. Especially when that alliance has been sealed with…a marriage.”

Aegon closed his eyes, fighting back another sigh. When he opened them again, Harry and Jon were both watching him. He licked his lips, and then lifted a hand.

“Very well,” he agreed, and could almost hear Jon’s inward sigh. “You’re right. We haven’t moved forward as we should have.” He took a heaving breath.

And perhaps that was his fault, for not moving forward when both Jon and Harry had been all but begging him to attack Dragonstone, though they had taken it. Dragonstone had been almost easy to take, too easy, to Aegon’s mind, when he had been in the heat of battle, though the thought had horrified him once the battle was done.

They had made their new place here, had torn down the banners and declared Dragonstone for House Targaryen, as it should have always been, and though Aegon found the sharp corners and tall ceilings of this place forbidding, he could admit that it felt more like a home that Storm’s End had. There was something about this place which called to him, something that settled around him in the air, a secret song that only he could hear.

The men of the Golden Company, the servants who had accompanied them from Storm’s End, which had been left in the perhaps less than capable hands of a few good members of his Golden Company, thought this place was haunted. He had heard Rolly speak of it, that they could smell the burning stench of dragon’s breath in the air.

He wondered if that was why he slept so well, here. He had not slept well at all in Storm’s End, even with Maela by his side.

He wondered if his mother had ever brought him here, before her death, and that was why he felt so comfortable here. He wondered if she had thought the same about it, or if her Dornish blood had made her as uncomfortable as the men in his army were, now.

He licked his lips, and forced that thought aside.

His mother was not Dorne, clearly. Dorne had betrayed him, had gone on to attack King’s Landing when they had promised to wait for Aegon’s decision on the matter, once upon a time. Had crowned Myrcella Baratheon, the bastard daughter of the Usurper, as the rightful queen, as if she had any right to that title.

He did not know if this Gerold Dayne spoke with the same voice as Arianne Martell, as he claimed, did not know if Arianne had chosen him as a husband because they shared ideals, though when he was now serving as her regent and she seemed to have vanished off of the face of the Seven Kingdoms he had his suspicions about that, but dear gods, that had been such a disappointment to learn of Dorne’s betrayal.

He had not been naive enough to think that the people of Westeros would welcome him back with open arms, even if he was their rightful King, not when his grandfather had done such untold harm to this place, but he had also not thought he would have no allies when he arrived, either.

He shook his head.

They had taken Storm’s End out from under the noses of the Tyrells, calling themselves of House Baratheon, with barely a struggle. Dragonstone, too, though he recognized now why the Tyrells had not made better measures to protect it, if they had been under siege by the Dornish, as it appeared. Between those two, Aegon would almost say the fights for them had been too easy, though he was still hesitant, going forward.

The Golden Company had lost a good number of men on the trip over the Narrow Sea, though they were certainly fierce fighters.

The next logical step was the one he still found himself hesitant to agree to, even if he knew that Jon would insist upon it, that the Golden Company, wanting their due, would insist upon it.

They had their foothold, and now they must go in for the kill.

King’s Landing.

He closed his eyes, and thought of his mother’s skull, crushed beneath the hands of the Mountain after he had torn her apart.

He thought of this Margaery Tyrell, who had given birth to a son with no rightful claim to the throne, as only the grandson of the Usurper, and wondered if she, too, would lose her life the way his mother had, despite his best attempts to negotiate with her.

He hated to think it, but it would be her own fault, if that was the case. He had certainly tried harder than most would have, to speak with her, to keep things from escalating like this, to find common ground.

And she had chosen instead to marry Euron Greyjoy, a madman and a pirate, apparently.

She had chosen her fate, and he tried not to think of his mother’s face, as he had that thought.

After all, he had known from the first time Jon had explained to him what becoming the King of the Seven Kingdoms would entail that he would need to get his hands dirty if he was ever going to set eyes on the Iron Throne that his father and mother both died for.

“How soon could we attack King’s Landing? And do we have the men to take on Euron Greyjoy?”

Jon sighed in relief. “Your Grace, thanks to our spy in King’s Landing, we are able to answer those questions easily…”

And as he launched into a description of their resources, of the clearly thought out plan that he and Harry had been developing, Aegon’s mind churned.

* * *

After hours of planning an attack on a place he had hoped to find some sort of peace with alongside Harry and a proud Jon Connington, Aegon wanted nothing more than to collapse in Maela’s arms and let her distract him, or, at the very least, sleep like the dead.

Tomorrow was feasting, and the day after that? Movement. Their armies would leave, and Aegon knew he would appreciate the rest he got tonight, then. Or be angry with himself for the lack of it.

Something was bothering him, though, and Aegon couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, by the time he made his way back to his chambers and found Maela still there, trying on some of the new clothes he’d had made for her, because a serving girl in his retinue ought to at least wear nice clothes, and she was his mistress, no matter what he was telling others.

There were certain expectations that came along with that, as well.

She looked nice, in the clothes he’d had made for her, trying on a new shawl and looking at herself in the lengthwise mirror in the corner of his bedchambers.

Gods, he wished he could freeze this moment in time, and watch her forever.

Instead…

“I’m back,” he said, and she glanced up from the mirror she was staring into, sending him a dazzling smile.

“I can see that,” she said.

He bit his lip, watched her pull at her stockings invitingly, not removing the new shawl.

“If I asked you to tell me what you knew about the Tyrell family, would you do it?” He asked her, and Maela stiffened, head jerking up in the mirror, though she did not turn around.

“What’s brought this on?” She asked, quietly.

He shook his head. “Answer the question,” he told her, crossing his arms over his chest as he caught the defensive way she was standing now, the way that she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.

She swallowed hard, setting down the shawl she had been trying on in the mirror, earlier.

“I…I will confess to Your Grace that I did not know much about all of them,” she said, quietly, and Aegon bit back a scoff. “I know about Ser Garlan only because he led the attack of Storm’s End, and I was one of servants that was brought here to keep the place afloat, in the name of House Tyrell.”

Aegon stared at her. She squirmed a little, under that look, as she met his gaze in the mirror. “And?”

She licked her lips. “He was…not a bad leader, for a lord,” she said. “Strict, but fair. Compassionate to the women. He never once looked at any of us like he’d want to bed us.” She shrugged. “I was just a lowly daughter of a lowly lord, in the Reach. I’m sorry that I cannot tell you more than that, about the rest of them, save what I know of their reputations, something I am sure Your Grace already knows.”

Aegon closed his eyes, breathed.

Opened them again.

Maela’s eyes widened.

“Are you a spy?” He asked her reflection.

Maela stiffened, and only then turned around to face him. “Your Grace,” she said, in a voice that was carefully measured, “I thought that we had already had this conversation. More than once.”

He had, too.

He wondered if he was as terrible of a judge of character as he suddenly felt.

Aegon shook his head. “Jon has always been overly cautious,” he allowed. “I thought that perhaps he was just being so yet again, so I ignored his warnings about you. And now, I’ve lost Dorne and the Tyrells you once served, perhaps.”

Maela shook her head, taking a step back. “Your Grace, I…” a flash of fear crossed her face. “Your Grace, I promise you that I…”

“You are a servant of House Tyrell,” he went on, when she offered him nothing of value. “I have…heard things about the Tyrells, though I confess, I underestimated them when I first read of them. Are you their spy? Have you been lying to me this entire time?”

Maela grimaced. “Your Grace, I would never…You have been a kinder lord to me than any Tyrell,” she said, and every word felt like a scrape against his skin, for he knew it to be a lie. “I would not abuse that trust.”

And Aegon…he wanted to believe her, dear gods, he wanted to believe her. But he had spent enough time being jerked around, first by the Martells, his own mother’s family, and now by every other lord in Westeros, it seemed.

“You said something, earlier,” Aegon said, slowly, and Maela squinted at him again. “You asked me if I might spare your family.”

Maela’s brows furrowed. “Your Grace, surely my loyalty to my family does not mean a betrayal of you. And surely the fact that I am asking you for their lives assures you that I think you shall win this war, and that…”

“Then why didn’t you ask me to spare their lives the first night I took you to bed?” He asked her, cocking his head.

Because that was it. The question which had been plaguing him ever since he had left her in here to attend to Harry and Jon.

She winced, and he knew he had caught her.

It was not a particularly nice feeling, even if he’d already known it before this moment, too.

And he hated the fact that Jon had been right about her, and he had been wrong. He couldn’t even fault her for that - it had been his own stupid decision to bed her, after all, and then not forget about her, as he should have done from the first. And she was only a servant trying to stay alive amongst a new lord with new demands on his people, of course she would have used everything in her arsenal.

But to then ask him for mercy...What sort of fool did she think he was?

He thought that perhaps that angered him even more than the realization that he had fallen so easily for her pretty mouth. 

“It would seem the logical thing to do,” he went on, coolly, “Bargain a night in bed with me, or more than one, if I liked you, for your family’s lives. But you never even mentioned them before today.”

She was shaking.

He stared at her.

And then, she dropped to her knees before him, reaching out for his hands. He flinched away, and tears entered her eyes.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please,” she swallowed hard, “Yes, I was spying on you, at first. The Lady Olenna, she has…certain expectations of all of her servants. But I swear to you, my lord, that I never…I didn’t expect, that is…My loyalty is to you, now. I mean that.”

He scoffed, pulling away from her. “And why should I believe you?” He asked her.

Her lower lip wobbled, and he wondered if this was what Lyanna Stark had looked like, innocent and pleading and oh so very debauched before his father’s eyes, when his father had made the decision to keep another man’s betrothed and forsake his own wife.

“I…I love you,” she whispered, hoarsely.

Aegon scoffed again, disgusted despite himself that he had ever fallen for such an obvious lie, in her companionship. The words, as she whispered them, barely sounded convincing. Perhaps Olenna Tyrell and her family were not so fierce a threat as he had feared, even with Euron Greyjoy at their sides.

“Get out,” he snapped, and her eyes were filling with tears now, before they suddenly widened, looking over his shoulder at the balcony to the chambers he had taken over, and fear entered them.

Aegon felt his stomach clench again, though this time, he thought it had nothing to do with Maela.

For a moment, he almost expected to turn around and find out that they had an audience, that Jon had come looking for him and had found the two of them like this, and despite the fact that he had been right about her, Aegon didn’t want him to find them like this, didn’t want him to know about the agreement between them.

It wasn’t Jon.

In a moment, he would wish it had been.

Rather, out in the water, and despite the fact that not half an hour ago, when he had been looking out the window at the Small Council chambers and the sea had been clear, there was a fleet of ships that were half hidden by a strange mist, all but throwing themselves forward along the moments ago calm sea towards them.

War ships, unmistakably, and certainly not belonging to more members of the Golden Company come to join them here, not with the way that they were bearing down on Dragonstone’s harbor.

Aegon licked his lips.

Gods, there were so many of them, and flying a banner that…

It took him a moment to realize why the banner looked so strange. He hadn’t expected to see the banner of House Greyjoy this far south, though he should have, knowing they had gone to King’s Landing and married the Rose Queen there.

And now, they were here. Here when it should have been, at the very least, unlikely that Euron Greyjoy should get here so quickly after taking King’s Landing, or bargaining for it, or whatever it was he had done.

And yet, here they were, and Aegon’s knees shook in a way that they hadn’t when he had fought for Dragonstone, or for Storm’s End, or thought of the fact that he was about to sail across the Narrow Sea into a war his father and grandfather had started.

Dozens of ships, seeming to get bigger the closer they came to Dragonstone, and Aegon heard the desperate call of some scout who clearly was inept at his job shouting, “To arms!” As Maela shifted off of her knees, behind him.

But he barely noticed her.

In truth, he barely noticed the shouting of his men, nor the guards who came running into his chambers moments later to protect him, no doubt on Jon’s orders, nor the ringing in his own ears.

Instead, his gaze was fixed on the monstrous creature, if it could even be called that, emerging from the waves behind those ships, the long arms flying in the wind, spewing water, hurtling towards them…

And he knew what it was, the moment it came out of the water enough for him to see it, the moment he laid eyes on that thing rapidly gaining speed on the ships it was following, and Aegon could already see the wanton destruction it would leave in its wake, even if he had once thought it nothing more than a scary fairy tale.

Like dragons, he had once believed that it wasn’t a real creature, but a figment of imagination or long gone days.

His inner child quaked, now.

The men running into his chambers came to an abrupt halt as they too, saw the creature. Behind him, he could hear Maela, muttering under her breath, “Seven forgive us, Stranger do not take us…” some sort of prayer he had not heard before, but his thoughts silently echoed the sentiment.

“What the…fuck is that?” Aegon heard one of the guards behind him breathe in horror, as the creature only seemed to grow bigger the closer it got to them.

The kraken roared.


	51. King's Landing

The rest of the potion was sitting on her bedside table.

It had been sitting there for three days, and Margaery had yet to find the motivation to use it, despite her certainty that it was the only solution, not days before.

Sansa had asked about it, the first time she had seen it after coming to Margaery’s bed for the night, and Margaery had lied through her teeth about it, had told Sansa that it was something the maesters had given her to help with the pain that accompanied childbirth, and Sansa, who had never had a child, was instantly mollified by this answer.

She hadn’t asked about it again, or about the fact that it lay mysteriously unopened, over the several nights she had come to visit Margaery.

She took a deep breath, throwing off the blankets and glancing over at Sansa, where the other girl lay beside her.

She knew that they ought to be more careful, with a man as mad as Euron as her husband now, but Margaery…honestly could not bring herself to care about keeping their relationship a secret anymore, not after what Sansa had told her of her conversation with the man.

Clearly, Euron Greyjoy knew about their relationship, either because he had figured it out in the short time he’d been in King’s Landing, or because he’d already known. Anyway, he had gone off, disappeared to wherever it was he had gone when Margaery had all but given him permission to fight her battles for her, so he wasn’t here to see this, anyway, not that he would have walked in on them.

Margaery was far more disturbed by the real reason she’d been forced to seek out Qyburn in the first place, the clause in her marriage contract that she’d not had the time to look over much before she’d signed it, because Euron Greyjoy had provided the terms and she’d been forced to agree with them if she didn’t want to see more of her men killed.

Her father had read it, though. Her grandmother had read it, and Randyl Tarly had read it, all before they would consent to her newest farce of a marriage, and Margaery didn’t know if she could trust any of them, now.

Certainly not her grandmother, after that rather illuminating conversation they’d had the other day, about Margaery’s son.

But perhaps her grandmother would say that it was her own fault, for not reading her marriage contract more carefully, even if she had been weighing that contract against men’s lives.

She could just see her grandmother saying such a thing.

She was almost glad that her grandmother was on her way back to Highgarden now, where Margaery didn’t have the chance to pick another fight with her.

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm, finding that the sight of Sansa, laying so close beside her in the bed, did more for calming her than anything else, recently. And here she’d been, fighting having the other girl in her bed again for so long, recently.

Gods, she’d been a fool to let Sansa out of her sight for a moment, for the moment they were reunited, the raging storm inside of Margaery’s mind seemed to calm, if only for an instant.

And dear gods, she could use some of that calm, just about now.

Margaery took a deep breath again, reaching out to run her hand through Sansa’s hair, marveling in the smooth feel of auburn beneath her hand.

Gods, she had lost them all. Loras, Willas, her grandmother, two husbands, and a son…And despite all of it, Sansa was still here.

She wondered if that said more about her, or about Sansa.

Margaery shook her head, sitting up fully, doing her best not to wake the other girl as she did so.

She felt guilty enough for the things that Sansa had been through of late, whether they were Margaery’s fault or not, without stealing from her the few precious moments of sleep that she still had left.

Margaery took a deep breath, reaching out to shake Sansa gently.

They were both being rather conspicuous with their relationship these days, especially in front of the servants; Sansa was no longer sleeping in her own bed, and her tone with Margaery had taken on a familiarity that spoke of more than just friendship, even before witnesses.

And Margaery…couldn’t exactly bring herself to care, at the moment. It felt like they had far bigger issues to deal with most days than whether or not anyone suspected their relationship.

After all, they had nearly died a week ago, by the hands of two different armies. Breaking the implied laws of the Faith seemed rather small, in comparison.

Still, she thought it was a good idea to get Sansa up and out of her chambers before she had any visitors in the form of Randyl Tarly, who seemed to be seeking her out more and more these days, or someone else. Gods forbid her father walk in and ask to speak with her, for he wouldn’t wait for a servant to announce his entrance.

“Sansa,” she whispered, giving the other girl another shake when she still didn’t awaken.

A spike of fear ran through her then, at the memory of what had happened the last time that Sansa wouldn’t wake up, and the shake she gave Sansa then was a bit more brutal than she had meant it to be.

Sansa groaned, and opened her eyes, looking startled by her surroundings for a moment - and Margaery could certainly understand that sentiment - before her eyes met Margaery’s, and she smiled, relaxing.

“Good morning,” she whispered, and Margaery couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“Good morning,” she said, leaning down to kiss Sansa, reveling in the feel of the other girl’s lips against her own.

Gods, she wished that they could stay like this forever. That being Regent didn’t necessitate getting up and dealing with the newest shitshow of the day, the most recent of those whatever free hell Euron might have unleashed on the nobles around him.

She’d heard that he was bedding the servants, and she couldn’t even accuse him of anything, not when he was a man and she a woman, even if she was Regent, because she didn’t want him thinking it meant she was _jealous_ , of all things.

She closed her eyes, and breathed out deeply through her mouth.

She didn’t want to think about Euron, just now.

Instead, she kissed Sansa again, smiling into the kiss when Sansa responded enthusiastically, leaning up in the bed and keening the moment Margaery pulled away from her, ignoring the scent of her breath in the morning.

And then Sansa reached out, hands brushing down Margaery’s arms, and Margaery tensed, a little.

She saw the moment Sansa did as well, as if she had forgotten why Margaery was not so keen on lovemaking anymore in her sleepiness, and was only just remembering it now.

Margaery bit back a wince, and forced herself to relax, reminded herself that it was just Sansa, that she didn’t have to worry about Sansa hurting her, because the other girl never could.

She initiated the next kiss, and Sansa remained tense beneath her for a moment, before kissing her back, eyes sliding closed, while Margaery’s mind swam.

They’d slept together every night, this past week, but they hadn’t made love during those times. Had kissed and cuddled and fallen asleep in each other’s arms, but had not had sex since that first time, and Margaery knew that it was her own fault.

Sansa was trying to be slow for her, was trying to ease her back into it, treating her like a skittish horse, and Margaery…Margaery didn’t know how she felt about that.

On the one hand, she did not much like the thought that she was being coddled, especially by Sansa, and on the other, she wasn’t certain that she did want Sansa thinking of sex, every single night when they went to bed in each other’s arms. Wasn’t sure she wanted that to be the norm, when the thought of sex still repulsed her, slightly.

Oh, it had been good, with Sansa, and she had remembered, during that time, just how much she enjoyed it, with Sansa. How much she had once yearned for it.

Which only left her feeling the more confused, after it was over and the sensation of her skin crawling returned.

It wasn’t Sansa, she knew that. She knew that Sansa would never hurt her, knew that Sansa adored her, that she wanted this because she wanted to be close with Margaery, and yet.

And yet, that feeling remained, despite their one glorious time together, and Margaery knew why, and felt like a failure because of that knowledge.

She was broken. It was the only explanation for her wild, back and forth feelings, of late. As if she was at once Margaery and something Other, some feral creature, untamed.

Something within her had been ruined, the night her husband had ruined her, and she didn’t know how to fix it. Didn’t even know how to warn Sansa of that fact, of the knowledge that she wasn’t the same woman she had been, that she didn’t know how to become that woman again, no matter how she tried.

It was the only explanation.

She’d known it ever since Sansa had found her, standing in Joffrey’s chambers with his blood on her hands and her own blood on her thighs, and Margaery didn’t know how to even begin going about fixing that brokenness.

Every time she tried, every time she tried to go back to the woman she had been before that night, it only felt as if she was getting worse, instead.

She licked her lips, and when Sansa reached for the strings of her nightgown, Margaery didn’t fight the sensation. Told herself that she had enjoyed it the last time, so of course she would enjoy it again, the moment she got over that little hurdle that was her mind, screaming at her.

Sansa would stop, she knew, if she asked the other woman to. She would be sorrowful, but she would stop without complaint, and her pitying glance would follow Margaery around for the rest of the day. And Margaery would see something like guilt in the other girl’s eyes, though she had no idea why Sansa ought to feel guilt over something Joffrey had done.

Something Margaery herself had started.

Sansa’s feather light kisses ran down her neck, and Margaery bit back the frustration she felt at herself as she moaned against that feeling.

Her husband had never kissed her like that.

It was the thought she needed to sit up a little, to pull Sansa closer to her, to rearrange them so that Margaery was sitting between Sansa’s thighs, to run her hands down Sansa’s body and revel in the feeling, yet again.

Touching Sansa seemed to calm the storm in her mind. Whenever Sansa touched her, it seemed to return.

Gods, she hated it.

Margaery’s nightgown fell away moments before she pulled Sansa’s off, and Sansa’s sharp intake of breath was the only reminder Margaery had that last time, when they had fucked, they had been fully clothed.

Sansa hadn’t had the opportunity to see the marks that Joffrey had left on his wife, hadn’t seen what pregnancy did to an only relatively healthy woman’s body.

Margaery flushed slightly, under that gaze, more than aware of it herself, now that Sansa was looking.

Once upon a time, Margaery had been very aware of her own beauty. She was not beautiful in the strictest sense of the word, she had always believed that, but she had known how to use the beauty that she did have, the allure of a woman confident in that beauty. It was how she had seduced Joffrey so easily, how she had seduced half a dozen men before him.

Now, she merely felt self conscious, as Sansa reached out to touch her, as Sansa’s wandering eyes ran to that place between her stretch marked thighs and down her still slightly chubby belly. She shifted slightly, blushing, and Sansa’s eyes jerked up to meet hers again.

“Something wrong?” She asked, as if she didn’t already know, surely, and Margaery licked her lips, willed away this strange, unnatural feeling running through her, this self consciousness that she had never once felt in the bedroom, before.

She hadn’t exactly felt it the first time they’d had sex, the other day, and she hated that she was feeling it even more, now.

Now, it shamed her, because once upon a time, Sansa had loved what she looked like, and now, Margaery wondered if she wasn’t all scars. Had been wondering, ever since that night, if she carried too many scars for Sansa to want to make love to her again.

Because it was true, Margaery had pushed her away, over and over, since that night, but she had seen, on those first few days after Joffrey’s death, the way Sansa had hesitated, around her, as if she had thought Margaery made of glass.

Margaery bore Cersei’s scars, from the ship, and now, she carried Joffrey’s. She was beginning to wonder why Euron might still want her, why Sansa might at all, when she had known all too well what Margaery had looked like, before those scars.

Sansa bore scars, on her back, from being beaten by Joffrey’s men, from the scar Oberyn had caused along her neck, but they were hardly the same.

Those scars were a symbol of Sansa’s strength.

Margaery’s scars, from the marks still left on her skin from that horrible night when she had killed her husband, to the remnants of her pregnancy, were a constant reminder of what she couldn’t do. Of how she couldn’t save her brother, of how she couldn’t keep her own husband from raping her.

She swallowed hard, looking at those scars on Sansa and wondering how they managed to look so much nicer on her than the ones that Margaery bore.

“No,” she promised, and kissed Sansa again.

Sansa pulled back slightly, running her hands up and down Margaery’s scarred arms, scars that she had received from the handiwork of another Lannister, and whispered, “You’re beautiful, you know. Just like this.”

Margaery closed her eyes, the sudden sensation of tears greeting her.

No.

No, she was not about to start crying in front of Sansa, not like this.

Sansa would never try to initiate sex with her again, if she did.

Gods, it had been fine the last time. Why did it hurt so much, now?

“Maybe we should stop,” Sansa whispered, but that was the last thing that Margaery wanted, just now.

She shook her head, stubbornly. “No,” she whispered. “No, I want to taste you. I want…” she shook her head. “I just want to taste you.”

The emphasis on that word, ‘just,’ made Sansa raise an eyebrow.

“Margaery…” she began, but Margaery was shaking her head again.

“Please,” she whispered, as she lowered herself between Sansa’s thighs, “I want to make it good for you. Won’t you let me?”

And she didn’t think Sansa could come up with a good enough argument against that, if the way the other girl’s breathing quickened was any indication.

“All right,” she said, softly, reaching out to place a hand on Margaery’s arm. “But if you need to stop, it…it’s fine. I promise.”

Margaery didn’t bother telling her that she wouldn’t need to stop.

She’d noticed the sensation, earlier, when she was touching Sansa, before Sansa had started touching her, in turn.

She’d be fine, so long as this morning was just about Sansa, anyway.

When it was over, and Sansa lay panting beneath her, Margaery was pleased to realize that she’d been right. That when it was just her about Sansa, it really was fine, just as she’d suspected.

More than fine, even.

She’d certainly gotten something out of it, herself.

When the other girl had composed herself a bit, Sansa raised a brow at her, though, when, instead of going further, Margaery reached for her nightgown and climbed out of the bed, forcing a smile.

“Breakfast is in order now, I think,” Margaery told her, and her smile was just perfect enough that Sansa seemed to buy it, as she reached for her own clothes.

Margaery hesitated, in front of the bedside table.

Margaery stared at the potion, chewing on her lower lip.

Then, she turned back to Sansa, who was still raising an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t feel so bad today,” she offered the other girl, and Sansa’s suspicious gaze followed her as they walked out into the parlor, where the servants had already arranged a breakfast for two, and Margaery couldn’t even bring herself to be annoyed with how obvious they were both being to everyone in the Keep.

Sansa took a seat across from her at the table, with a raised brow, and Margaery flushed slightly, as she reached for her fork.

Joffrey was dead, her husband didn’t seem to care, and this was…nice. What she’d wanted from almost the first time she’d laid eyes on Sansa.

She thought she could get used to this, even if she knew it was unlikely that she would get the chance.

* * *

Tommen blinked at the raven, where it sat perched on his windowsill.

The bird had been sitting there for the better part of an hour, and Tommen had yet to get up and read the message attached to the little raven’s leg.

He wasn’t sure whether it was because he was afraid that this was some sort of test, or because he knew that it wasn’t.

He knew it was strange, that the raven should deliver the message straight to him, rather than to the towers where a servant would bring it to him, no doubt carefully read over before it was delivered - that had always been the case, even before Margaery was his nephew’s Regent, though.

His mother had always wanted to ensure his protection, just as he knew that the Tyrells were trying to ensure it now, even if they had brought him here without his mother’s permission.

But he wasn’t angry at them for it, the way that Shireen seemed to be both simultaneously relieved to be away from the Boltons and angry that she was yet again a prisoner of people who hadn’t sided with her father in the war.

He hadn’t wanted to be a King, that was the one thing that he was sure of, in all of this, and the Tyrells were ensuring that he didn’t have to be. That he didn’t hav to worry about people dying for him, that he didn’t have to be afraid that one day, his decisions would cost lives.

That he didn’t have to watch his mother grow more and more…fierce, in her desire to protect him, when she had never been overly concerned about his protection when he was younger, if he stood in her way, only Joffrey’s.

He sniffed, staring at the letter.

Still, for all of her failings, Tommen missed his mother. The Tyrells were nice enough, and Margaery had been married to his brother, but they weren’t family, not really. They kept him here, ensured that he had whatever he wanted, but they didn’t care about him, not the way he felt a family ought to.

His mother might not have entirely cared about him when Joffrey was around, but she was still his mother. She knew him, in a way that the Tyrells had never bothered to find out, save for Loras, who had been a nice enough tutor, though he was dead, now.

And he thought he missed his mother a little more for the fact that he knew she had not wanted to leave him here, even if it did mean that he didn’t have to be a king.

He still remembered what his mother’s arms felt like, wrapped around him, as she promised him that she wouldn’t leave him here forever, that she would be back for him, someday, and he had looked into her eyes and known that she meant it.

And, worse, a part of him had been relieved that she was leaving. That he didn’t have to worry about being the King anymore, when Margaery asked him to sign away his rights to the throne for the sake of her son, his nephew.

And he didn’t know if that made him a horrible son, to the father he barely remembered, to his mother, or just a coward.

He sniffed, reaching out to pick up the letter, and just as he did, the door behind him opened, and one of Margaery’s ladies walked into the room, Shireen following closely behind her.

He sucked in a breath, pulling the letter into the waistband of his trousers before either of them could see it, and forcing a smile.

“Shireen,” he said, because even if she did hate it here, he was starting to like their visits together, one of the most consistent visitors he got here.

Megga, he knew her name was, smiled between the two of them, clapping her hands together. “Lady Shireen,” she said, and Tommen noticed, as he always did, the way that Shireen flinched at the title, “has asked if she can break her fast with you, Tommen. Isn’t that nice of her?”

He supposed it would be, if Shireen really was a princess these days, and he was really just a bastard, the way the Tyrells had claimed.

Margaery had explained that to him, as well, one of the few times she had come to visit him of late. That she had not wanted to admit to such a thing, not when she “cared so well for the brother of her husband,” but that the evidence against his legitimacy had been overwhelming to her Small Council, even to her.

She had held him, while he cried over that, not even sure why he was crying when he barely remembered what Robert Baratheon’s face had looked like, these days, and he may have been young, but he’d seen the looks between his mother and his uncle well enough to think he understood what they meant, now.

And then he’d sniffed, lifting his head to ask his good-sister why, if he was just a bastard, he’d had to sign that paper that said he wouldn’t try to fight his nephew for the throne.

And Margaery’s eyes had been unbelievably sad as she explained that the Iron Throne was in danger these days, and all of them had had to make sacrifices, that the paper Tommen had signed was just another way of protecting that throne.

Her son’s throne.

He sniffed, and didn’t ask the questions still burning at the back of his throat even after that, because surely, it didn’t make sense that he’d even have a claim to the throne if he really was just a bastard, but Margaery hadn’t wanted to talk about that, anymore.

No, she’d wanted to talk about his studies, and he got the impression that she was lonely, that she’d come there because she wasn’t certain who else to talk to, and he thought that seemed very strange, when she was more surrounded by Tyrells, by her own family, now than she had ever been.

But then he’d thought about how he had felt at the Rock, how lonely he’d been there despite being surrounded by his mother’s family, and he thought he understood a little of that loneliness, himself.

Shireen didn’t seem to share in that feeling of loneliness. In fact, she seemed to scorn Tommen for speaking to Margaery at all, these days, and he didn’t bother to point out that the Regent never tried to visit with Shireen, that she seemed to go out of her way to avoid the other girl.

He didn’t think that Shireen would like hearing that, though.

Megga glanced between them for a moment, as the servants came in to deliver their food, as if she wasn’t sure whether or not she should leave them alone together.

Tommen gave her another smile, and she sighed, turning back to Shireen, then. “Just remember that you both have lessons, soon after this,” she reminded, as if she thought that Shireen was the one more likely to break that rule than Tommen.

He supposed that made a certain amount of sense.

And then she was gone, with another sigh, and Tommen watched as the servants carefully followed after her, as he and Shireen took their seats, glancing at one another until the door shut.

“I thought she’d never leave,” Shireen whispered to Tommen, and Tommen bit back a giggle.

He hadn’t, either.

But Megga was the kinder of Margaery’s ladies who spent time with them - she was older, but she seemed to genuinely like the time she spent with Tommen, even if she acted like she didn’t trust Shireen overly much.

“Where is your Onion Knight?” Tommen asked Shireen, who gave a little shrug, but he could see the worried look in her eyes, all the same.

“He seems to be spending a lot of time with Lady Brienne of Tarth,” she said, and Tommen squinted at her.

“And that’s…a bad thing?” He asked, carefully. He was never sure which topics were safe to bring up around Shireen, anyways.

Gods forbid she start ranting about her feelings for the Tyrells again. He’d been rather intimidated, the last time she’d done so.

“They’re training Gendry, I think,” Shireen said, shrugging again, and he thought he understood the look in her eyes a little better, then. Jealousy. “Not that he’s going to need it.”

Tommen…didn’t want to ask why Shireen thought Gendry wouldn’t need it.

“Oh,” he said, and Shireen took another bite of her meal, shrugging again.

“I think he asked them to train him,” she went on. “He told me he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, before…everything, but he could use the training. I watched them, once. My Onion Knight seems to enjoy it.” She looked sad, again. “It gives him something to do, here.”

“Brienne is interesting, isn’t she?” Tommen asked, taking another spoonful of the porridge the servants had brought them, before they had left with Megga. “A lady knight. My brother hated her, because she used to serve Renly, but…”

“Renly was a traitor just like him,” Shireen muttered under her breath, and Tommen’s eyes widened.

He looked away.

They were silent, for a long moment.

Then, “I’m sorry,” Shireen said, leaning forward to reach for the tea, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

She poured them both a cup.

“Pretend I didn’t,” she went on, and he only noticed that her hand was shaking when she placed the cup down in front of him.

He nodded, slowly taking the cup and bringing it to his lips. “All right.”

Shireen smiled at him. The smile reminded him of the way that Margaery sometimes smiled at him, when she was pretending.

“I do think it’s marvelous,” Shireen said, softly, “I’ve never really known any lady knights, before. She’s…” she trailed off then, and Tommen had a thought.

“Maybe, when we’re older, you could convince her to teach you, too,” he said.

Her head shot up. Her eyes softened, after a moment, and she took a small sip of her tea. “I think that the Onion Knight would teach me,” she said softly, “If he didn’t think that he would get in trouble for it.”

Tommen’s brows furrowed. “Why would he get in trouble for it?” He asked, honestly, the letter that he still hadn’t read jutting against his skin even as he asked the question. “Ser Loras taught me, some, and they’re allowed to teach Gendry.”

Her lips thinned.

“I think that maybe Gendry will be our guard,” Tommen went on, “when we’re older. They seem to want us all to spend time together. Maybe,” and he smiled, then, “Maybe when we’re older, Margaery will let us take him to Storm’s End, and Dragonstone. He told me he’s never been to Storm’s End.”

Shireen’s lips thinned even further.

“We won’t live that long,” she told him, quietly, and Tommen shivered, the tea that he had just had twisting like nausea in his stomach. “The Tyrell Regent might be kind enough, but we’re a threat to her son, so long as the both of us are alive. We’re being kept alive now because we’re valuable as hostages, but the moment my father returns home or…” she trailed off, shook her head, “Is reported dead, I will be, too.”

Tommen shivered again. “I…” he glanced towards the door. “I don’t know if I believe that,” he offered, lamely, though in truth, a part of him already did. “I signed away my wish for the Iron Throne, and Margaery has been kind to me, ever since. I’m her child’s uncle. Besides, she’s…kind.”

He wished that Margaery would spend more time with Shireen, so that the other girl would understand that. Margaery wasn’t cruel. She was trying to keep them safe, just as she had asked Tommen to help keep her son safe.

Shireen snorted. “How old are you?” She asked him, outright, and didn’t wait for a response, though Tommen had the distinct impression that she was mocking him. “I didn’t think we were so apart in age.”

He flinched, and after a moment, he saw a flash of guilt run across her face, before she quickly buried it.

“She’s being nice to you because it doesn’t cost her anything not to be,” she told him, almost gently. “When it does, she won’t be any longer, trust me. But she’s never going to let us leave here, now that she has the three of us. We’re never going to go to Storm’s End, unless it’s with a far more armed guard than just Gendry.”

He blinked at her. “How do you know?” He asked her, and Shireen crossed her arms over her chest.

“Because before this, I was a hostage of Ramsay Bolton,” she reminded Tommen, who was hardly going to forget that fact.

They may only be cousins, and cousins who had barely ever interacted with each other before all of this had started, but he’d been horrified by the knowledge that she was a prisoner of someone from House Bolton.

His brother used to tell him stories about House Bolton, when they were younger, in an attempt to get him to cry. How they flayed the flesh off of the backs of their victims, how they drank their blood.

He wasn’t sure if either of those rumors were true, but they scared him, nonetheless.

Shireen met his eyes. “And he kept me in a crypt, because he thought it was amusing to keep me there, with the body of the woman who started it all,” she went on, and Tommen winced. “He had his whore bathe me, humiliate me, every other day, and I had to beg her for food, if I wanted it that day. It was so cold at night down thereI thought I would die before I ever fell asleep. I wanted…” she looked away. “And I’m only here now because House Tyrell and House Bolton allied with each other. That’s all. Not because they’re kind people, not because their Queen cares about either one of us. Because they’ve broken bread with House Bolton. They’re no different than them, not really. Not if they’re such close allies.”

He swallowed thickly, and thought about the allies his mother had, and thought perhaps that wasn’t true.

Still, he didn’t say that. He had a feeling it would only cause Shireen to take her leave of from him, and he didn’t want her to leave. He had precious few visitors, as it was.

For a while, Margaery herself had been coming to visit him, and before that, Sansa. He had enjoyed their visits; they treated him like a child, but they were kind, and seemed to genuinely care about him.

They weren’t visiting him much, these days. Margaery visited him more than Sansa, which he thought strange, when she was the Regent and Sansa was not, but her visits were short, usually meals that she picked at as she asked what his tutors were teaching him, and if he needed anything, before she took her leave of him when he started asking her questions about his future.

He shook his head. “I think you’re wrong about her,” he offered, softly. “I don’t think that she’s as bad as you think she is.”

But Shireen’s smile was small, pitying, as she reached for another sausage. “I don’t think she’s bad,” she said, softly. “She’s certainly kinder than my last captor. I think…I think she might even think that she can keep us all safe, even if we are threats to her son’s reign, so long as we’re here with her.”

Tommen stared, in rapt attention.

Shireen shook her head. “But I don’t think that will last forever, and I think she knows that, too, and that she might even feel guilty about that. There are far too many people vying for the throne right now, for her to keep any of us alive out of…sentiment.”

Tommen shuddered, his appetite long forgotten.

“Why do you have to be so…” Tommen’s brows knit together, “Why do you have to be so bitter? Why can’t you just be happy that you aren’t stuck with Ramsay Bolton, any longer?”

Shireen’s smile was wry. “Did you ever meet Edric Storm?” She asked him, and when his brows knit together, “No, of course not. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to.”

And before Tommen could ask why, Shireen was barreling on, “He was your father’s bastard son. Robert’s son, I mean. Just like Gendry, except that my father found him first. He lived with us, for a while. He was even part of the reason that my father decided he was the rightful heir to the throne.”

Tommen thought he didn’t like Edric Storm very much, hearing that. Gendry was all right; he didn’t seem to know how to act around Tommen, or Shireen, but he was nice enough.

And Shireen went on, mercilessly, “Edric was nice. He was even my companion in a lot of my studies, you know, after my father had him brought from Storm’s End. And then the Onion Knight had him smuggled out of Westeros because he thought that Edric’s life was in danger, because he was a bastard and the Onion Knight knew that bastard wouldn’t be allowed to live forever, no matter how sweet he might be. And I never saw him again.”

Her eyes were rather sad, then, as if she very much regretted the fact that she hadn’t been able to see Edric again.

Tommen sniffed. “Shut up,” he whispered, and then, because she was still looking at him like that, with that strange mix of pity and annoyance, “I’m not a bastard, not really. Margaery just thinks that the child will be safer, that way, and you’re not even a bastard, so that doesn’t make any sense. Your father was lying, because he just wanted the throne.”

His mother had told him that, over and over.

He didn’t know if he still believed it.

Shireen snorted. “Maybe,” she allowed, though she didn’t sound like she believed it, sounded more frustrated that Tommen wasn’t listening to her, he thought, “but Margaery could be lying, too.”

Tommen shivered.

The door opened then, almost as if Megga had been summoned by Shireen’s treasonous words, and she sent them both a tremulous smile as she stepped into the room.

“Lady Shireen,” Megga interrupted then, one of his constant companions these days, and he didn’t know if that was still solely to spy on him, or because the Tyrell ladies though he was rather lonely, in here.

They would be right, if they did.

Shireen lifted her head, throwing her napkin down on the table. “Yes?” She asked, the picture of decorum.

Tommen almost envied her, that ability.

Megga’s smile was very thin. “I think it’s past time for your lessons, don’t you?” She asked, and Shireen’s smile was brittle, as she too, stood to her feet, glancing back at Tommen only once as she moved towards the door.

“I do believe it is,” she said. “But try to think about what I told you, Tommen.”

Megga’s eyes were hard. “I think Tommen has quite enough to worry about with his own lessons, my lady,” she said, and Shireen simply shrugged, following her out of the room.

Moments later, Megga returned, with several servants who began the process of cleaning up their meal, a worried look in her eyes as she realized how little of it Tommen had actually eaten.

She knew how much he enjoyed his sweets in the morning at this point, after all.

“Did she upset you?” She asked Tommen. “We don’t have to have her continue visiting you, if she’s upsetting…”

“No!” Tommen cried, perhaps a little too obviously, and Megga’s eyes narrowed at him. “I mean, no, she didn’t upset me. We were just talking. I wish we could talk more often.”

Megga’s gaze was almost sad. “Yes, well, you both have your duties.”

Tommen shrugged, the way Shireen had, when she had left with Megga.

Megga’s eyes narrowed, and she walked over, taking the seat that Shireen had taken, a moment ago.

“Is there anything that you want to tell me, Tommen?” She asked, and her expression was the picture of compassion. “You seem…pensive.”

Tommen hesitated, wondering if she really had been standing outside the door, listening to their conversation, if Shireen was right about all of this.

“No,” he said finally, in a small voice.

Megga’s gaze was sad. “But you’ve barely eaten,” she said, as if that was yet another indication of his strange behavior, of whatever secret he was hiding.

Tommen sniffed, and then asked it. The thing that Shireen had been pushing him to ask for a while, the thing that he hadn’t asked since Margaery had informed him that he was just a bastard, like Edric Storm, like Gendry Waters.

More Baratheons, even, than he was, if Shireen and Margaery were right.

“What will happen to me, when the war is over?” He asked. “When Nikoelas can finally be king?”

Megga stiffened a little, in her seat, and Tommen thought he already knew the answer to that question, the moment he’d given in to Shireen’s demands and asked it.

“Margaery is very fond of you,” she told him, gently. “She always has been. I’m sure that she will make provisions, when the war is over, to keep you safe. And…Tommen, you won’t be in as much danger, then. When the war is over, it will be because Margaery’s son’s reign is secure. And you won’t have to worry about you being in danger, then. I’m sure that you’ll…you might even become the Lord of Storm’s End, or of the Rock. Would you like that?”

Tommen…wasn’t sure.

“What about Shireen?” He asked, quietly.

Megga squinted at him. “Shireen is the rightful daughter of Stannis Baratheon,” she said. “I don’t know what she’s been telling you,” she lied, “but she would be safe, the moment the war was over, as well. As the Lady of Storm’s End, no doubt.”

Tommen’s brows furrowed. “But if I’m the lord…”

The door opened, then, before Tommen could continue parsing out his question.

Sansa stepped in, and seemed almost surprised to find Tommen here, even if these were his rooms.

She sent him a dazzling smile. “I thought you’d be at your lessons, Tommen,” she said, looking I annoyance at Megga.

Megga gave a small shrug.

Sansa sighed. “Well, why don’t you go and get ready, yes? And then I can walk you down.”

Tommen got to his feet, glancing between the two of them, before walking into his bedchambers to get dressed.

There were no servants these days, to help him change out of his nightclothes and into his day clothes; he thought that might be because he was just a bastard now, but he didn’t know that for certain, and was too afraid to ask Megga why it was the case.

Didn’t want to hear from yet another person that he really was just a bastard.

He didn’t shut the door all of the way.

He wasn’t entirely sure why; perhaps a childhood with his mother had gotten him used to the idea that he had no real privacy.

Or perhaps Shireen’s words were still bothering him.

And he tried to tell himself that Sansa, unlike Megga, was just a prisoner here, too, even if she no longer seemed like one now that his brother was dead, and that perhaps she didn’t know anything, either.

Still, he found himself moving closer to the cracked door, as he changed into the clothes that the servants had laid out for him.

“We had a bit of a…situation, this morning,” Megga said, shrugging slightly. “With Shireen, I mean. I was handling it.”

Sansa hummed. “That’s…not why I’m here,” she said, and Tommen’s stomach sank a little bit, because that tone, the way she’d said that…

It sounded as if she would have been sent here to deal with such a thing, herself.

And he didn’t like that thought. Not when he had once thought of himself and Sansa in something like solidarity, both of them prisoners in a place where they had few other friends.

Perhaps he and Shireen had more in common than he wanted to admit.

“I need you to do something for me,” Sansa said, quietly, and Tommen leaned forward a little further, annoyed with Shireen for her nagging, her complaining.

“Oh,” Megga said, after a long moment, and Tommen’s brows furrowed in confusion; he hadn’t heard Sansa say anything more. “Oh, no. This time, the two of you have to figure it out for yourself, and by the seven hells, at least leave me out of it.”

Sansa cleared her throat. “What are you talking about?”

Megga eyes glittered. “You’re about to ask me to spy on Margaery for you,” she said, far too knowing, and Sansa stayed silent, for a long moment. 

Then, “I…” She didn’t know what Megga was talking about, which meant… “Margaery asked you to spy on me?” She demanded, hotly.

Silence.

Tommen sucked in a breath.

“I was going to ask you to do something else,” Sansa said, “though I’ve no idea that you’ll take it any better, this time.”

Megga blinked at her. “What do you mean?” She asked, cocking her head at Sansa.

Sansa bit back a sigh. “I’m worried about Lady Nym,” she said. “I’m…worried, specifically, that after what she just saw, she might resort to something…drastic.”

Another long silence, though Tommen didn’t dare open the door further.

He did flinch, though, at the reminder of Lady Nym. He could have lived a good long while without hearing that name again.

He knew that she was allied with the Tyrells, that she had brought him here at the Tyrells’ request, but she wasn’t a nice woman. She’d not been nice when she had nearly, or had, killed his cousin, hadn’t been nice on the long trek here as she dragged him along when he walked too slowly, or she thought they were going to be caught by enemy forces - his mother’s forces - a small voice reminded him, and he had been glad to arrive here when it meant that he didn’t have to spend any more time with her.

She didn’t frighten him, per se, and she hadn’t been cruel to him, but she just…wasn’t kind, either.

“No,” Megga finally whispered. “I don’t…I don’t want to do that, either.”

Sansa huffed out a laugh. “We’ve all had to do things that we don’t want to, Megga,” she reminded the other girl, but Megga swallowed hard, lifting her chin stubbornly.

“She’s not our enemy,” she pointed out, the words almost reeking of desperation, even to Tommen. “She’s not.”

Sansa shook her head. “I’m sorry, Megga,” she said, and he thought that she truly meant it, from the tone of her voice, but then again, he’d also thought her a friend.

She still lived in fear of those moments, the moments when she began to wonder if perhaps the two of them had been…not on opposing sides, but not on the same one, for so very long.

Sansa took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Nym heard Margaery promise the Dornish whatever they wanted, essentially, Megga, when they already had…some sort of deal. I don’t know all of the particulars of it,” a lie, for she knew most, scant though those details were, though she thought that more Margaery and Arianne’s fault than because Nym had not shared those details with her, “and she will see this as a betrayal. We have to watch her.”

Tommen sucked in a breath, thought about the fact that the Tyrells had sent Nym to come and find Tommen, when they didn’t even seem to trust her.

Megga sniffed. “I…Sansa, I can’t.”

Sansa took a deep breath. “Megga, we’ve all had to do things that we didn’t want to do since the start of this,” she began, but Megga merely laughed and cut her off.

“No,” she said, coolly. “No, you don’t get to lecture me about doing things I haven’t wanted to do,” she said. “I may be her lady, and her friend, and your friend, but I went to the Black Cells for her. I…you don’t know the things that I suffered down there, Sansa, and for her. For you. So don’t tell me that I have to make more sacrifices as if I never have.”

Sansa fell silent, lost in thought. Then, “You’re right,” she said, “and I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask one more of you.”

And Tommen thought he’d spent quite enough time in the bedroom, then, or Sansa and Megga were going to start suspecting him.

He came out, straightening his shirt again, and their conversation seemed completely forgotten, as Sansa turned and beamed at him.

“You ready?” She asked, and he gave her a shaky nod, and thought he had somehow managed to convince her that he wasn’t acting…strange, which was something of a relief.

He’d never been a good enough actor to fool his mother, after all.

* * *

“Margaery, we need to talk,” Sansa said, as she walked into the Small Council room, ignoring the fact that Varys and Randyl Tarly were both already there, no doubt trying to talk their queen into yet another concession, either to the people, or to their own power, she was certain.

She couldn’t be bothered to care that they had heard her refer to Margaery by her first name.

If Margaery wanted Sansa to take her seriously, she was damn well going to listen to Sansa once in a while, too.

Varys and Randyl Tarly exchanged glances.

Margaery cleared her throat. “If the two of you could leave us alone for a moment,” she said, and Randyl Tarly was already scooping up maps and marching towards the door before she had even finished that order.

The moment the door shut behind the two of them, Margaery turned to face Sansa. “Sansa, I…I am still the Regent, you know. I understand that they know about…that you’re on the Small Council now, but please try to refrain from talking to me like-”

“Did you have Megga spying on me?”

Margaery blinked, clearly surprised by the fact that Sansa had asked her outright, or, Sansa supposed, that she had known about it.

And Sansa…couldn’t help but feel even angrier, knowing that.

She remembered Baelish, his sinister words whispering in her ears, asking if she thought that Margaery was so far gone as she seemed.

She hated the fact that that was immediately where her mind had gone.

Sansa shook her head, hating the fact that Baelish was still playing games with her mind even when he wasn’t in King’s Landing.

“I…” Margaery’s mouth opened and closed, and Sansa’s stomach sank.

“Why?” She demanded. “Am I so untrustworthy, after everything that we’ve been through together, that you think you need to keep an eye on me?”

Margaery swallowed hard. “No, Sansa, it wasn’t like that. I told her to stop, anyway, and this was before…”

“Because of the two of us, I would say that at least my actions of late have been consistent,” Sansa snapped out then, and Margaery flinched as though she’d been slapped.

Sansa bit back a sigh, moving slightly away from Margaery to go and stand in front of the Small Council table, leaning her back against it as she turned to face Margaery once more.

“Margaery, what exactly is your plan here? Or do you not have one?”

Margaery flinched.

Then, lifting her chin, “My plan,” she said, with a forced calm, “Is to keep us alive.”

Sansa opened her mouth to respond to that, but Margaery didn’t give her the chance, raising her voice slightly.

Sansa had the terrible feeling that she needed to get this off her chest.

“And maybe I’m doing terribly at that, maybe this…regency that I wanted so badly isn’t what I thought it would be at all,” Margaery admitted, and Sansa’s head jerked up in surprise at that, “but this…” she let out a wet laugh, trailing off.

Sansa moved forward then, reaching out hesitantly to Margaery.

She knew the other girl still didn’t like being touched, no matter how well she pretended otherwise, most of the time.

Still, she grasped Margaery’s arms, waited until Margaery’s swimming eyes met hers.

“I’m sorry, Sansa,” Margaery breathed. “I shouldn’t have asked her to do that, and I’m sorry.”

Sansa sniffed. Opened and closed her mouth. Then, “I heard that you asked Olenna to return to Highgarden,” she said, into the silence, and Margaery let out a scoff.

“Asked,” she repeated, and Sansa stared at her, confused. “She insisted, more like.” She shrugged. “I suppose she thought it would sound better for me if the court believed the former.”

Sansa squinted at her. “Because of Euron,” she surmised, unable to feign surprise at the realization.

Olenna had made it clear how she felt about Euron Greyjoy from the moment that Margaery had agreed to this sham of a marriage, had made it clear that she would be interested in orchestrating his death, if she just had the permission of the Crown, but Margaery had refused to entertain any such ideas, when they were introduced at the Small Council, or when Sansa had hesitantly suggested them herself, the few times that she and Margaery managed to find together when they were not sleeping.

Sansa thought it might be because Margaery was terrified of how Euron might respond, if he figured out what they were doing before they were successful, or if they were unsuccessful in an attempt altogether, but she couldn’t say for certain.

She did know with quite a bit of certainty that it wasn’t because Margaery liked Euron, not by any of stretch of the word.

Margaery chewed on her lower lip. “Because of me,” she disagreed, quietly. “Because she’s lost faith in me.”

Sansa squinted at her. “She told you this?” She asked, appalled, because whether or not Olenna believed that, Sansa had always thought her a far better manipulator than that.

Margaery bit back a snort. “I don’t know who to trust anymore,” Margaery whispered, hoarsely. “I don’t…I’ve trusted that my grandmother has always had our family’s best interests in mind, my entire life, that she would always protect me because she loved us, and now?” She let out a wet laugh. “Now, I don’t know that those are still the same. I see that she has Gendry and Shireen and Tommen all here, and I wonder what she’s planning with them, wonder what she could possibly be planning with them that she hasn’t bothered to tell me about. And then…With this marriage…”

“You were pretty…set in your decision,” Sansa said carefully, and then winced at how accusing her own tone sounded.

Margaery gave her a flat look. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “There’s something you should see.”

She turned away for a moment, taking a deep breath, and Sansa felt concern bubbling up inside of her, almost despite herself. And then she realized that Margaery was reaching into one of the folds of her gown, was pulling something out of it.

And then she was holding out a piece of paper that Sansa recognized well enough, despite the fact that she had not even been present at Margaery’s wedding. It was recognizable enough on its own, after all.

Sansa took it, hesitantly, from her and unrolled it, feeling Margaery’s expectant gaze on her all the while.

It took her a moment to realize that she was reading the conditions of Margaery’s marriage with Euron, the conditions that the Crown had been forced to agree to if they wanted to save the lives that Euron’s creature was steadily destroying in the harbor.

She’d known that he had demanded some sort of future independence for the Iron Islands, had demanded that he be allowed to attack whomever he wished, a horrible decision, but one that Sansa had even found herself understanding, when she heard it.

But that wasn’t what these concessions were talking about.

Sansa’s eyes widened, as she looked further down the page.

“He stipulated in the marriage contract that if you didn’t have a child within the first year of marriage, he would be able to take the Crown from you?” Sansa demanded breathlessly, lifting her head.

Because she certainly hadn’t heard about this specific stipulation before, and it didn’t make sense, when Euron seemed…less than interested in taking his wife to bed, since their marriage.

Unless, of course, that was the point.

That Euron wanted to take the throne without a fight, for whatever reason, when he could just as easily take it any other way.

Margaery swallowed hard. “It’s not an unheard of stipulation, though usually with…smaller bounties, especially when this is my third marriage.”

Sansa flinched.

Margaery’s voice was a little shakier the longer she went on. “And I would never have known, if I hadn’t looked into it, after I had an…odd conversation with him, the other day,” she admitted. “But I had no idea this was in the original contract. In fact, I’m relatively sure that it never reached my eyes, and I was…careful about making the terms of our contract known.”

Which meant that someone, either Euron or the Tyrells, had not wanted her to see it.

Sansa felt a cold chill running over her.

She tried to think about the reasons behind the Tyrells not wanting Margaery to find out; Nikoelas would only be endangered, if there was another heir, even if that heir was not the son of Joffrey Baratheon either, because gods knew Euron Greyjoy and his monster cared little about that, and Margaery had been through quite a bit of stress herself, in the years she’d spent trying so hard for a child.

Olenna would not have wanted her to spend her days in worry about having to choose between one child and another, surely.

But Olenna had just gone back to Highgarden, when Margaery hadn’t fallen in line with her plans, whatever they were, and that certainly didn’t sound like Olenna, either.

Olenna wasn’t the sort of woman to back down so easily from a fight.

“My father signed that document, told me what was on it, and never though to mention that part.” Margaery said, softly, nodding to the parchment still in Sansa’s hands. “And perhaps that’s my fault, for not paying more attention. But I was trying to save as many people as I thought I could.”

Sansa swallowed hard. “A year?” She repeated.

Margaery licked her lips, nodded. “A year,” she confirmed, again. “I mean…” she reached up, brushing a hand through her hair. “Gods, who knows if any of us will even still be here in a year, but…gods.”

Sansa took a deep breath. “Perhaps…perhaps you should consider it,” she said, softly, and hated herself for it, the moment she said it.

Margaery glanced up sharply at her, from where she sat on the divan. “No,” she said, instantly.

Sansa sighed. “Margaery, I don’t like it either,” she said, pacing again, so that she did not have to look at the other woman. “But he can protect your son, and we need to make sure tat we don’t lose that. I don’t like it, but it wouldn’t matter to me, i swear. This would be to protect Nikoelas. To protect the Iron Throne.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Margaery murmured, her words an eerie echo of what Sansa had just said, and Sansa blinked at her, confused.

Sansa ignored her. “He likes you, I can see that as much,” she said, softly, trying hard not to think about the fact that she was even suggesting this, herself. “It wouldn’t be like Joffrey. You are the Regent, and he is a subject, nothing more, not until Aegon, until Cersei, until they’re all destroyed.”

Margaery was already shaking her head, but Sansa ignored that, too.

She felt like she had in the moments before she had stabbed Ser Meryn, over and over. Eerily calm. Doing what needed to be done, to protect the both of them.

To protect a child that wasn’t hers, but whom she had already fallen in love with, as she had once fallen so hard for Margaery.

Their child.

“He’s insane,” Margaery whispered. “Sansa, he’s mad.”

Sansa didn’t dispute that. “And if you don’t try to keep him from this thing that he wants, what then?”

Margaery gaped at her. “Are you telling me that you really think I should sleep with him? Seriously? After everything that…”

Sansa reached out, taking Margaery’s hands in her own. “You let Olenna go back to Highgarden,” she said, and this time, her voice wasn’t accusing, only concerned. “Olenna wanted him dead, she was clear enough about that, so I am assuming that you don’t. Want him dead, that is.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “I…” she shook her head, looking terribly confused. At any other time, Sansa might have called the look on her face sweet. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t want him for a husband, but even I have to admit that there is a certain…brutal efficiency, to the things that he does. I…do not think that it would be wise, to turn away such an ally, even to try and kill him, if he has that…thing protecting him.”

Sansa lifted her chin. “And I agree with you,” she said, softly.

Margaery’s head jerked up. “You do?” She asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Sansa hesitated, and then nodded. “Perhaps Olenna left because she wanted you to agree to help kill Euron,” she said, “because she knew about this.” She shook her head. “But I can’t say that trying to kill him and then failing will make things any better.”

“So you think…” Margaery shook her head, slowly. “You think that I should just…let him win? Let him either taking a throne from me, or give him a child so that he can’t take the throne from me, and possibly lose my son because of it?”

Sansa didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I don’t think it will come to that,” she promised. “But I…I also don’t think that you should let him win without a fight. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want the child, even if that might make his claim to the throne even easier than waiting for another year, even with his monster. This is…this is certainly easier than running the risk of failing to him, I’d say.”

Margaery swallowed hard, and then admitted, in a very soft voice, “I don’t think that I…that I can.”

Sansa stared down at the table, because it meant that she didn’t have to look at Margaery, just then, because she knew what it was she was advising Margaery to do, just then, suspected it was why Olenna had returned to Highgarden rather than suggest it, herself. “Margaery…”

“Sansa, it doesn’t matter because I can’t…because I can’t have another child,” Margaery said, and Sansa went still, turning around to face her, at those words.

“Can’t?” She repeated, swallowing hard.

Slowly, Margaery nodded, and now Margaery wasn’t looking at her at all.

“What?” she asked, a little breathless, because she didn’t remember the maesters informing her of that, after Margaery had had Nikoelas, and surely, they would have. Sansa had made it clear to them whom they were to tell of all things pertaining to the Queen’s health, first.

Margaery pressed her lips together, a flash of guilt crossing her features, then. “That creature of Cersei’s…Qyburn gave me something, some sort of potion,” she said, and the words sounded more like a confession than an accusation. It made Sansa shiver. “I can’t have any more children. Nikoelas…will be my last.”

Sansa stared at her. “Margaery, I’m so…”

Sorry.

But she didn’t finish her sentence, because Margaery didn’t look sorry. Sorry, perhaps, that she could not entice Aegon Targaryen with a child, but not sorry about what she had done, not what Qyburn had done to her.

“It’s what I asked of him,” Margaery said. “That is all.”

Sansa shook her head, stared at the other woman. She hadn’t understood, a moment earlier, why Margaery would have gone to Qyburn in the first place, had willfully, perhaps, thought that Margaery had meant she was poisoned, and suspected Qyburn.

But the way she was talking now, it sounded like she…“You…you asked him to give you a potion so that you couldn’t have children,” she said slowly, feeling like she was missing a vital part of the conversation, here. Like Margaery was trying to tell her something, and Sansa couldn’t understand a word of it, anyway. “W…Why would you ask him to do that?”

Margaery pursed her lips. “Because I was trying to protect my son.”

Right.

Sansa closed her eyes.

She imagined the vial she had seen on Margaery’s bed for days, half full, the murky substance inside never really explained to her, besides passing comments from Margaery that it was just to help her deal with the aftermath of her childbirth.

“And…and because the thought of having another child, of being put in the position where I might have another child…” she shook her head.

And Sansa…wanted to understand that, she truly did. She understood the pain that Margaery had gone through, in these last few months, understood the toll that having her child removed from her care had had on her, as well.

But dear gods, this…

“Why in the seven hells did you trust that whatever he made you wouldn’t simply kill you?” Sansa demanded as her eyes flew open once more, hands falling to her sides. “You know that he is Cersei’s loyal creature, that he has always been her loyal creature.”

Her voice had gone a bit shrill, by the end.

But of course Margaery knew that, because she’d just said it, after all.

She closed her eyes, and saw Rosamund’s face, when Sansa had found her in that cell, remembered the look on her face as she begged Sansa to just take mercy on her and kill her.

Margaery wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Because I promised him protection from the…crimes that he committed, while serving as Cersei’s loyal creature. And because he is here, while she is not. That has to mean something.”

“Yes, it means that she left him here for a reason,” Sansa snapped.

Margaery fell silent. Then, “Well, I can hardly think she’d disagree with the notion of keeping my womb from bearing more fruit,” she quipped, and Sansa scoffed in disgust, half turning away from her and scrubbing at her face.

Margaery shifted on her feet.

“Sansa, please…talk to me.”

Hah. That was rich, coming from her these days, Sansa couldn't help but think.

And here she’d thought they had agreed to talk more with each other.

Sansa rounded on her. “You poisoned your womb so that you could never have another child, and you didn’t even bother to inform me beforehand, much less ask me! And you think I shouldn’t be angry about it?”

Margaery’s brows furrowed. “Sansa…” she looked confused, more than anything, and that was what horrified Sansa the most. “Why would it matter?”

She got to her feet, then, moving closer to take Sansa’s hands in her own, and it took everything within Margaery not to flinch away from her.

“You are all that I want in a partner,” Margaery said. “I told you that, when you took me into the godswood. Why would I need to worry about having another child, when I never intended to be with a man again?”

Sansa blinked at her. “Tell me,” she whispered, horror bleeding into her tone, “did you do this to protect Nikoelas, or to prove to me that you would never be with anyone else?”

Margaery opened her mouth, but Sansa spoke before she could.

“Because I didn’t need some elaborate declaration, any sort of promise, either from your body or before the gods,” Sansa continued, her voice wobbly.

Margaery looked away.

“I just need you to be honest with me,” Sansa went on, licking her lips.

Margaery let out a wet laugh. “I didn’t do it for you,” she whispered. “Or for Nikoelas, not really. I…I did it for me.”

Sansa stared at her. “For you,” she repeated, lowly.

Margaery nodded. “I thought…I thought that it might protect me, someday. I really, truly did. I didn’t realize that Euron would have demanded such a thing in his marriage contract.”

But the vial that had been sitting on Margaery’s bed, the one that, come to think of it, Sansa hadn’t seen there the most recent time that she’d been in there, just earlier today.

“You…you said that you had a conversation with Euron, and that’s when you looked into this,” Sansa whispered. “But the vial…”

Margaery’s eyes widened slightly. Then, slowly, she nodded. “You’re right. But that was…the second part,” she said, softly. “Qyburn explained that there is a…process, to make sure that the woman herself is not…destroyed, in the process.” She let out a wet laugh. “I suppose it’s something of a different process, when you’re _not_ trying to hurt the woman concerned. I took the first part the day I had that conversation with Qyburn, before Olyvar could get me the real marriage contract. The way my conversation with Euron went, I thought…I thought he truly did want a child. Hells,” she let out a wet laugh, “perhaps he even planned this.”

Because Cersei had already tried this once, Sansa remembered.

It was almost ironic, that Margaery had gone to Qyburn because of that, she supposed.

“My womb, Sansa, it’s already poisoned. But this…it’s meant to ensure the rest of the…process is smooth.” She shook her head. “I threw it away this morning because I couldn’t take it. I don’t know why, when it was just the last part. It doesn’t matter, at this point, though. I’ve already…” she chewed on her lower lip, falling silent.

Sansa ran a hand through her hair. “So,” she said. “So, Euron’s already won this, whatever it is.”

And she wanted to be angry about that, she really, truly did. And a part of her was; angry that Margaery had done this thing to herself, that she had done it without even consulting Sansa, had done it even if she hadn’t known the full story, couldn’t have known, but the rest of her…

The rest of her supposed she couldn’t even be angry about it. Not with the way that Euron Greyjoy often looked at Sansa herself, when he thought no one else would notice, not with the husband Margaery had killed before this one.

Not when she could see the pain Margaery carried around with her, every day, no matter how frustrating it might be from time to time.

“You’re right. I think I’ve ruined us,” Margaery whispered into the silence, hugging herself, not looking at Sansa at all, now.

Sansa swallowed hard, and despite her anger, she couldn’t bring herself to let Margaery carry the blame for that, too. “You can’t think like that,” she murmured, reaching for her again, “For the sake of all of our futures, you can’t like that.”

Margaery scoffed. “What futures?” She asked. “Sansa, all I have wanted for so long was to be the Queen, and now that I finally am, I find myself a worse queen than my husband was a king. I barely understand the things that my councilors tell me, these days, expecting me to either let them handle it or handle it myself. I cannot protect my people, because I cannot even protect my own son.”

“Margaery…”

“I am just trying to keep us alive at this point, Sansa. To keep the Iron Throne for my son, because we both know damn well that now that I’ve reached for it, anyone who believes it is theirs will not allow us to go quietly into the night, to disappear like we both might want to. And I know that I’ve been…” she licked her lips. “I know what I’ve been like.”

“You said you can’t trust anyone. You can trust me,” Sansa whispered, pressing their foreheads together. “You can always trust me. And this...this is just another thing for us to take on. And we'll deal with this, too, just like we've dealt with..." she gestured aimlessly around them. "All of the rest of it."

Margaery sighed, softly. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.

Sansa let out a wet laugh. “I think we almost deserve each other,” she said, and Margaery laughed a little then, too.

There was a knock at the door, and the two girls shot apart.

“Your Grace,” the herald said. “Your Grace, a messenger has just arrived from the Kingsroad. There’s…there’s something that you need to hear.”

Margaery bit back a sigh, pulling back from Sansa. “What is it?” She asked, coolly.

A pause. Then, “He’s waiting in the throne room, Your Grace.”

* * *

Margaery let out an audible sigh, as she took a seat on the Iron Throne, annoyed to find all of her councilors already gathered here, to find that this couldn’t have been moved to a better location, whatever the news was.

She didn’t look at Sansa, as the other girl made her way quietly into the crowd with the other woman, knowing that their conversation was far from over, much as she was dreading it.

She knew that Sansa had been being kind earlier, because she thought that Margaery was…damaged, or something, felt too guilty herself, she couldn’t say for certain. But she had a feeling that Sansa had far more to say about what had just happened, and Margaery knew she was going to need to listen.

She didn’t look at her father at all, as she took her seat. Instead, she snapped her fingers, and a messenger hurried to stand before her.

“What is it?” She demanded.

The man looked…almost petrified. Margaery stomach twisted; it reminded her eerily of the last time a messenger had appeared before them with a message, after all. Of the announcement that Euron Greyjoy’s arrival had been here, in the first place.

She very much disliked that feeling.

“What is it?” She repeated, as the messenger lifted his head, opened and closed his mouth.

“Your Grace, I was put on the Kingsroad to report any…events happening with the Targaryen boy, at Dragonstone,” the messenger said, and Margaery nodded impatiently; this wasn’t the news he’d come here to bring, after all.

“And?”

He hesitated, again.

“Euron Greyjoy has retaken Dragonstone, Your Grace,” the man announced, panting slightly.

Retaken.

Retaken Dragonstone.

She had been aware that Aegon had taken Dragonstone while she was stuck here, fighting off the Dornish and krakens, but…

Margaery stared at him. “From Aegon,” she said, slowly, because for some reason, it felt as if the herald were speaking in a different tongue, was telling her something impossible to understand.

Euron had retaken Dragonstone.

She closed her eyes, and thought of their previous conversation, of how Euron had told her he wanted to do just this, and Margaery had all but given him her permission to do so.

She felt sick.

“How?” Margaery asked, feeling her chest tighten.

Yes, she had given him her…agreement, permission, perhaps he had taken it that way, and perhaps she had meant it that way, but…dear gods.

She had not even known that he was planning such a thing. The last thing she’d known, he’d still been here in King’s Landing.

“He took them by surprise, under Greyjoy colors, Your Grace,” the soldier told her. “It appears that Aegon Targaryen was able to escape, alongside his advisor, Jon Connington, and the majority of his men were also able to get out. I would say only a few thousand of them died.”

Only a few thousand.

Margaery reached up to rub at her temples, feeling a migraine coming on.

"A victory, for the Crown, then," Randyl Tarly said, even if the general mood in the room seemed to suggest that it was anything but.

"Tell me," Varys asked, clearing his throat, "how did he manage it?"

Margaery wondered why he even bothered asking such a question; after all, the creature Euron kept on its leash was not in King's Landing's harbor. Though she did wonder how Aegon Targaryen and his councilors had managed to escape, in that case. 

"They say that his ship…that it appears and disappears, like a ghost,” the man said. “That…that he is something…Other.”

Margaery shuddered, looking up to meet Sansa’s eyes, where the other woman stood in the crowd before the Iron Throne.

Something other.

That would be her general impression, too, if she were to describe Euron Greyjoy, she supposed.

* * *

Tommen picked up the letter, his eyes scanning the familiar handwriting of his mother.

 _My son_ , it read. _My darling boy. I am sorry that I cannot come to get you in person, but this letter is being delivered by someone that I trust implicitly to keep you safe, and you must listen exactly to their instructions. I know that you must be scared, but I am your mother. I would never harm you. The Tyrells, whatever your brother’s wife may say, do not have your best interests at heart…_


	52. Dorne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all staying safe and doing all right!

_“This…thing that we are agreeing to, this thing we will do together,” and Lady Nym almost tripped over the word. Arianne supposed she deserved that, but at least Lady Nym rallied valiantly enough, as she stared down at the pages on the table between them, brows knit carefully._

_The pages that told of Arianne’s father’s duplicity, of his plans for them, for all of them, plans he had never once spoken to them about. His plans to elevate Quentyn._

_She shivered, staring down at them._

_Something she had known since she was a child was now true, before her very eyes; her father had never loved her, not the way that he loved Quentyn._

_Which meant that just now, she owed him nothing._

_Still, she could not quite quench the guilt bubbling up inside of her, as Nym went on._

_“It is going to be…very dangerous, for the both of us, if not Dorne as a whole. I’m not so certain that the risks are worth the reward, Arianne.”_

_Arianne snorted._

_That was seven hells of an understatement, she thought, but in truth, it was Lady Nym who was taking the most risk, here. Oh, Arianne would be taking quite the risk as well, but not like the one Lady Nym was taking, surrounded by enemies on all sides, not even sure which members of her own family she would be able to call her friends._

_Arianne did pity her for that, but then again, this would all make no sense if Arianne were the one to travel to King’s Landing in her cousin’s stead. She would never gain the trust of the Tyrells, no matter how hard she tried._

_Nym, for all that she was a fierce warrior and particularly stubborn, was also unassuming, and already seemed to have gained Margaery Tyrell’s friendship. Arianne knew that befriending a silly girl bent on vengeance, when the Martells knew well of that, would not be the same as getting past the Queen of Thorns, but she had more faith in Nym than any of her other cousins._

_And, perhaps, more than herself._

_If she sent Nym off to do this thing, she was certain; she would not be able to pull out herself, at the last moment._

_Of course, by the end of this, Arianne wasn’t sure that she would be able to call any members of her own family friends, either._

_But she had known, from the night the two of them had gotten roaring drunk, after Arianne had gone through her father’s things and seen that letter to her brother, that this was what she was going to do in response. That this was, truly, the only thing that she could do, in response, no matter how much risk it presented to both of them._

_After all, high risk, high reward. That was something the soldiers, and pirates, from the times that Arianne and Tyene had snuck down to the brothels together, always said._

_“If you don’t want to do it…” she began, and then trailed off, because they both knew that Lady Nym was going to do it. From the moment Arianne had suggested it, she had known that Lady Nym was going to do it._

_Because it would gain them the revenge that they sought. Because Arianne had asked it of her._

_For all that she was fairly unassuming, she was also the most straightforward of Arianne’s cousins; the moment that Arianne gave her a command, she obeyed it without question, even if she did not entirely understand it._

_That was part of Arianne’s worry, in fact; she worried that Lady Nym might not be up to the, admittedly, monumental task before her, given how straightforward she always seemed. It was exactly the reason why Arianne so desperately needed her, but also the reason Arianne worried she wouldn’t be able to complete the task._

_Tyene would have been able to complete it, and with ease._

_But Tyene, anyone could see for a liar from miles away. Lady Nym was a far more blunt instrument, and any woman who had survived Joffrey Baratheon’s wedding night, if all of the things Myrcella had told her about that boy were true, was going to see through a woman known for her deceptiveness easily enough._

_No, if this was going to work, it needed to be Lady Nym. That was certain. Besides, the two of them had already connected, somewhat, since the little Queen’s arrival here._

_And Arianne needed to ensure that Lady Nym knew that, knew how vital her role was, how unchanging it had to be._

_Had to ensure that Nym did not fail her, so that in return, Arianne could not fail her._

_“Of course I want to do it,” Lady Nym said, hurriedly, just as Arianne had known she would. “I wouldn’t consider myself Oberyn Martell’s daughter if I did not want to gain Dorne’s independence from that fucking throne, just as you do. I just…” she reached up, rubbing at the sweat on her brow. “I don’t want to lose Tyene and Obara, over this. Or…” she took a careful breath. “Dorne itself.”_

_Arianne sighed; she could see that, despite her cousin’s words, she was still going to need some more convincing._

_“If we were to tell your sisters anything like the truth, they would hate us for it. They aren’t like us. They’ll see this as…deceitful, cowardly, even, when it’s not,” Arianne reminded her, and Lady Nym sighed. “They won’t see the good we could do with this, only that the Lannisters do not immediately pay for their sins against us.”_

_“I know,” she said, and Arianne felt something like relief flood through her. She knew she had made the right decision, going to Lady Nym out of all of her cousins, for this. “And we have always been like sisters, Arianne, but they…they are my sisters. I…cannot quite stomach the thought of betraying them like this, even if I could stand all the rest.”_

_Arianne forced a sad smile. “I understand,” she said, reaching out and taking Nym by the shoulders. “It hurts me to lie to them, as well, and I will be here for so long, doing so.”_

_Nym, though surrounded by enemies, would be far away, where her lies could not hurt her against her own sisters._

_Just like it had hurt her to lie to her father, but she had done that easily enough, where it counted._

_But Lady Nym just sighed, raising a single eyebrow at her. “And you’re…sure about this?” She asked, slowly. “Going up against the Lannisters, the Tyrells, slowly or all at once…the people may want it as badly as we do Arianne, but I fear what happens if we do fail, and you know as well as I that there is a great chance we will.”_

_Arianne lifted her chin. “Dorne has never failed before,” she reminded Nym. “Dorne has never failed,” Arianne went on, “and they never needed anyone’s help to keep from doing so, in the past. We just need to plan this carefully.”_

_Lady Nym’s cheek twitched. “And you know I want to support you, but if it’s really just…just the two of us, against the world…”_

_Arianne waved a dismissive hand. “It won’t be, you know that,” she promised. “They simply won’t know what we’re using them for.”_

_Lady Nym closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were wet. “I am your loyal friend, you know that, Arianne. But this…I’m not certain that I have the…constitution to lie to Tyrells and Lannisters for that long. To play that long of a game. To sow seeds of doubt in King’s Landing among the people. To play the game of politics at the Small Council table, against masters of it.”_

_Arianne squeezed her fingers. Hard. “And yet, you are the only one I can trust to do it,” she whispered. “Tyene is too sly, and Obara too emotional. It has to be you.”_

_Lady Nym closed her eyes again, looked for a moment as if she might refuse, and Arianne struck before she could._

_“My brother’s life is depending on you to do so, Cousin,” she whispered._

_Lady Nym’s eyes shot open._

_“Do you think, the moment that we crown Myrcella and turn the Lannisters’ rage yet again upon us, after marrying her to Trystane in the first place, that my brother will be safe?” Arianne asked, tightly. “Even now, he sits as all but a hostage in King’s Landing. He needs you. They won’t let him come home, you know that, not when he is such valuable leverage.”_

_Nym bit her lip. “I…” she shook her head. “We should never have let him go with Myrcella.”_

_Arianne didn’t bother to dispute that. Didn’t bother to point out that she would have insisted he go anyway, even if he himself hadn’t._

_What she had in mind for the future, after all, wasn’t going to be safe for him, and he was still her brother, in the end. Even if he, too, was surrounded by enemies, she was certain he would be safer there._

_She didn’t know how to feel about that._

_But she did know what men like Gerold Dayne were like._

_And she had known that Nym would never agree to go to King's Landing if Trystane hadn't gone with Myrcella._

_“And if it makes you feel any better,” Arianne continued, relentless, “This little queen, Margaery Tyrell? So far, during her time in our gardens, she has failed to impress me. She will be your invitation into their ranks, and she will be doing half of the work for you, anyway.”_

_After all, Margaery now seemed convinced that she needed them as much as they needed her._

_So long as she did believe that, Nym would be fine._

_She had to be._

_Nym flinched. “She seems…sincere,” she said, finally, slowly. She said it like she felt guilty about that fact._

_Arianne snorted; she’d sensed that, too. “I’m surprised she’s lasted this long, in King’s Landing,” she muttered, then shook her head. “But that doesn’t matter. She likes you, have you noticed?”_

_Nym sighed. “I…have,” she said, slowly. Arianne could tell she was still conflicted about it._

_But dear gods, they didn’t have the time for that._

_“So use that,” Arianne said, tightly. “Use that to gain a footing in King’s Landing, and when the time is right, Dorne will be that much safer because of it.”_

_Nym nodded, slowly. “And when we’re well rid of them? The Tyrells, and the Lannisters too?”_

_Arianne hummed, forcing a smile. Nym knew it to be forced; she knew her cousin well, after all, but Arianne knew that she was going to need this reassurance, all the same._

_“Then the fun begins.”_

_Nym hesitated, though, before her next question._

_Arianne placed the little piece of paper, this letter to her brother, in the flames, and watched it slowly burn away, before her eyes._

_Lady Nym watched the flames roar without a single expression._

_“So, at the end of this,” Lady Nym said, hesitantly, “When we’ve made Dorne free and raised your brother up as its true ruler, I…I don’t understand.”_

_Because, as far as Nym understood, that was all that Doran seemed to want, as well, but they weren’t working with him on any of this. Not now that Arianne knew he had wanted to replace her with her brother._

_“What about you?”_

_She didn’t care about herself, after all. If Arianne asked it of her, she would do whatever the other woman demanded, but Arianne was setting herself up for quite the fall, whether they failed at this or not, and Lady Nym rather worried over her._

_They all knew she had wanted Dorne since she as a child, that she had wanted her rightful place, to rule it, for even longer._

_But that wasn’t the end goal here, not with the plan that Arianne was concocting, and that…worried Nym._

_Not because she thought that Arianne hadn’t thought about it herself, but because she worried that Arianne had planned out far more than she was even telling Nym, just as she had planned out far more than they were telling Nym’s sisters._

_Arianne stared into the flames, and then smiled, slowly. “I have always loved stories about slaying dragons," she said, kneeling before the fire. Nym felt a shiver run down her spine, even as she saw the heat radiating off of Arianne. "I think it would suit me very well."_

_Nym stared at her. "Sorry, what?"_

_Arianne got to her feet then, turning to face her cousin. "I_ _’m going to avenge my aunt,” she said, softly. “That is what all of this is for, since you're wondering. Avenging Dorne. Avenging my aunt for our family, for our people. Revenging Dorne against those who would use us and abuse us for decades, without a thought to how we might feel on the matter, and then mock us for not fighting back.”_

_Nym shook her head, lips parting wordlessly. “A dragon?” She echoed._

_Arianne bobbed her head, a bit of her excitement causing her face to flush. “If it hadn’t been for a dragon, asking Dorne to get on its knees like a whore before them, and then humiliating my aunt the way they did, Dorne would still be the proud people we once were, rather than begging for a spot at the table in King’s Landing, like we are now.”_

_And Nym…couldn’t quite argue with that logic, she supposed. But…what Arianne was suggesting, it sounded like a plan that would take…years_

_Years of Nym, stuck in King’s Landing, surrounded by enemies, forced to watch out for her cousin to ensure that nothing come of him, because not a single other soul in King’s Landing would care about Trystane._

_And she had agreed to go, of course; after all, they couldn’t trust a Tyrell farther than they could throw them, and this plan they were concocting with Margaery Tyrell had far too many loose ends; they needed someone to go, to keep an eye on her._

_But Nym had thought this would all be over in a matter of months, once Margaery Tyrell was pregnant with a baby that they could announce to the world wasn’t legitimate, and Joffrey Baratheon was dead, his siblings unable to claim the throne, themselves._

_That had sounded like chaos, like something that Nym could agree with, could stand behind._

_But this…whatever this was, this talk of dragons and bringing the Tyrells and Lannisters to their knees by allying with one and then betraying it…that sounded like years. Hard, long years, and surely Arianne realized that Dorne had already suffered enough?_

_Nym did not want to demand that they suffer even more years of humiliating, of bending the knee to kings who thought they deserved it simply by right of birth._

_“But...I don’t understand,” she said, because for all that the plan they were telling Obara and Tyene about was made of complete lies, it was rather…involved. “What about Myrcella?”_

_They had married her to Trystane, after all, with the intention of declaring her the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the moment someone finally did the duty of killing Joffrey Baratheon. She had married Trystane so that Dorne might have a reason to go to war._

_And Lady Nym was not foolish enough not to realize that Myrcella would be nothing more than an extraneous piece in Arianne’s game, by the time that war did break out. After all, Arianne had very little interest in the Seven Kingdoms as a whole._

_Arianne pressed her lips. “At the beginning of this, I will admit, my plan was to use Myrcella as the face of our rebellion. To name her a queen, to show the Lannisters.” Nym flinched. “I wanted Father to know that I was serious. I was going to use her, as a…” she shook her head. “But now...Now I see that my father cannot see beyond these shores. Now..."_

_Nym flinched._

_Now, they didn't need the girl, not for what it was Arianne was planning._

_Nym had always been a fighter, after all, and not so much a plotter. But she wasn’t a fool. She knew that this alliance with the Tyrells was just as ill fated as the one Arianne was suggesting with the dragons._

_She wondered why she had never quite figured out how ambitious her cousin was, before all of this. Looking back, she supposed she had been a fool not to._

_She had known for some time that Arianne did not just care to put Myrcella on the Iron Throne, that it was a trick, even before Arianne had just confirmed it for her. Hadn’t known what Arianne’s plans for the girl actually were, even when she’d insisted on Myrcella and Trystane marrying, but had known they couldn’t be so straightforward, not with the way that Arianne was courting Gerold, these days._

_But she had never truly thought that those plans stretched farther than Dorne's borders._

_“Now?” Nym whispered._

_“Now?" Arianne repeated. "I never…” Arianne turned back to Nym, and her eyes were sad though it did not show on her face. “I never expected…” She shook her head, but Nym didn’t need her to finish that sentence herself._

I never expected to love Myrcella.

_Nym thought she envied just a little of what that felt like, herself. “And now?” She repeated, quietly._

_Arianne shook her head, a little bit of her desperation, of her worry, bleeding into her tone, and that was the moment that Lady Nym realized this was really going to happen. That it wasn't some fevered dream of Arianne's._

_That Arianne wasn’t going to pull out of this plan at the last moment, that whatever happened to Myrcella because of it, Arianne would see it through._

_That Nym was really going to King's Landing with Margaery Tyrell to help the Tyrell girl tear it down, as she seemed so desperate to do herself, already._

_“We’ll figure that out when we don’t have a choice but to,” Arianne said, quietly, and Nym winced, because she didn't hear that same conviction in Arianne's tone. “But Myrcella will not die by my hand. She will be the Queen of an independent Dorne, if it comes to that, beside Trystane. I won’t let the Dornish hurt her, either. She’s…important to me, now. Just as Dorne’s independence is important to me.”_

_After all, her cousin had never been very good at making emotional decisions at the last moment._

_Nym closed her eyes, and wondered how it sounded, if this was really going where Nym suspected. All the way to the top._

_Arianne, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Or Dragonslayer, if that was indeed the only highest ambition of Arianne's life, as she claimed._

_It didn’t quite have the ring to it that Nym was expecting. Not quite the same finesse as the rest of Arianne's plan, thus far._

_Still, it made her shiver, all the same._

_But Nym did not let herself think on it for long. Did not let herself think on the long years that might be ahead of her, gaining trust in King’s Landing so that her cousin could make use of it, when the time came._

_Instead, she went down on one knee. Arianne’s eyes widened, but she didn’t bother to utter even a token protest as Nym called her, “All right. Then we'll figure it out. Your Grace.”_

* * *

“I should be there,” Gerold said, where he lay beside her, and Obara bit back a sigh.

She liked Gerold - maybe more than she wanted to admit, considering that half the time, he felt like a plague on her already not considerable patience, but this was the thing she hated the most about their recent partnership. His insecurity, the ego that she had to stroke every time they slept together because even after they were together, he couldn't turn off his brain.

Which was strange enough, considering he hardly used it otherwise, she thought, turning on her side to face him a little more closely.

But then, such was usually the case with men, she had found.

“The nobles are saying that’s what’s really going on. That I’m nothing more than her puppet,” Gerold said darkly, where he lay in the bed beside her, and Obara reached up, forced herself to run a hand through his chest hair as she smoothed it out. “And I hardly think that my not being there during one of our first military moves is helping that image.”

Obara shook her head, tsking. “Of course you couldn’t be there,” she said. “But you sent one of our most trusted allies to oversee things, and maybe it didn’t work in our favor, but now, at least, we’re not fighting off a madman like Euron Greyjoy.”

She still didn’t know what to think of all of that. Of the fact that Margaery Tyrell, the little rose princess whom they had underestimated from the moment she had slunk her way into Joffrey Baratheon’s bed, and then, after that, when they’d had her here in Dorne, under their clutches, and done nothing about it when they could have so easily killed her off and never told the Lannisters what had become of her, had somehow managed to ally herself with Euron Greyjoy and a creature that struck fear into the hearts of even the fiercest Dornishmen.

“If they are serious in this alliance,” Gerold muttered again.

She shook her head. “They are,” she said. “Aegon Targaryen is just as much of a threat to them as Euron Greyjoy is to us, or they wouldn’t have made this offer at all."

Gerold shook his head. “Strange to think of, with the reports of what he did to our men.”

He still was angry about that, Obara knew. And she was too, of course; angered by the unnecessary death, angered at the fact that Margaery Tyrell or the envoy that Gerold had sent had let it happen in the first place.

But they had bigger problems, just now.

“But interesting enough,” Obara said, and when he glanced over at her, “according to Qorgyle, it sounds as if Margaery Tyrell was just as pressed into this alliance as we were. I do think it might be interesting to…keep her in mind, when we have finished off Aegon Targaryen. That may be a way of making sure that she keeps her promises, as well.”

Gerold half sat up in bed, then. “And you don’t feel guilt about that?” He asked her. “About turning on the boy who claims to be the son of your aunt?”

Obara snorted. “My aunt was butchered in her bedchambers, alongside her son and daughter,” she informed him, coldly. “Whoever this boy is, he deserves to die for dredging up all of that pain for Dorne once more. If my father were still alive…”

If her father were still alive, he would never abide such a thing.

She didn’t quite say it.

The pain of her father’s death was still all too fresh for Obara, who had idolized him her entire life, only for him to be torn away from her in the blink of an eye, leagues away from their home, surrounded by enemies.

The same way that Nym was, now, though Nym, for her own stupidity, had chosen such a fate for herself when she had turned on their family.

On what was left of it.

Oberyn would have been horrified by her choices, since his death. Nym certainly was, and she thought that even Arianne was, though the other girl’s choices were hardly better, since then.

“Is this…” he bit his lip. “Allying against him. He managed to raise an army without much struggle, across the Narrow Sea, even with an enemy like Euron Greyjoy making that army rather…obsolete, once he got here. Is this what you think was the wisest move? What you think Arianne would have done?”

Obara felt a flash of guilt at the reminder of her cousin, at the fact that Gerold was clearly thinking about her as much as Obara was.

“If my cousin was the wisest of us, she wouldn’t be languishing away in a tower prison, now, would she?” She asked, and there was nothing of irony in her tone.

Gerold stared at her for a moment longer, and then sat up. “The people…the people are saying that they haven’t seen her in ages because I murdered her,” he said, darkly. “That I made up the claims about her protection being threatened so that I could cut her throat somewhere in the dark. “I’m starting to worry…I’m starting to worry that if she isn’t released soon, they’ll turn on us the same way they’re turning on the Tyrell girl.”

Obara smacked her lips together. “Our people are smarter than the King’s Landing smallfolk,” she informed him. “And…particularly better fed. Besides, she has a sea dragon defending her against them, now. They won’t turn on her again, I dare say.”

He snorted, despite himself. “I just…I’m not a tyrant,” he said, slowly, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as her. Obara clucked her tongue, opened her mouth to speak, but he clearly wasn’t done. “And I don’t have monsters to come to my defense. I…Arianne, she was acting foolishly, she…you know as well as I that she pushed me to do this, she and her lazy father. If she had just done what she promised the people, as I am doing now…but they act as if they dislike me for it.”

He was all but whining, towards the end.

Dear gods, she could remember the first time that Arianne had expressed her attraction toward Gerold Dayne. Remembered the fierce warrior that he had seemed, in the beginning, the man who was actually willing to act, when even Arianne, for all her blustering, was not.

And now that Obara was finally in bed, now that Obara was finally noticed above her sisters and her cousin, she found him just as disappointing as every other man she had taken to bed.

Obara shook her head. “They are always discontent about something,” she told him. “You are doing what they have always wanted the rulers of Dorne to do. You simply do not have the name they were expecting, and it makes them…concerned.”

Slightly more than that, but she wasn’t about to add to his worries.

“I am not even certain that they believe me when I say we are working toward a free Dorne,” Gerold said, tightly. “Not when our men are off agreeing to fight and die for the Crown, still.”

Obara reached out, rubbing at his shoulders, all but pulling him back into the bed with her. “Tell them that they need only have a bit more patience,” she said, almost gently. “They waited long enough, for Doran, for Arianne. They can wait a little longer for a man who has already secured them freedom from the Crown.”

“Then why do you like me?” He asked her, turning totally to face her in the bed, and he sounded genuinely curious. “Perhaps if I understood that, I could understand how to convince them, as well.”

Obara rolled her eyes. “Perhaps if I understood it…” she said, but when she looked up at him, he was still staring at her in honest confusion.

Obara sighed, moving forward to throw her arms around his neck, to pull him flush against her.

“My cousin has a way of…pushing away all of those close to her,” she said. “Her mother is back, and has only wanted to visit her once. Her father went all of the way to the Water Gardens to avoid her. Lady Nym broke trust with us and fucked off to King’s Landing to get away from her, and Quentyn never once came back to her. She just…” she shrugged. “She is always the victim, Gerold. Always the victim of someone else, never once acknowledging that her troubles might be her own damn fault.”

And, surprisingly, Obara found herself meaning ever word of the things she was saying to Gerold.

She wondered what that said about her, as she bit back a sigh.

Gerold stared at her. “What did she do to you?” He asked her, and his voice was soft in that way that it only ever seemed to be with her, or when he was trying to manipulate Myrcella, she supposed.

She sighed, pulling back from him. “Nothing,” she said. “Just like Doran. She did nothing when my father was killed, did nothing when Margaery Tyrell came here and all but offered herself up on a platter, nothing when Nym betrayed us. For all her fancy words, she has never done more than Doran did. And perhaps she would have, given enough time, but Dorne has waited long enough.”

_I have waited long enough._

She thought Gerold had read that in her eyes, though, from the way that he leaned down to kiss her.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Obara groaned, moving away from Gerold and moving to pull the sheet up over herself, as the door opened and one of the guards stepped inside.

He immediately averted her eyes from the both of them, staring at the far wall, and flushing a deep crimson. Obara supposed it was amusing, if she weren’t so annoyed by it.

“My lord, I am afraid that there is a…problem,” the guard said, and Gerold sat up fully, then.

“What is it?” He ground out, all but shoving Obara away from him.

The man’s jaw ticked; clearly he knew that whatever he was about to say was going to get him into trouble.

Obara felt her gut twist, as she worried that somehow, Arianne had managed to escape from her prison, or Doran had, or the Tyrells and Greyjoy had already turned on them, despite their promises. Or perhaps the Targaryen boy had proved more formidable than they had given him credit for, or…

“Queen Myrcella is missing,” the guard announced. “She, and her uncle, the dwarf.”

Obara tensed, where she lay beside Gerold.

Gerold sat silent for a moment, and then swore violently, shoving the sheets off of them, which elicited an annoyed grunt from Obara, and reaching for his trousers.

“What do you mean, they’re missing?” He demanded of the guard.

The guard swallowed thickly. “They’re missing, my lord. Her servants reported her missing this morning, and the Imp has not been found, either. His man is gone, as well as…”

Obara closed her eyes, knowing already what he was going to say before he said it.

“Tyene Sand,” the guard went on, and this time, his eyes flashed over to Obara of his own accord.

It was Obara’s turn to stare resolutely at the far wall, as Gerold cursed again under his breath, reaching for a shirt.

“Send the guard after them!” He snapped at the man. “Find them.Find that fucking princess, and her fucking Imp!” Gerold snapped, and the guard saluted again, before all but running from the room.

Gerold whirled on Obara, then. “Did you know about this?” He demanded, furious. “Did you know about your sister’s treason?”

Obara’s lips pressed together. “I warned you that she was slipping,” she said. “That the crueler you acted around Myrcella, the more she would. She loves that girl.”

Gerold grunted, as he reached for his sword, where it dangled on the end of their bed, and moved towards the door. “Obviously I locked up the wrong Martell girl,” he muttered, as the door slammed with a loud bang behind him.

Obara flinched, at the sound, and sank back into the bed, holding her head in her hands.

Fuck.

* * *

When she had heard of the death of her own father, Tyene had sobbed openly, had fallen into her sisters’ arms and sobbed and wanted very much to die with him, if only to erase this pain she was feeling.

And later, when she was alone, she had sobbed harder. Had thought that she would never be rid of the pain filling her chest, that it was an unbearable thing that would follow her until her dying breath.

The only thing that had ever stemmed the flow of that grief for a little while had been the plot to put Myrcella on the throne, had been spending time with the girl.

And now she discovered that all of that might have been a trick, too. That Arianne might have never given a damn about the one thing that had pulled Tyene from the pain of her father’s death, a father who would have done anything for her. That Obara and Gerold certainly didn’t, and even if Arianne did have some plan to get out of all of this, Myrcella was at the mercy of Obara and Gerold now.

She was not Myrcella’s mother; they were not so far apart in age, after all.

But gods, she thought she had finally begun to feel that way for someone else, had finally begun to understand how Oberyn could go around finding all of them, bringing them all home to be with him, away from their mothers, because he wanted them to be his princesses, if not Dorne’s.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, her thoughts of Arianne were all but gone.

Instead, she found herself staring down at the Imp, lost in thought though he was.

For Myrcella, she told herself.

Whatever came next, she would live with it, if it meant getting that girl to safety. And if Arianne was working against them…so be it.

The Imp was not looking at her, though. He was riding his horse as closely to Myrcella’s as possible, reaching out a hand as if to catch her, in her current impregnated state, should she fall, but Tyene might have told him not to bother.

The girl was an accomplished rider, after all, even pregnant and pulled from sleep. And they’d been riding for hours; daybreak was just coming, over the horizon. If she was going to fall, surely it would have been earlier.

Still, Tyene could not quite begrudge the man his worry.

His man was riding behind them, silent besides the few, unreturned flirtations he had tried with Tyene when they had first started out, and Myrcella had not spoken since Tyene had pulled her out of her bed and told her they were leaving.

“Where is it that we’re going?” Myrcella finally asked, as the morning broke around them, shifting her horse slightly away from her uncle, and more towards Tyene.

“You remember Ellaria’s father’s house, do you not?” Tyene asked Myrcella, glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.

The other girl looked nervous. A moment later, she revealed why, one hand going to her rather heavy stomach. “That’s…leagues away, isn’t it?” She asked, quietly.

Tyene and Tyrion exchanged concerned glances.

Tyrion moved forward then, placing a hand on Myrcella’s foot from where he rode beside it. Tyene was surprised when the girl didn’t pull away from the comforting touch; she would have.

“Do you trust us, Myrcella?” He asked her, quietly.

Myrcella bit her lip; Tyene could well understand why she did not. She had not been silent about the fact that she blamed her uncle for sending her here in the first place, and after all, Tyene was a Sand Snake, whether they were good friends or not.

And their only protection seemed to be a sellsword who had no great desire to be there at all.

She would understand if Myrcella didn’t trust her because of that alone.

Then, unfathomably, the girl dipped her head in a little nod.

“I…yes,” she whispered, and Tyene started, just a little. “I just…I’m worried about the babe, Uncle. It’s almost time, and…”

She didn’t have to finish that sentence.

They were surrounded by the desert, after all.

“And I thought that Ellaria’s father was…not well disposed, towards Lannisters.”

Tyene’s smile was wry; smart girl.

Tyrion nodded. “I know,” he said, forcing a smile, not even bothering to address her concerns about Ellaria’s father, it seemed. “But your child will be much safer delivered in the house of Ellaria’s father than it would be delivered here, where Gerold Dayne would only use it as a pawn, do you understand?”

Myrcella bit her lip, glancing between Tyene and Tyrion. Then, “Her,” she corrected, and Tyrion stared at her for a moment longer, before he smiled.

“Yes,” he agreed. “She will be much safer there.”

“And Lord Uller will only use her as a pawn too, won’t he?” She asked, quietly. “I don’t…I don’t know about this.”

Another glance, shared between Tyene and Tyrion. She had never thought she would come to regard a Lannister as a companion for her secrets, Tyene thought, forcing herself to stare forward again, to think about their next steps.

“Myrcella, you will be safe there,” Tyrion promised her, quietly. “You will. He has already agreed to take you, from letters between he and Tyene.”

Tyene could feel Myrcella’s surprised gaze on her, now, forced herself to turn in her saddle and smile at the other girl.

“It’s true,” she said, and decided Myrcella would never see the contents of those letters, even if Tyrion had insisted on it. “It’s going to be all right, Myrcella. I promise you.”

“And if…if we don’t make it there in time? If Gerold comes after us?” Myrcella whispered, still shaking her head.

Tyene shook her head, glad that the girl hadn’t been voicing all of these concerns when Tyene had pulled her from her sleep and told her to come with her, and Myrcella had done so without a question, an almost resigned look on her features. She had walked past her maid, slain on the floor before her door, with that same resigned look, without a single word of protest.

Tyene had been almost impressed, but now that Myrcella was talking, she almost wished for the silence to return.

“We can’t think about that, Myrcella. You have to keep moving.”

Myrcella let out an audible sigh.

Tyene sighed then, too. “Don’t you trust me, too?”

Surely, she should, if she trusted her uncle again.

Tyene was surprised by how…hurt, she felt, at the prospect that Myrcella didn’t. That was firmly entrenched with the Lannisters only, just now.

The moment Myrcella said the words, she paused, let them sink in, for a moment. Closed her eyes, fists still clenched at her sides, as she asked Tyene, “I need to know something. Is this all…is she just pretending to be a prisoner, like some of the nobles say, and manipulating everything Gerold Dayne does so she won’t be responsible for his actions?”

Tyene flinched, and Myrcella scoffed.

“Is that…is that what this is about? She decided she couldn’t trust me anymore? That…that I am just a Lannister, after all?”

Tyene shook her head, reaching out and clasping Myrcella’s hands in hers. “Of course not,” she said. “Arianne would never…she loves you, Myrcella. Surely, you realize that. That’s why you came back with me, is it not?”

Myrcella gritted her teeth together. “And I’ve regretted it ever since,” she muttered, and Tyene flinched as if she’d slapped her. Myrcella felt a spike of guilt, but it disappeared quickly enough.

Tyrion cleared his throat, and when he started talking about what Lys had been like when he was there in his exile, Tyene was almost relieved.

* * *

“Get the fuck up,” Gerold snapped, as he marched into the cell that Arianne shared with Ellaria, and Arianne forced herself to lift her head and squint at him, forced herself to smile at the look of pure frustration on his face, because it meant that even though she herself was furious that she was being left in the dark, furious at the fact that Gerold must know something, to have kept her from Tyene and Obara for so long, the look on his face had to be worth…something, at the very least.

And after all, she had information now that he did not.

“Husband,” she greeted, as Ellaria snorted in the background.

Gerold sent Ellaria a hefty glare, before turning on Arianne.

“What did you do?” He demanded, stalking forward, not giving her the time to respond before he grabbed her by the neck and threw her against the far wall.

Ellaria let out a cry of surprise, but Arianne didn’t even try to struggle, just met Gerold’s eyes and held them, imperiously.

The bastard could hurt her all he wanted; he was claiming that he kept her here for the good of Dorne, for the sake of her own protection, and the moment she walked out of this room with bruises on her neck, all of Dorne would realize this was not the case.

With that in mind, she forced a smile. “Things not going your way, darling husband?” She asked him, and he grunted as he released her. “I can hardly claim responsibility for anything that may have hobbled you, stuck in this cage as I am.”

She gestured around them.

Gerold scoffed, and let go of her. “You can’t expect me to believe that you didn’t know about this. That you didn’t do it to…to undermine me!”

Arianne stared up at him, feeling her gut twist at the absolute rage in his eyes. “What happened?” She asked, moving forward, touching his hand.

He flinched back from her. “Perhaps you weren’t aware,” he said, coldly. Then, “Myrcella, Tyene, and that Imp escaped Sunspear together. Disappeared into the desert this morning.”

Disappeared.

Tyene had taken Tyrion and Myrcella into the desert and disappeared, without even giving Arianne a warning that she was leaving.

Something had to have happened, for her to do something like that. For her to interrupt Arianne’s plan so easily like that, without even doing her the courtesy of warning her.

And dear gods, she had known that Tyene loved Myrcella like a little sister, but to take her and drag her, nearly fully pregnant, out into the desert without even a warning to her sister, or to Arianne…

Arianne swallowed hard. Stared at him. “They did…what?” She demanded, hotly. “How?”

How in the hells had they managed to get past all of Gerold’s guards, when Arianne could hardly get past them here, when she could hardly even manage such a feat. When Myrcella was heavily pregnant, and surely Tyene was being followed. When the Imp was a noticeable enough figure…

“I don’t know,” Gerold snapped. He reached up, ran a hand over his head. “I don’t know how they got out, I just know that they’re gone now. Where would they go? Surely you had a plan for something like this.”

Arianne ground her teeth. “I wasn’t behind this,” she reminded him, even as she heard Ellaria shifting behind her. “I don’t know where they went. Or why they should feel the need to go.”

Gerold grimaced. “Your cousin is a soft one,” he said, tiredly. “Too soft. You know her better than anyone, I think. Where would she go with Myrcella?”

Arianne reached up, rubbing tiredly at her temples. “Why haven’t you asked Obara that question?” She asked.

He scoffed. “They’ve never been close,” he said, and Arianne’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. She thought she heard Ellaria make a noise of dissent, as well, but didn’t dare look over at the other woman.

Whatever it was Tyene or Obara was planning, it was clearly their intention that Gerold not think they were close. She wasn’t about to jeopardize Obara by making Gerold think otherwise.

“Perhaps she thought Myrcella’s life to be in danger,” Ellaria piped up then, from the corner, and Gerold looked annoyed, more than anything, that Ellaria had dared to speak to him. “Was it?”

Gerold jabbed a finger at her. “I came here to speak with my wife, not with you,” he said. “If I wanted to speak with you about one of your traitorous children, believe me, you would know.”

Ellaria lifted her chin. “And yet, you had me put in the same cell as Arianne, when you clearly have much to speak with her about.”

Gerold opened his mouth to refute that, and Arianne tensed, glancing nervously at him.

And then, before he got the chance, she murmured, “Was she in danger?”

He spun on her. “As if you don’t know. I happen to know that your mother has been coming here to visit you, and often, despite my orders that the guards not allow her in. Bribery, eh?” He glanced over her rather worn gown. “Or perhaps you’ve been bribing them with your body, the way you did with me before you turned out to be such a…disappointment.”

Arianne sent him a cool smile. “I’ve heard that you and the Tyrells have reached some sort of…secret arrangement,” she said. “Perhaps the Imp convinced my poor dear, innocent cousin that this bodes ill for Myrcella. She does so care for the girl.”

Gerold crossed his arms over his chest, and Arianne got the sudden impression that he was preening, which certainly didn’t make sense just now, when he was here accusing her of losing one of his most important pieces in the game.

“The Tyrell Regent and her newest…husband offered Dorne the one thing that you and your family have never been able to give it,” Gerold said, grinning, and Arianne felt a chill run down her spine, despite the high heat of the morning.

Behind her, she heard Ellaria’s sharp intake of breath, as the other woman came to the same inevitable conclusion that she had. Of what it was that Gerold would be so proud of, what that one thing would be that he, and Dorne, wanted so dearly.

“She would have to be…quite desperate to offer such a thing,” Arianne said, shaking her head. “Did you attack her?”

She had heard of that, of course, but thought she might like to berate him to his own face, even as her ears rang.

Gerold smiled coldly at her. “We did, but it was not us who caused her such desperation,” he said. “I suppose in the end, it simply worked out for us.” He shrugged. “As I said, she found herself a new…husband.”

Margaery had a new husband, a new ally at her side.

Arianne closed her eyes, for a moment allowing herself to wonder if that husband had silver hair and purple eyes. If he was the supposed son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. If, once again, Margaery had taken something else Arianne wanted from her.

Because Margaery had already clearly offered Gerold the one thing that Dorne truly wanted. Had all but handed it over to him, apparently, and not to Arianne.

No.

No, this was all wrong.

So.

That was the thing that Margaery had, the thing she could offer that Gerold would want more than the war he had sought her entire life, more than the glory his family had but he did not.

She closed her eyes.

She couldn’t even be angry with Margaery; she had betrayed the other woman first, after all, though their plans had left room for betrayal, the moment that Joffrey was dead.

Margaery was only doing what she thought was best for her people, her kingdom, or what little of it she could still hold onto, and it wasn’t as if Arianne could blame her for that.

For a moment, she found herself wondering if Margaery could even do that, if, as a Regent to a child yet to be born, she could just…decide to let one of the Seven Kingdoms have its independence, without anyone trying to stop her, even if she could argue she was doing it to avoid death at the hands of a Dornish army.

It didn’t matter though; clearly, she had.

But still, she felt something like hot fury rushing through her, because the girl she had come to know in the Water Gardens, she had been smart, but she hadn’t known Dorne, not like Arianne did, having lived here her whole life, cleaning up her father’s messes when he couldn’t be bothered to.

And yet, somehow, she knew exactly what it was that would turn Dorne against Arianne and Myrcella for food, the one thing that they wanted more than revenge, more than anything.

Independence.

And Arianne couldn’t help but hate her for it, just a little.

Couldn’t help but hate her for offering it to Gerold so freely, when it was the one thing that Arianne had wanted, not for Gerold to be at the helm of, but for her to lead Dorne into.

Freedom.

Crowning Myrcella, that had been a step in that direction, and the little queen had just turned around and handed it to Gerold Dayne without a fight.

Handed it to a man without even thinking about it.

Arianne gritted her teeth.

This was exactly the sort of thing that her little spies, her cousins, should have told her before Gerold Dayne did, and yet, she had to find it out from his smug expression.

Although…not quite as smug as she had been expecting, and Arianne didn’t know whether to take heart in that, or not.

Gerold met her eyes. “Ah,” he said. “I see neither your mother nor your little spy didn’t think to tell you of that, before she left,” he said, and Arianne squinted at him.

“I…what?” She demanded, genuinely confused by the words.

Her little spy.

Spy, singular.

It struck her that there was something significant about that, but she was too horrified by the news she’d just received to think too hard on it, just now.

Margaery had offered Gerold the one thing that Arianne had been working so hard to gain for Dorne, as if it was easy enough to do, just a flick of her arm, where she sat on the Iron Throne.

She swallowed hard. “I don’t…know what you’re talking about,” she said, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ellaria pitying her, wondering why she wasn’t giving up the game, now that she had been found out.

He snorted, miserably, pulling back from her. “You know what the saddest thing was?” He asked her. “I really believed in you, at the beginning, when you first approached me about all of this. I really thought…” he cut off, wiping at his mouth, looking terribly sad. “Well, it doesn’t matter. The people of Dorne have spoken; they want their independence more than they want to bend the knee and bleed for a Lannister’s daughter, she had that right.”

Arianne swallowed hard, her heart hammering in her chest.

Gerold moved closer, then. “So I will find her,” he said. “I don’t know what it was you really planned for her, though it was obvious you didn’t want her to be the Queen I made her to be, but perhaps you will have your wish. Perhaps you will get what you wanted from the start, when I track her down and ensure that neither she nor that child become a threat to me. I hear that they went South.” He smirked at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where they went?”

“I hardly knew that you would attack King’s Landing and make such demands, and that in doing so, you would endanger her life. For the last time, I don’t know where they are,” Arianne hissed out, crossing her arms over her chest.

Gerold met her gaze steadily. “Didn’t you?” He demanded, and if the way that Arianne swallowed nervously then didn’t give her away, Ellaria’s sharp intake of breath certainly did. He took another step closer. "Know that I was going to attack them?"

No, Arianne thought.

No, there was no way that he could have known, because only Tyene and Obara knew what her plans had been, only they could have told him, and they would never betray her like that.

Nym had betrayed them, Arianne thought darkly. Nym had betrayed all of them, and she had once known the girl would never betray her, either.

Gods, she’d been a fool, apparently. About all of this.

She should have just done everything from the beginning herself. Sure, she might have been hated for it, but it would have been far easier.

Still, she forced herself to look fierce and unmoving, when she met Gerold’s eyes.

“Fine,” he snapped, through gritted teeth. “Don’t tell me. The little bitch is probably going to die in the desert anyway, given her condition, long before they get wherever they’re going. That is…if Obara doesn’t find them and drag her back here, first.”

Arianne felt her heart skip a beat, as her eyes jerked up to meet his.

Obara had been sent after them. Gerold had sent Obara after them, which meant, while he had clearly ascertained the truth about Tyene, he didn’t know about Obara. Didn’t know what her true motivations were.

Spy, singular.

There was still hope.

Before she could stop herself, she was smiling. She had been a prisoner long enough that it felt strange, on her features, but she couldn’t hold it back.

Gerold was glaring at her. “What are you smiling about?” He demanded, and then his eyes narrowed. “Oh,” he said. “You still think that Obara is on your side in all of this, don’t you?”

Arianne felt her face go white.

No, no he was lying, he had to be. He had suspected that Obara was a spy, like Tyene, and she had only done what Arianne had told her to; convinced him that it wasn’t the case, of course it wasn’t.

Gerold smirked. “Do you think I’m stupid enough not to suspect the girls you keep closer than sisters are spying for you, Wife?”

Arianne closed her eyes.

“But Obara doesn’t abide cowards,” he went on, coolly. “Do you know she told me the story of how Oberyn came to claim her, as a child. How he found her mother, some backwoods whore, and she begged him not to take her daughter away. Begged on her knees, groveling at his feet, and he told Obara to make a choice. To make a choice between her begging, cowardly bitch of a mother, and her father. And she chose her father. And she learned a year later that the whore had died; drank herself to death. Obara never mourned her.”

Arianne flinched.

She knew the story, of course, difficult though it was to reconcile with her uncle, a man who both loved women and loved to laugh, and had never been cruel even when he was putting a stop to Arianne’s schemes.

Everyone in the Water Gardens knew it, knew why Obara refused Ellaria’s kindness at every turn, knew why she was so furious every time Tyene mentioned her mother, or Arianne mentioned missing hers.

Knew why she fought with weapons more than words, knew why she loathed any sign of weakness. Knew it would be useful, when she turned her cousins against their uncle, Arianne’s father.

She met his gaze. “What about it?” She gritted out.

He reached out, lifting up her chin, and Arianne fought against him for a moment, but Gerold held her firm.

It was like a vice.

His eyes were cold. “I suppose she saw that same weakness in you, little wife,” he said. “That’s why she’s turned on you. Why she’s gone after them, for the betterment of Dorne. Did you really think I would just let them go? Even if you didn’t know what was at stake. I cannot afford for your…allies, and there are enough of those to go around, trust me, to get their hands on the girl, to decide to keep up the charade of her coronation rather than to break free from the chains of the Westerosi.”

“We _are_ Westerosi,” Arianne whispered, through gritted teeth.

Gerold laughed in her face, before releasing her. “Do you think the rest of the Seven Kingdoms think so, sneering down their noses at us? Your little rose Queen? She couldn’t have been more pleased to be rid of Dorne. Looked like she was glad to be rid of it, so long as we didn’t champion Myrcella Lannister’s cause.”

Arianne shook her head at his words, but he continued, all the same, still smirking.

“And I cannot allow our freedom to be threatened for the sake of one snobbish little girl who was seeded by her own uncle, anymore than Margaery Tyrell could.”

Arianne stiffened.

No.

No, she had known that Margaery was ruthless enough to kill her own husband, and for all that he was a monster, he was her husband, but she hadn’t thought that she could do something like this.

That she could so easily Myrcella’s death to save the life of her own son’s.

She swallowed hard.

Then again, perhaps Margaery thought Arianne willing to make the exact same choice, if she wasn’t too powerless to do a thing about it. Perhaps she had gotten what she wanted, and was only trying to give Dorne what they needed, as well.

For a price, and Arianne did not understand why every step forward always had to have two steps back. Why there must always be a price for the things she wanted so desperately.

“She’s a child,” she whispered, hoarsely. “Just a little girl. You know her, Gerold.” She reached up, reached for his arms, pretended that Ellaria wasn’t there to see her at all, wasn’t there to see her beg for the life of a Lannister. “You can’t do this.”

“I can’t afford not to,” Gerold said, before finally stepping back from her. Then, cocking his head, studying her, and Arianne hated that contemplative look in the eyes of a man she’d always thought to be a bit of an idiot, “And here I thought you barely cared about the girl, as anything more than a means to an end. Obara certainly seems to think as much.”

Arianne gritted her teeth.

Because yes, Myrcella had always been a means to an end, and a part of her had known that end might come with Myrcella’s death.

But it had never been a clear cut, understood thing, in her mind. A part of her had desperately hoped that it would not be, that she could still find a way to spare Myrcella’s fate and get Dorne what she wanted most for it. When she had realized that crowning Myrcella would get her nothing more than a civil war, when Aegon had arrived, she had hoped she could gain a truce from him, for all they said he loved his mother’s people.

At least, that was what she would ask of him in the beginning. 

Had daydreamed of a life in exile for Myrcella and her child, Arianne’s own niece or nephew, a life on the coast in some castle, where no one would ever bother her and Arianne wouldn’t have to look on her with guilt, anymore. Perhaps she would visit, once or twice, and Myrcella would still look on her with loathing, but she would be alive.

Perhaps Trystane would even be there, once Aegon Targaryen defeated the Tyrells. Perhaps he might become the Prince of Dorne, when Arianne’s work was finished, and Myrcella could rule at his side.

She had known it was likely impossible, but she had hoped, all the same.

And Margaery Tyrell and Gerold Dayne, and Tyene Sand, had just forced her hand, had just given what she was fighting so tirelessly for away to a man who didn’t deserve it, a man who didn’t deserve anything of this, because it belonged to her.

She swallowed hard, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

“Well, well,” Gerold said. “Perhaps there is a little fire in that icy heart of yours, after all,” he snorted. “Pity I never found it.” Then, as if it hardly mattered to him one way or another, he shrugged. “All right. Here’s how things are going to go from now on, wife."

Arianne lifted her chin.

“I can’t do this without you,” he went on, and he was squeezing her hand, where she had been gripping his arm a moment before, so badly that it hurt. She winced. He did not let go.

She knew that he couldn’t do this without her. That was why she had married him; the name of Dayne was enough to raise armies, but not enough to hold Dorne. Not on its own.

As much as he had managed to wrest control so easily from her, had managed to get the nobles and the people over to his side without a fight, because he had something to offer them that Arianne did not, she had known that would not last.

After all, once upon a time the nobles of the blood had once been horrified that upstarts like the Martells had taken over control of Dorne. They would not allow yet another, even from House Dayne, the same privilege over them, not forever.

The name of Martell could only do that, and she’d already been locked away in this tower longer than she’d been expecting, thanks to Aegon Targaryen’s arrival in Westeros.

And now, her husband was going to let her out, without her even needing to get on her knees and beg him, as she had once feared she may have to. 

“You made sure of that, when you, or perhaps Tyene, got that girl out of this city, so you’re going to help me clean up this fucking mess.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself, as Arianne’s breath quickened. “I need you to come back to Sunspear.”

Arianne sucked in a breath, shocked.

“I need your name,” he went on, voicing what they both knew. “So. Tomorrow, you’re going to walk out of this cage with me, and help me make this transition…easier. You will stand by my side as we usher Dorne into a new age, and you’ll smile and agree with what I tell you, or when I find that little bitch, I’ll make sure her child is never a threat to…” he glanced between them. “Our new dynasty.”

Arianne shuddered, lifted her chin. “And if you don’t find her?”

What she didn’t say was that if he would only agree to lie to Margaery Tyrell, to spare the girl and pretend she had died, to stand by Arianne’s side as they brought independence to Dorne, together, she would have agreed to all of this, willingly.

But he hadn’t, because that was the sort of man that Gerold Dayne was.

Which meant that he could not be her husband for much longer.

“Well,” Gerold said, leaning so close she could feel his breath on her skin once more, “Then she can live out her miserable little days in the desert with that bastard child of hers. We all know your father disapproved of their marriage, just as the Lannisters did. And Margaery Tyrell has already made it clear that she would happily annul that marriage. Funny, how that might protect this girl you care so clearly about, but not your poor brother."

Arianne shook her head. “I…”

He smacked her. Hard, across the face, and she flinched back into the wall and away from him. Behind her, she heard Ellaria’s grunt of annoyance, but they both ignored the other woman, for now.

“If you do as you're told, I will spare Tyene’s life. I’ll give you a day or so to think about it,” Gerold said, as he reached up to touch the place where a moment ago he’d hit her. Arianne shuddered underneath the featherlight touch. “No more. Good day."

Gerold stared at her for a moment longer, as if expecting an answer now despite what he’d said, and Arianne bit back a sigh.

He grunted, and moved towards the door.

The door swung shut behind Gerold, and Arianne slumped against the wall, panting hard.

“Gods,” Ellaria breathed, the moment the bolt shot into place behind Gerold on the door, looking stunned. “How the fuck did that Tyrell girl manage it so easily?”

But Arianne didn’t care about that.

For the moment, all that she saw was red.

She got to her feet, still feeling unsteady with all of the information she’d just learned, information she should have been far better prepared for long before Gerold faced her with it, as she stumbled forward, towards her chair and the cyvasse pieces set out on the table.

Then, her vision cleared.

“Fuck!” Arianne screamed, as Ellaria watched in silence, and the cyvasse board scattered in pieces across their cell. “Fuck!”

She screamed it again, because the first time had been so unsatisfying.

Because Gerold had left her with a little time to think about things, but she knew what she was going to have to choose, in the end. In the end, her mind had been made up the moment he’d walked through those doors.

She had known from the beginning of all of this that she was going to have to choose between Dorne and Myrcella, and had known then, who she would choose.

She wasn’t so certain, now.

She knew, of course, what she had to do. She had to get out of this cell and save her kingdom from the horrid man she had married, as she had always intended.

Knew that this was a choice she was always going to have to make, even if she loathed a part of herself for knowing even that.

One life against thousands. It could not be a hard choice.

And yet.

“She’ll find them, you know. Obara, if she has the time to do so,” Ellaria said, tightly, into the silence that followed Arianne’s outburst. And she sounded…unhappy about it, just as Arianne felt. Arianne closed her eyes, tried to ignore the other woman’s words, to pretend that if she couldn’t hear them, they didn’t exist.

Surely, not.

Surely, Obara would not have turned against her like this, this completely. This had to be some sort of trick, a way of proving herself to Gerold. Or, she thought that Tyene had done this without Arianne’s permission, but then, why in the names of the gods would she not have come to Arianne first?

Ellaria continued, undaunted, “They’ll be going to Hellholt. Obara’s been to my father’s home more times than Tyene; she can cross the desert faster than a pregnant woman and a dwarf, as well.”

Arianne shook her head, still stinging from the betrayal. “They have a head start,” she said, quietly, ignoring Ellaria’s snort.

Ellaria laughed. “Like I said, a pregnant girl will not be able to travel quickly, even if she does have a head start.”

But then, Ellaria had never been one for the long game, not if what Doran had told Arianne about Willas Tyrell was true.

Arianne bit back a sigh, not particularly wanting to explain to the other woman that she’d been trying to find some way to spare Myrcella from all of this from the moment she’d realized the other girl’s life was in danger.

From the moment she’d learned of her father’s plans for Aegon Targaryen, and herself, and started defending them both.

If there was just some way that she could get it all without Myrcella also paying the price, Myrcella, who may hate her now but who had been such a sweet girl, once…

She bit back a sigh.

Once, she had planned for this. For Obara and Tyene to sneak Myrcella south to safety, where she would be safe, but she had not anticipated that Tyene would do so on her own, without even a warning, nor that Margaery would give up Dorne so easily.

Then, with Myrcella and Tyene away somewhere that Dorne couldn’t hurt them, Arianne could finally emerge from her cell and broker a marriage between herself and Aegon, if she had to, claiming Myrcella was dead, or, barring that, gain Dorne’s independence, as she had always wanted.

She could only hope that they had enough time now, though. Now that Gerold had stolen that opportunity from her, as well.

After all, it had never been in her plans for Gerold Dayne to be the one to reestablish the glory of Dorne, to take what was rightfully hers when he had never been anything but a tool to her, in the past.

Ellaria hummed a little to herself. “She’s such a sweet girl,” she said quietly, and Arianne couldn’t tell if she was talking of Myrcella, or Tyene. "Do you think that he means it? That he would spare her?"

Arianne gritted her teeth.

She could only hope that head start Tyene had gotten was enough to save her life, if Obara really was against them.

She gritted her teeth, glancing at the fallen cyvasse pieces.

Didn’t bother to move forward and pick them up, this time. Instead, she watched them scatter, and wondered if this was how her father had felt, when he had thought he had the future in the palm of his hand, only to find that Arianne had stolen that from him, too.

“Did you really have Willas Tyrell killed?” She asked Ellaria, tiredly.

Ellaria looked up at her, met her eyes. “Do you think me incapable just because for years I was little more than Oberyn’s mistress?” She asked, equally as tired. “My father is Lord Uller.”

Arianne closed her eyes. Then, “I need to get them a message. Tyene, and the Imp. If they go to Hellholt, they’ll be lost. They need to know that Obara is chasing them. They won’t be expecting her.”

Ellaria pressed her lips together. “I could manage that,” she said, after a moment. “But there’s a price.”

Of course there was. Because nothing in their family was ever simple.

“What is it?” She asked, closing her eyes.

“Why did you want to be stuck in this cell with me?” Ellaria asked, and Arianne’s eyes snapped open.

Ellaria scoffed. “Come now,” she muttered, “I saw the look on Gerold’s face when I mentioned it. He was not the one who insisted you be here, and I don’t think you are quite the prisoner he believes you to be. So. Why are we here, together? Answer me that, and I’ll get that message out to them for you.”

Arianne grimaced.

* * *

“What is that?” Gerold asked tiredly, as he shifted in their bed, later that night.

Obara was leaving in the morning, but she thought that her sister deserved at least a bit of a head start, for the sake of the bond they shared, and Gerold didn’t seem to mind that she had not yet gone.

After all, Myrcella wasn’t here causing trouble, even if she was missing, and Dorne was about to free from the Seven Kingdoms. Obara would find the girl; she was pregnant, which meant she would be slow, and Obara had already told Gerold that she knew where they were going, even if she refused to disclose where that was, just yet.

Gerold hadn’t liked that, until Obara explained that she would bring back Myrcella in whatever condition Gerold wished, so long as he spared the life of her sister, however traitorous she might be, just now.

Obara lifted her head, forcing a smile as she watched the parchment from the letter she had found just a few minutes earlier in Mellario’s chambers, written in Arianne’s crisp hand, burning in the fireplace, and then moved to join him.

“Nothing,” she promised, as she crawled into bed beside him.

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. She knew that he didn’t trust her, not entirely, just now, when her sister had been the one to take Myrcella.

But she was just going to have to convince him.

“Just a note from an old lover.” She shrugged, bending down to kiss him. “Perhaps now, they’ll finally get the hint.”

Gerold laughed.


	53. King's Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Important: I wasn't sure if I should include a warning here, but there is a short scene in here about the plague still happening in King's Landing. Obviously that plot came about before...everything happening in the world right now, but unfortunately I hadn't quite wrapped it up yet. I promise that it won't be a big part of the rest of the fic for that reason, though. I wanted to apologize if anyone finds it offensive given what's going on, and I know that people read fic to escape from the world around them, so if anyone feels the need to skip that part, it's just a short scene that begins with Garlan and doesn't have much to do with the rest of the chapter. I hope you're all taking care!
> 
> A/N 2: Less Important: Yes, I 100% decided that they paid/threatened the smallfolk to throw fruit at their enemies and pretend like they care, because yes I'm still not over that scene in the show where Euron drags Yara/Asha through the city. No, I'm not petty.

Aegon closed his eyes, as another piece of rotting fruit was thrown in his direction, while he was paraded, hands tied to the back of Euron Greyjoy’s horse, through the city of King’s Landing.

Euron had his hand raised in the air as if he were accepting some sort of accolade, from the smallfolk standing out in the streets, the majority of them watching the procession in silence, though a rather vocal group near the front of the crowd was, indeed, pelting fruit at the newest prisoner of House Tyrell.

He would not refer to them as the Crown. He would not refer to himself as a prisoner of their dog.

They had entered through the harbor, Euron dragging Aegon off of his ship with a particularly violent jerk, tying his hands to his horse as he apparently decided to parade the conquered hero through the streets of King’s Landing, for all of the peasants to sneer at.

Aegon could almost admire the man’s thought process, if it weren’t so humiliating, he thought.

Though, to be fair, he supposed that there were worse enemies to lose to; Euron Greyjoy’s creature made him a formidable one, and one that Aegon thought he could almost be proud to have lost his chance at the throne to, even if he had never counted on losing that chance so quickly into his campaign.

And at least Aegon had the satisfaction of knowing that both he and his men fought back, that he had managed to get as far as the rest of them before he’d been split away from Jon, and only then had Euron found him.

And even then, Aegon had made sure the man didn’t take him easily.

He figured he at the very least owed Jon that, when they had been so woefully unprepared for Euron’s attack, and Jon had been forced to see him taken precisely because the other man had come to his rescue.

Dear gods, he had not even fought in a real battle yet, not one that mattered and certainly not one that had made him feel like a real King. Dragonstone and Storm’s End had both been all but abandoned when he got there, and to know that most of his men and Jon Connington had escaped while he had not…Well, he wondered if Harry Strickland were laughing at Jon now, for ever trying to convince him that Aegon was a true king.

He had almost thought that they were going to get away from Euron, when he had attacked Dragonstone. The man's ships and his...creature had looked at first as if they just wanted to attack, as if they didn't care whether they got to Aegon or not, but that had not been how the battle had ended. Euron had...hunted him, had come after him, specifically, as if he had known exactly where to find him. 

Another rotted piece of fruit hit him in the jaw, and Aegon let out a grunt, nearly losing his footing and falling on his face as Euron didn’t stop his horse.

This was, decidedly, not the way Aegon had wanted to be introduced to this city.

No, if he’d had his way, he would have paraded peacefully into this place, would have convinced Margaery Tyrell that it was no longer in her best interests to surrender while her family could still salvage something out of all of this, while she could still go home to her son and keep her head held high.

He had not wanted to be the kind of king who would offer other terms, and it had been clear to him that, despite their obvious wealth and numbers, House Tyrell would not be able to hold the Crown for much longer.

He simply had not been expecting Euron Greyjoy.

Though, he had a feeling that the Tyrells had not been expecting this man, either.

If he could even be called that.

“My wife may not have the sweetest cunt in Westeros, as I’ve heard tell about her,” Euron all but sang out, half turning in his saddle, as he dragged Aegon behind him on his horse while Aegon was forced to march if he did not want to trip, “but she sure knows how to manipulate her audience.”

Aegon blinked up at him in confusion.

“The fruit,” Euron said, and he grinned. “It wouldn’t be my style, of course, but paying people to do her work for her? Inspired.”

Aegon grimaced.

He didn’t bother to respond to the words; he had already figured out what a madman his host was, how not worth it it would be to attempt to reason with the man. Had figured that about the time Euron Greyjoy’s kraken had swept through the shores outside Dragonstone, but had it made readily apparent to him when Euron had managed to track him down on land, as well.

When he had watched Euron cut down Maela right in front of him, the splatter of her blood still dried on Aegon’s cheek.

He reached up, awkwardly, with bound hands, to rub at that splatter; it had dried days ago, however, and he knew it was useless.

He would carry Maela’s blood with him until he was brought before this Tyrell Queen, he knew, or until he died.

Whichever came first.

He closed his eyes, stumbled a little as Euron’s horse gave a particularly fast jerk forward, and flinched at the harsh back of laughter this received from Euron.

“You’re a fool,” he called out, and Euron’s horse ground to a sudden halt, before him. Aegon was surprised; he had found Euron to be terribly unflappable, on the ship ride over here, and yet the man was halted by a mere insult from a man whom he clearly didn’t consider a threat.

That was important, Aegon thought, filing it away in his sleep addled mind. Somehow, that could be important later.

“You clearly have House Tyrell under your thumb,” Aegon went on, repeating the words he had tried to speak in his cell on one of Euron’s horrifying ships, after the man had dragged him there, half-conscious and still reeling from Maela’s violent, bloody death, the ones that Euron had not listened to, then.

He knew that if Aegon made it before the Tyrells, Euron would not be inclined to listen to it at all, ever again.

“Why not simply claim the Iron Throne for yourself?” Aegon went on. “Why pretend to still bow and scrape before the Tyrells, when they clearly can’t control you?”

After all, he had seen no Dornish or Tyrell ships at Dragonstone, only those horrifying ones in the fleet led by Euron.

And he had seen a little of what went on inside those ships, to keep them moving, to move them from one area to the next so easily.

He did not think it had anything to do with House Tyrell, who were, by all accounts, fairly moderate in everything they did. Violence, alliances…magic.

Aegon shivered.

He had almost been happy when Euron had delivered him to a silent cell, after all.

“They’ll only turn against you the first moment they get the chance, considering how you allied with them,” Aegon went on, because he could, because he was desperate, because the thought of being paraded before his enemies without Jon or an army behind him made him shudder, for these were the people who, no matter what mercy he wanted to offer them, had allied with House Lannister, once, were claiming the throne through House Lannister.

“I’m…touched by your concern,” Euron drawled, as he kept his horse moving. “I have faith. Though I would not be worried about me if I were you, little king. The sacrifices I made of your men to the Drowned God may have appeased him for a while, but my mistress is an even more violent woman.”

Aegon flinched.

The spires of the Red Keep, a place he had heard so much about but never seen, the place where his mother had been brutally murdered, loomed before them.

* * *

“My wife,” Euron greeted, bounding his way up to the Iron Throne and reaching out as if to throw his arms around her, and it took all that was within Margaery not to flinch back from the man.

Her husband.

She forced a pleasant smile as he took her hand in his, all but dragging her into an upright position on the Iron Throne, though not to her feet, thank the gods.

“I bring you a gift,” he said, smirking. “I think that you may like it better than you did your wedding present.”

And he gestured towards the door.

The envoys from Dorne looked…disturbed, by the comment, to the say the least. Margaery supposed she could not blame them; it was an ominous enough statement, after all.

Margaery braced herself; she knew already what the gift was, of course, but not what sort of condition it might be in, after spending an unknown amount of time in her husband’s company.

She wondered if perhaps there was another reason her husband was not interested in sharing her wedding bed, though from the things she had heard about him, she doubted that was the case.

The double doors to the throne room swung open, and Aegon Targaryen, or the boy carrying that name, was dragged into the hall by three armed Iron Islanders, none of them looking particularly concerned by his grimy look or the pain that flashed across his features as they dragged him forward.

He was all but covered in blood and the grime of war, and she wondered what sort of horrors he had seen attempting to fight off Euron, to look like that. Wondered how many of his own men he had seen killed, before he had found himself a prisoner on Euron’s ships.

Margaery exchanged a concerned look with Sansa, where she stood in the crowd; the last thing that either of them wanted was for the Crown to be accused of mistreating a prisoner, even one as treasonous as this one.

Margaery licked her lips, sitting up a little straighter as the boy was dragged closer by Euron’s goons.

“Lord Aegon of House Targaryen, if that is your real name,” Margaery said, and her voice carried through the chamber, forcing the boy to lift his head.

His eyes…gods, he looked like the perfect little Targaryen, didn’t he? She couldn’t tell just by his hair; it was coated dark from blood and dirt, just now.

She wondered how silver it would be once it had been washed.

Margaery found, suddenly, that she couldn’t quite meet those eyes.

She had known his age, had known that he was only a few years younger than her, if he really was the son of Elia and Rhaegar Targaryen, and yet still, Aegon Targaryen looked terribly young to be fighting a war in his own name.

Older than Joffrey had been, to be sure, but not by much.

She didn’t like that comparison, not even in the safety of her own shuttered mind.

She didn’t like looking at him for very long, either.

But she couldn’t quite bring herself to look entirely away from him, either. She owed him that much, she thought, after what her husband must have done to his men, to get him here so easily.

He looked like a Targaryen, certainly. She could almost believe that he was one, much though the thought unsettled her, as impossible as it would have surely been to sneak Elia Martell’s son out of the city if no one had managed to get to her or her daughter before the Mountain had his way with them.

She wondered what his life across the Narrow Sea had been like, for him to be standing like this before her, now.

The boy didn’t break his own gaze, though. “Lady Margaery of House Tyrell,” he greeted her, and dear gods, he sounded almost smarmy, the way he said it.

A part of Margaery wanted to wipe that expression off of his face. The other part, recognizing that he was standing under heavy guard, had been abused in whatever way Euron had wanted on the journey here, and still managed to sound like he had authority as her prisoner, was almost impressed.

She ignored the disgusted noises made by the court around them and licked her lips. “I see that my husband, whatever his successes, has not yet managed to convince you of your own treason.”

Aegon didn’t flinch. “A dog cannot persuade a master to bow down, my lady,” he told her, and Randyl Tarly, who had once fought on the side of House Targaryen during a certain rebellion, and rather successfully so despite that war’s end, moved forward then, as if to smack the boy across the face.

Margaery raised a hand, and Randyl’s arm fell back to his side, but the way that he sighed was not lost on her.

Euron, unlike Randyl, didn’t appear at all offended by the words. In fact, he looked more amused than anything, where he still stood, a silent, threatening, far too close presence, over Margaery’s throne.

“You stand accused of treason against the Crown,” Margaery said, when she couldn’t think up a proper response to this boy calling her husband a ‘dog,’ and couldn’t necessarily disagree with him, either, something that Euron’s little smirk seemed to indicate he noticed, “Of raising up an army against us to claim the throne for yourself. You-”

“The way I see it,” the smarmy boy interrupted her, and he was almost…smiling now, which set Margaery’s teeth on edge, when it seemed to her that he ought to be having the exact opposite reaction, “I am only taking back what is rightfully mine, and saving it from those who have been its poor custodians, these long years.”

Randyl Tarly looked like he was ready to reach for his sword, just then. Margaery resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“I see,” she said. “And why should any of us believe you are who you say you are, even if we wanted to see House Targaryen on the throne again, after the horrid things that were done by that family before they were rightfully removed?”

She didn’t think about where House Tyrell had stood on that side of the war, either.

It felt like the Iron Throne was already slipping through her fingers, and the Targaryen before her was fucking chained there.

Gods, she was annoyed.

She thought about her son, about the fact that she could no longer feel him in her womb any longer, though her hand strayed there of its own accord, and she thought she caught Aegon tracing the motion with his eyes.

“And what about the horrible things done by House Lannister, and House Tyrell, since they took that throne for themselves?” Aegon asked, shaking his head. “In any case, I don’t think you had your dog attack Dragonstone and kill half of my army and bring me here just to debate politics with me, Your Grace.”

The way he said ‘Your Grace,’ as if he were mocking her, set Margaery’s teeth on edge, too.

“You’re right,” she said, standing to her feet, not bothering to point out that she had not sent her husband after him at all, had only implied that it would be helpful if he went after her enemies, as he so clearly wanted to do, rather than going after her own people. “Guards, take him to the Black Cells.”

“He’s my prisoner,” Euron finally spoke up, then, gesturing to his guards not to let go of the boy when several Tyrell guards moved forward. “I would have him returned to my ships.”

Margaery turned the sweetest smile she could manage on him, at the moment. “I thought he was my present,” she said, and noticed the way that Aegon raised a brow, before them.

Euron pressed his lips together. He may be a bastard with no regard toward the way things went at court, but, for whatever reason, he seemed to realize that arguing with her was not worth it.

“Very well,” he muttered. “For now.”

“We shall discuss this more in the Small Council chambers, dear husband,” Margaery gritted out, and that was an end to it.

She was almost surprised when her husband didn’t attempt to argue with her, but then, he didn’t need to. Whenever he thought he was losing an argument, after all, all he need do was make some gesture towards the harbor, and his kraken would finish it for him.

“Have him taken to the Black Cells,” she repeated to Randyl Tarly. “And see to it that he is cleaned up and treated as a prince deserves, even a traitorous one.”

Aegon opened his mouth as if to dispute that, but was already being dragged away by his guards.

Margaery bit back another sigh, and turned to her husband, ignoring his slightly annoyed expression to hold out her arm.

“Shall we?” She asked.

And if his grip was a little too tight on her arm, well, Margaery had dealt with such little indignities often enough from her last husband; she didn’t even flinch.

Sansa, where she stood in the crowd, did.

* * *

“These actions were not conducted with the permission of the Crown, were they?” Mace demanded of the other man, icily. “You went, on your own, I might add, and declared war against Aegon Targaryen. And now we are facing a war that I am sure Jon Connington will be more than happy to-”

“You were already facing a war,” Euron interrupted him, coldly, one icy eye glaring at the man from where Euron sat at Margaery’s right hand.

She did not like him sitting so close to her, just now, but she supposed that it was preferable to him looming over her during these meetings, as he had done the last few times.

And besides, just now his focus was hardly on her. Her husband was all but preening over his success at Dragonstone.

She had the funniest feeling that he’d enjoyed himself more than he would have enjoyed bedding her, killing all of those people.

“I just hurried it along a little further, for those of us convinced we might die of old age before it ever began,” Euron went on, still sounding amused.

Margaery glanced at her father, opening her mouth when she became concerned that he might burst a blood vessel, right there in front of the entire Small Council chamber.

“My husband is right,” she said, reaching out toward her husband as if in solidarity, before remembering herself. She clasped both of her hands together on the table. “It was the right move to make.”

“The right move,” Mace repeated, incredulously, “Would have been to stop this insurgency in Dorne for good, rather than making outlandish promises to them…”

“Now that you have the boy,” Euron went on, in that cold tone, “Dorne will be far easier to deal with.”

Mace rubbed at his forehead.

Varys glanced between the other members of the Small Council chamber, and then reached into his robes. “Speaking of Jon Connington, Your Grace, it appears that he moves…rather quickly, in concern for his ward.”

Margaery blinked at the letters that he pulled from his robes. “Terms?” She asked.

Varys hesitated a moment, and then nodded, handing them over. Margaery took them with almost trembling fingers; perhaps her husband had been on to something.

Perhaps, in the long run, her husband’s wicked violence had been worth something, if it meant stopping the war before it even began. Keeping them from even further bloodshed, if after one battle, Aegon and his Hand were ready to discuss terms.

The thought sent a shiver down her spine; it reminded her rather too much of the way her grandmother might have thought of this situation, even knowing the older woman disapproved of Euron.

“He is asking for a meeting with Your Grace, at a location of your choosing, to discuss terms of surrender, so long as their prince is safely returned to them.”

This was almost too easy, Margaery thought, brows furrowing, even as she thought of the creature that Euron kept on a short leash, of the damage he could have so easily done to Dragonstone, to Aegon’s army, as the boy had claimed.

Half of them, wiped out…

Still…

Margaery stared.

“It’s a trick,” Mace murmured, voicing her own thoughts. “Aegon is our prisoner now; why should we even consider negotiation? We have no need of it; they cannot fight without a king to place on the throne if we remove his head.”

Margaery jerked, just a little.

So far, Cersei had not yet done so, with Tommen here, but she could imagine the other woman deciding to do so as time went on, as she grew more desperate.

“I do not think that it is, Your Grace,” Varys said, slowly. “Jon Connington was a man of honor, once. He served Rhaegar closely. I do not think that he would do anything to endanger the boy’s life.”

“Except bring him here in the first place, when he was safe enough across the Sea,” Randyl muttered, under his breath, and as much as she didn’t quite like the man, Margaery couldn’t help but find herself agreeing with that sentiment.

“Does he offer any specific terms already?” Margaery asked, as she took the documents from Varys and slowly scanned them.

“He…has a few, yes,” Varys said.

“And you think we ought to trust him,” Margaery said, eying the other man.

She still wouldn’t say she understood anything of Varys’ agenda, in all of this. Once, she would have thought him a man akin to Baelish, willing to do whatever it took for the Crown so long as he could get something out of it.

But it felt to her as if their Master of Whispers was disappearing more and more into the shadows, these days. And he had once served House Targaryen, for all his talk of wanting what was best for the realm, whereas Baelish never had.

And she knew now that she had been a fool to ever trust Baelish, wherever he was, now.

“Your Grace, I have heard…there are…rumors,” Varys said, and now he sounded almost persuasive, with his oily tones, “That the boy is no Targaryen, which may be part of Lord Connington’s reason for reaching out to us. Perhaps Lord Connington is simply trying to keep the boy from harm.”

Margaery raised a brow at that phrasing, as well as the accusation. She had suspected as much herself, of course, but for their Master of Whispers to bring it up, something in those whispers must have been substantial enough.

“The boy?” She asked. “You mean the one who committed treason against the Crown by declaring against us?”

Varys dipped his head. “I am only saying that…” his forehead wrinkled, as he seemed to consider his next words carefully, “if he were willing to lay down arms in exchange for his life, and pledge to take the Black, Your Grace, as Jon Connington seems to suggest, then…”

“Then we would only be rewarding treason with mercy,” Randyl interrupted then, clearing his throat as he half turned in his seat to face Margaery, “Your Grace, you have captured a traitor to the Crown. The law dictates that you ought to reward treason with only one thing: certain death.”

Margaery swallowed hard, glancing between her councilors, conflicted.

She didn’t look over at Sansa, where the other girl sat up a little straighter in her chair, reminded of one of the most recent of those who had been executed for treason against the Crown.

Euron cleared his throat then. “Well, my work here is done,” he said, pushing his chair back, with a loud squeal, from the table. “I believe thanks are in order, but after your earlier words, I will spare you that indignity.”

And with that, he turned and walked from the room.

Margaery watched him go. Then, turning back to her Small Council, “I want to see him before anything is decided.”

Immediately, there were protests amongst her councilors. All save for Varys, oddly, with the way he had been pushing for her to agree to Connington’s terms, and for Sansa, who almost looked…pleased, she thought.

Gods, if only Regents were able to purge themselves of emotions altogether, perhaps she would have made a far better Regent than she was turning out to be, so far.

Randyl was the first one to voice a true argument. “Your Grace, with your gentle and merciful nature, surely you realize that you would only be granting him the opportunity to take advantage…”

“Your Grace, I really must protest…” Another voice.

None of them mattered, just now.

Margaery held up a hand, stalling the rest of the concerns they might bring up. “No,” she repeated, calmly, “I need to speak with him myself, this boy who pretends to be the son of Rhaegar Targaryen. And then I will make my decision about whether or not Jon Connington and his halved army is worth our time. That is final.”

* * *

“This disease, you say that it’s…lessening,” Garlan said doubtfully, squinting at the maester as he held up the sleeve of his tunic to keep his mouth and nose covered.

It was hard to believe such a thing, with the stench of death so ripe in Flea Bottom these days.

He hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes, my lord, I believe that it is.”

“And we still don’t know the cause, or how best to treat it?” He asked, disbelievingly, for surely if things were getting better, they must have found some sort of cure.

The maester shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I’m afraid not, my lord. We do know that it seems to affect the poorest and those who live closest together the most, especially those in Flea Bottom, but beyond that…” he just shrugged again.

Garlan bit back a snort. “I thought it was only in their water. Why is it spreading to other areas of King’s Landing, if you say that it is hitting Flea Bottom folk the most?”

The maester winced. “As I said, my lord, we don’t…”

“‘Know,’ yes, I think I got that part,” Garlan said, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. Then, “But the effects in these other areas are…lesser.”

The maester nodded, looking grateful that they were changing topics. “Yes, my lord, it would appear that the symptoms are not so severe in these other areas, and that Flea Bottom has only seen the worst of it.”

Garlan nodded.

That was…not good, when people were still dying in these areas, but…manageable, surely.

If only the Crown would focus a little more on the issues outside their door than the ones in other kingdoms, he supposed, with yet another sigh.

“And what do the smallfolk say these days?” Garlan asked, impatiently. He paid the man enough to know the answer to that, after all.

Perhaps, if things got too bad, he could convince Margaery to step in, especially now that their grandmother had returned to Highgarden and the two of them were not constantly at each other’s throats, anymore.

The man licked his lips. “My lord, surely what the smallfolk say doesn’t…”

Matter, he’d been about to say, but Garlan only waved a hand impatiently.

He could not go out amongst them so easily these days, with the sickness spreading, and he did not want to waste the information tap that his serving boy had become, if Olyvar were to go back to the brothels, himself.

It seemed that the brothels were among the worst places hit, inside Flea Bottom or not, after all.

He had only the information coming from his men, who knew very little indeed, it seemed, or from this man before him, and he needed to know that they weren’t about to face another revolution on their hands.

The maester sighed. “The smallfolk say that a Red Woman walks among them, back from the dead, and that she has cursed the city to pay for the sins of the Queen Regent. That the Regent did not mean those words she spoke to them, or she would have repented and not allowed Euron Greyjoy to kill so many of their own men, in the harbor.”

Garlan stared. “That’s what they came up with?” He repeated, incredulously.

The maester looked away, with a grimace. “I only repeat what they say, my lord. It is…my understanding that the Regent may have…consulted with a Red Woman, over the matter of…childbirth, and it is from here that these rumors abound.”

Garlan reached up, scrubbing at his face.

It sounded like the sort of stupid thing that Margaery might have done, when she was so desperate for a child that she was dragging their brother’s lover into her bed because he was the only man with blonde hair she seemed to have any contact with.

Gods, this was such a shitshow.

“And has there been any…sighting of this Red Woman?” He asked, slowly.

The maester shook his head. “From what I can tell, it is all hearsay, my lord, but…that the people should think it at all, there is usually some sort of basis in such things, even if it is…terribly implausible. If you want more information, I could…” he reached idly for the pocket where he kept Garlan’s usual fee.

Garlan bit back a sigh.

A Red Woman had cursed his sister, and now half of King’s Landing was suffering for it.

It made more sense than he wanted to admit.

Out loud, he would never admit to such.

“A Red Woman,” Garlan scoffed. “Superstition and false religions, only.”

The maester shrugged. “Of course. But…The people seem convinced, my lord. I…forgive me for saying so, but the people seem to believe her.”

And because they barely had a functioning Faith of the Seven here, after his family had seen to its…reeducation, after that fiasco with the High Sparrow, Garlan supposed, they hardly trusted that religion to tell them the truth about their superstitions.

Fuck.

“Her,” Garlan echoed. “Did you not just say that there has been no sighting?” He demanded, standing up a little straighter.

The maester shifted uncomfortably. “No…credible one, my lord,” he admitted. “But some of those that I have treated, some with the worst of symptoms, say that she has visited them. That she has warned them of the Regent’s heresy, and that…”

“Let it be known that anyone seen practicing the…rituals of R’hllor will be arrested for such heresy,” Garlan interrupted coolly, hating himself a little for even suggesting it, after what had happened over the past year, and knowing that his men were far from likely to arrest anyone with these symptoms, even under direct orders, “And that this…Red Priestess will be found and brought to justice, with a reward given to anyone who has information about her. When she is dead, the curse she has placed upon our people shall lift.” He sneered slightly. “That ought to motivate them.”

The maester swallowed hard, his jaw twitching. “Yes, my lord,” he said, dipping his head.

Garlan bit back a sigh as the other man walked out of his chambers here in the Keep, and wished to the gods that when his sister made fuck ups in the future, they could be a little less…destructive, for all of them.

Olyvar, as if on cue, knocked on his door. “I was just going to rest up before the evening meal, my lord,” he said, and Garlan waved a hand impatiently, knowing that meant he was going to find his newest ‘friend’ amongst the Kingsguard.

“Go,” Garlan said, all but shooing him away. “I’ll be fine.”

* * *

“Your Grace, I wondered if I might have a word with you,” Varys said, and Margaery resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing how that would look.

Still, she thought some of her irritation must be showing on her face, if the grimace Varys sent her in response was any indication.

She swallowed hard, pasting on a smile. “Do come in,” she said, gesturing to her parlor. Her husband’s outer parlor, actually, where he had first taught her what to do with a crossbow.

Ah, simpler times.

Varys took a seat, awkwardly, on the divan across from her, and cleared his throat. “Have you found the time to visit our new prisoner?” He asked her, and sounded strangely…hopeful, as he asked it.

Margaery lifted her chin, to hide her guilt more than anything. She’d been meaning to, after all, but hadn’t seemed to find the chance, between putting out so many fires.

The last few moments had been the first moment’s peace she’d had between arguing with her father or Randyl Tarly about the way she was running things.

“I will,” she promised him. “I wish him to get a fair trial, and to at least hear the things that Jon Connington wrote in his terms, after all.”

Varys dipped his head. “You are a…fair and generous Regent,” he allowed, and Margaery knew he was here for something she wasn’t going to like at all, if he was saying things like that.

Varys was not the sort of man to pepper someone with compliments that did not serve a purpose, after all.

“The subject I wish to speak of with you is a sensitive one,” he said, and Margery dipped her head as she too took a seat, gesturing for him to continue.

“There is a…conversation that I hesitate to bring up in the presence of the rest of your Small Council, Your Grace, but which I fear must be brought up before you, before it is too late,” Varys said softly, and Margaery raised a brow.

She lifted a hand. “I do not have time for…conversations unimportant enough not to be mentioned in the Small Council,” she told him, coolly. “I am…”

“Tommen Baratheon is still alive,” Varys interrupted her, and she blinked at him, for she had never known him to interrupt her, before. “Or Tommen Lannister. I forget, these days, what it is we are calling him.”

Margaery blinked at him. “He is,” she said, finally. “As is Shireen Baratheon, and Gendry, son of Robert Baratheon. Your point?”

“I was wondering why.”

She raised a brow. “Were you? I would think a man of your skill in politics would understand the importance of hostages in keeping your enemies in line.”

He pressed his lips together, before allowing, “I do understand, Your Grace. But House Lannister is not the threat it once was, and cannot become that threat.”

“Are you telling me you believe my mercy to be a mistake, then?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

The thought of killing her hostage, as she was calling Tommen, made her extremely uncomfortable. She may not know the boy well, but he was still just a child, a sweet one at that, and she had known him never to be the monster his brother had been.

Part of the reason she had settled so easily for it, when Sansa and Olenna had declared his illegitimacy, was because she recognized that at least it would mean her Small Council would stop clamoring for his death.

But it seemed that at least one of their number still wished for it.

“I believe that if there is any hope for that ambitious House to cling to the Iron Throne, they will take it,” Varys said, calmly enough. “And that it is a mistake to leave one open for them.”

“You mean that Cersei will,” Margaery said, licking her lips.

She had that fear, as well.

But she was not sure that fear was worth Tommen’s life. Was actively trying to avoid that, if she could.

Cersei had been mercifully silent, since her departure to Casterly Rock. Margaery was not naive enough to think that meant they’d heard the last of her, but she could hope that the other woman would know better than to endanger her son further, when she knew that his life rested in the hands of a woman she hated.

“I have known Cersei Lannister for a long time, Your Grace, and I do believe that she will not rest until her son is sat on the Iron Throne, so long as he still lives to claim it,” Varys warned her, and Margaery pursed her lips.

“Tell me,” she said coolly, “Do you still cut out the tongues of the children you use as your little birds?”

Varys dipped his head. “Your Grace,” he said, “I’m quite sure that there are more pressing issues at hand.”

“No, I truly want to know,” Margaery said. “I suppose I understand the expedience of it. If they cannot speak to others, then only you may hear what they have. There is a certain…brutal intelligence, in that.”

Varys licked his lips. “I do, Your Grace. As you say, there is a brutal intelligence in it. I would not wish the secrets of the Realm to be…compromised because of a child’s lack of tolerance for pain.”

Margaery felt a shudder run through her hands, and fought it back down.

“I confess, Lord Varys, I am…uncertain when this distrust first emerged between us,” Margaery said, changing the subject, wishing that she did not have to speak of the death of a boy she did not want to kill.

She knew, of course, that they would return to that topic, whether she wanted it, or not.

She still had dreams of Myrcella. Had been having them, ever since she had made that horrible deal with the Dornish in order to keep the number of their enemies lowered.

Myrcella, screaming, tears streaming down her face. Myrcella, on her knees in the desert sand, tears dripping down her nose, one hand to her belly, a look of shock on her features as a spear ran her through.

And all because Margaery could not be bothered to save her, too busy with other matters, too busy with consolidating her own power, as her grandmother had managed to save Shireen and Tommen, even Gendry, from similar fates.

She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply through her nose, uncaring of the vulnerability she was showing before the man across from her.

After all, he seemed to care very little about harming children.

No, she would not agree to kill Tommen. She already knew she would never forget her choice to leave Myrcella to her fate, though it was too late to change that, now.

“Here I thought you to be one of my most fervent supporters, though I did not know why. Now, I find you to be as close to an enemy as one might get while retaining their cowardice,” Margaery all but sneered.

Varys cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I have never been your enemy. I seek only to serve the people, and of those vying for this throne meant to serve them, I still believe you to be the only sincere one of the lot. The only one who cares.”

Margaery lifted her chin. “And yet you suggest that I demonstrate that caring by murdering a child, a subject who has sworn that he will not attempt to take what is mine.”

“Which he did only under duress, and as a child without a guardian present,” Varys reminded her. “We both know that Cersei will not take that sitting down.”

Margaery swallowed hard. “She has so far kept quiet.”

But they both knew that meant nothing. She had been furious, the day they had forced her out of King’s Landing, had only gone as quietly as she had because she knew that her son’s life was at stake, if she did not.

And now that Margaery was a mother herself, she thought she understood that fury rather too well. Was already feeling it, towards her own grandmother, and could not fault Cersei for hating them for it.

Funny how she had hardly felt the same, when she had ensured that Cersei be kept away from Joffrey, in his final days.

She swallowed hard, shaking her head. No, this wasn’t the same thing at all, she reminded herself. Joffrey had wanted his mother gone, and Margaery had already been planning his death, even then. Cersei hadn’t seemed to understand at all what her son was becoming, but Margaery thought she was better off, not knowing what he had been like, in his final days, even if she would never profess to care for Cersei.

Tommen, though…She wasn’t going to have Tommen hurt. He wasn’t his brother.

She couldn’t countenance that.

And yet, she’d been so easily able to sign Myrcella’s death warrant, when the choice was presented to her, from across the kingdoms?

She shook her head, looking back up at the other man. “Tell me something,” she said, slowly, “You advocate for the life of a boy who actively and unashamedly plots treason against me, and yet you would have me execute a child who has only ever done as his mother bid of him. How do you rationalize such things?”

Varys licked his lips, and gave her an answer which was not an answer at all, as she was growing used to from him, thus far, “Cersei Lannister has only kept quiet thus far because your grandmother has forced her to.”

Margaery lifted her head. “I’m sorry?” She asked, cocking it. “My grandmother has been here, for the most part, she only just returned to Highgarden-”

“I am afraid that the Queen of Thorns has perhaps been…less than honest with Your Grace,” Varys said, and Margaery felt her stomach churn.

A year ago, she would have written this off as an attempt on Varys’ part to drive a wedge between her and her family, to make her think that he could be trusted when they could not, and yet…

And yet, just now, she found herself very much believing him already.

“What has she done?” She demanded.

Varys swallowed. “I am afraid that Lady Olenna had Cersei taken captive on her way back to the Rock, before she ever arrived there,” he said. “Kevan Lannister allowed it, I understand, and did not attempt to fight it, after he learned how she invited Euron Greyjoy into Lannisport.”

Margaery swallowed thickly. “So you’re telling me that…that Cersei Lannister has been a prisoner in Highgarden all of this time?” She demanded.

All of these weeks of fearing what retribution the other woman would wreak, of wondering what plots Cersei was creating, of fearing an attack from the Rock.

And Olenna had known all along that Cersei posed no threat to her, because she had been the one to incapacitate the other woman.

To have Cersei taken to Highgarden, to the same place that she had taken Margaery’s son, as if she didn’t know the sort of things that Cersei was capable of, the lengths she had gone to before..

Margaery closed her eyes, and thought of Robert Baratheon’s bastards, all but Gendry killed to keep them from posing a threat to Joffrey’s reign.

She shivered, and when she opened her eyes, the image of Myrcella Baratheon flashed before her mind before she could force it back.

All of this of course explained why Cersei had been so silent, these past few weeks. Why she hadn’t recklessly sent an army or an assassin after Margaery, why she hadn’t tried to kidnap her son, why she hadn’t teamed up with Euron Greyjoy, as she had apparently been planning to.

Because Margaery had never known Cersei to be so silent, and dear gods, she should have suspected this long ago.

Should have known that her grandmother would not allow such a risk as Cersei’s release, however merciful House Tyrell had wanted to look before the court.

Frankly, Margaery was almost surprised that her grandmother hadn’t simply had the other woman killed.

“And Kevan Lannister?”

“Is holding onto Casterly Rock by a thread, Your Grace,” Varys told her, simply. “He is…a good leader, but somehow, his people found out about the deal he made to hand Cersei over to Olenna. They are…less than pleased, whether they personally liked her or not.”

Margaery paled. “And do you hear any whispers of…retribution?”

Kevan was their ally at the moment, after all, or at the very least, was not openly attempting to antagonize them.

The fact that he had handed over Cersei relatively quietly was yet another indication of his trustworthiness, and at the moment, that was difficult enough to find.

She had no idea what would happen if his nephew turned up mysteriously dead, though. She could understand what had motivated him to hand over Cersei, considering what had happened to his own sons, but she had a feeling that House Tyrell would become just as much of an enemy, if they killed his innocent nephew, as well.

Something that Margaery would very much like to avoid, just as she would like to avoid anything happening to the sweet boy who had so easily accepted his new reality, when she knew what it was to lose a son.

She wasn’t even sure that she would be able to blame Cersei for her need for vengeance, if something did happen to the boy under Margaery’s watch. That was something she’d been trying to avoid since he got here.

“I have not, but I can only hope that Your Grace give what we’ve spoken about some thought, now that you have all of the information,” Varys said. “There have been many, myself included, who have underestimated Cersei Lannister, and to our own detriment. The moment she finds her way out of the golden cage that Olenna Tyrell has put her in, she will come for her son. You know this, as I do. And I fear what will happen to your own son, if that happens.”

Margaery lifted her chin, leaning forward on her sofa. “Listen to me very carefully, Lord Varys,” she said coldly, and saw the way he stiffened slightly. Good. “I want you to pay attention to what I am about to tell you. Nothing is to happen to that boy. This is no trick, no secret permission. If anything were to happen to that boy in the coming days, I will hold you personally responsible. He is the brother of my late husband, and I will not be a child murderer. Do you understand?”

Varys swallowed. “I…do, Your Grace,” he said, and she got the impression that he was terribly disappointed by the order.

Well. She was just going to have to keep a closer eye on him, she supposed. And her grandmother.

* * *

“Fight me,” Sansa offered, holding out one of the staffs to Nym, where the other girl stood before her in the courtyard where they often came to train together, alone. Sansa felt a little wary, bringing her here after what had just happened with the Dornish, when she knew Nym to be angry, but she thought it would be a worse idea to cancel their usual training session and let Nym know she was suspicious at all.

Besides, she did think it might be good for Nym.

Nym looked as if she didn’t quite understand why Sansa was still here at all, and Sansa bit back a sigh.

“Come on. Get some of that anger out.”

Nym scoffed. “I don’t think that you would survive my anger, Sansa,” she said, but took the staff from her, all the same.

Sansa lifted her chin, willing to take that risk, because she thought that she had more of a chance of surviving Nym’s wrath than she did the other woman’s revenge, especially knowing the promise that Margaery had once made to Nym.

“I’ve survived a great many things,” she reminded the other woman, and that seemed to be the only permission Nym needed, before she attacked.

Sansa just barely had the chance to yank her staff up in defense, the way that she’d once seen Oberyn do against the Mountain, as Nym rushed at her.

The fight was quick and brutal, dirty, almost, and Sansa was panting only a minute or so into it. Nym gave her no relief and no mercy, as she usually did during these training sessions, but even if she really was getting her anger out, Sansa told herself, this was good practice.

After all, none of her enemies were going to give her mercy, either, and Sansa needed to know how to fight, how to really fight, if she were ever to face their enemies.

And, as each day passed, Sansa got the funny feeling that it might just happen.

She almost wished that she could convince Margaery to undertake such training as well, though she knew the other girl had learned some from her brothers growing up, but she had a feeling that Margaery would reject that, just now, with everything she’d been through, lately.

Still, it felt good to sweat and let Nym pummel her as the girl so clearly needed to, just now. It felt good to get rid of some of her own rising emotions, with everything else going on around them.

It should feel like a victory, she thought, as she kept fighting. They had gotten Aegon as their prisoner, Euron seemed like he would easily level the playing board for them, even if he was no long term ally, and even if Margaery’s son wasn’t here, things were…all right, between the two of them.

So why did she feel so often like they were losing?

“Get out of your head, Sansa,” Nym snapped, then. “I could have taken your head off, just then.”

Sansa flinched a little, raised her staff some more. Nym had sounded almost like she had regretted not taking the chance.

Sansa took a deep breath, lunged when it became clear that Nym was waiting for her to do so, and found herself flat on her back a moment later.

She panted, forcing back a smile as she looked up at Nym, all but waiting for the other girl to reach out and help her to her feet once more. But Nym, stiff and crouched over her, didn’t move.

Sansa swallowed hard, remembered why she had brought Nym out here to fight in the first place. Told herself that she was overreacting, with the way that her heart was hammering in her chest, just now.

But then again, Nym had only done any of the things she’d done for the Crown of late because of the promises that Margaery had just broken.

She understood that anger damn well, but it still made her shiver, to see it.

And then she met Nym’s eyes, and had the sudden urge to reach for her staff again, where it had fallen into the grass beside them.

It wasn’t annoyance that Sansa saw, when she looked up into Nym’s eyes. It wasn’t even pity, or disgust, or any other emotion that Sansa might name.

No, Nym was staring down at her with a hatred Sansa didn’t think it was possible to feel for a friend. And it wasn’t a new hate, either; whatever this was, it was deep seated and furious, impatient.

Sansa swallowed again. She was the one who had sent Nym to bring Tommen here. She was the one trusting Nym with things that Margaery was making it a point not to tell the other woman, these days.

She was the one who’d thought they could all be friends, after Margaery had made that suggestion.

And while she knew what it was to have a promise to her broken, she hated the thought that Margaery might have been planning something just like this from the beginning, and Sansa was only now seeing it.

But then again, she wasn’t. She’d seen from the beginning how precarious the alliance Margaery had made with the Martells was, even if Margaery hadn’t done her the courtesy of warning her.

Dear gods, she’d…

“Nym…”

And then a throat cleared, behind them both, and Sansa froze.

Nym was the first to look up.

When Sansa looked up, a moment later, panting as she followed Nym’s gaze, she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Euron Greyjoy’s eye met hers, and he smiled. “Good fight,” he said, and beside her, Nym went still, as well.

Sansa swallowed hard, accepting the hand that Nym offered and rising slowly to her feet, trying hard not to meet Nym’s eyes, and see the look she had seen earlier in them once again.

She felt boxed in on both sides, with Euron before her and Nym beside. Sansa didn’t lower her staff.

Euron noticed, raising a slight brow.

“I want to speak with you, Lady Sansa. Alone,” Euron said, and Sansa’s stomach twisted, even as she already knew that she was going to grant his request.

She didn’t know if that was because she was too afraid of finding out what might happen if she didn’t, or because she genuinely wanted to know what he might think to tell her.

She didn’t think about it too hard, just as she was trying not to think too hard about Nym’s reaction towards her during the fight.

Nym took a threatening step in front of Sansa at the request, though, sword extended.

Sansa was almost surprised that she’d bothered, but then, she’d come to think of them as friends, in recent months.

Dear gods, Nym even bedded Megga, these days. Surely Sansa had been simply been reading too much into that look.

Sansa sighed, reaching a hand out and placing it on the other girl’s arm. “You can go, Nym,” she said, gently.

Nym stared at her incredulously, but when Sansa only nodded again, the other girl walked off.

And no, Sansa didn’t think it was a good idea to spend time alone with Euron Greyjoy either, but she wasn’t about to tell Nym that, not with the way Nym had been looking at Euron.

When they were alone, Euron moved a little closer to her, and it took everything within Sansa not to shift back. She told herself that Joffrey had been just as much of a danger to her as Euron had ever been, even if that wasn’t true, and stood her ground.

“It looked like you were in a spot of trouble,” Euron said, sounding bored by the prospect.

Sansa swallowed hard. “We were just sparring,” she said, softly.

He raised a brow. “I could help you with that, if you find yourself in need of a new sparring partner,” he said, as if he knew that she would be, soon.

Sansa swallowed hard, thinking of that horrid stuff he said he drank to see the future.

She still wasn’t sure that she believed him, that he could actually see the future, or if he’d just been trying to scare her.

“I was hoping you might deliver a message for me,” Euron told her, in almost a whisper.

Sansa lifted a brow. “I’m sorry?”

“Tell my little wife that I am going to fight her enemies again, and that if her Council wants to bitch and moan about it, that they can do it while I am gone,” Euron said, into the silence, as Sansa crossed her arms over her chest.

She stared at him. “Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

He shrugged. “I have a feeling she’ll be rather busy, just now, and that anything I do tell her will reach you, anyway.”

Sansa swallowed hard. “And you…don’t mind that,” she said, slowly.

He shrugged again. “It is what it is. I do the work of the Drowned God, here, and my marriage shall not stop me from continuing it.”

Sansa shook her head. “The Drowned God wants you to kill Margaery’s enemies,” she said, and then, because she did not again want to get into such circular logic as their last conversation had led to, “Where are you going?”

He lifted his chin. “I am…not accustomed to giving my plans to women,” he said, shortly, and Sansa bit back a sigh, asked the other question she had to know, despite how much she wanted to avoid another…increasingly strange conversation with this particular man.

She had a feeling that if she pressed him on where he was going instead, she would get no real answer, and this one might at least give her a hint of one.

“Why are you so convinced that Margaery is the Queen you believe will survive this?” Sansa asked, despite her best interests, she supposed. “How do you not know that there is some other queen, like the Dragon Queen across the Sea, that these visions of yours refer to?”

How did he even know that his visions were real, she wanted to ask, and didn’t quite dare.

Euron stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled.

He looked…strangely proud, that she should ask such a question.

“I have had many wives,” Euron said. “Or, perhaps wives is not the correct word for you Southrons, but many women bent over my bed.” Sansa shuddered, taking a slight step back. “Plenty of them were strong creatures, capable of withstanding more than just what I did to them, but anything thrown at them, if it meant they could survive. My Falia, she betrayed her whole family to survive. So I have known strong enough women, women I am sure are capable of great things.”

He leaned forward, chucking Sansa’s chin. She flinched back, but he held her firm, meeting her gaze with his one good eye.

“And I think I know a Queen when I see one.”

It was strange; Sansa was not normally a conceited girl, she liked to think. Not these days, not after everything that she had been through because of her own arrogance, once.

But she had the funniest feeling that Euron wasn’t referring to Margaery, just then.

He winked at her, then, and started to walk away from the courtyard. Over his shoulder, he called out, “You can tell my wife that I am going North, my lady.”

And then he was gone, before Sansa quite had a moment to process that news. When she did, she thought she might be sick.


	54. Winterfell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's well, out there!

“Lord Bolton demands not to be disturbed,” Arya said, as she shut the door solidly on the room where ‘Lord Bolton had taken ill to his chambers,’ and then clasped her hands together before her, forcing a smile as she met the eyes of the suspicious guard. She swallowed hard, lowering her eyes, reminding herself of her place here, even if the longer she spent here, the more this place felt like her home once more. “He…he said that he was still in mourning for the death of his lady, Myranda, even if he is ill, and still trusts his wife to take care of things in his absence.”

The guard flinched.

She got the feeling that Myranda, that girl who had seemed so enamored with a madman, had been rather well known, around here.

And it certainly made things easier for Arya, just now.

It also certainly helped Arya right now that Ramsay’s men were all absolutely terrified of him. The guard didn’t even bother trying to corroborate her story, just nodded as Arya moved away, walked along to the end of the hall before turning back, checking that the guard didn’t disobey her words.

He didn’t, just stood there, looking terribly uncomfortable at the thought of Ramsay laying in bed behind those doors.

Arya told herself that the sight wasn’t almost amusing.

That wouldn’t last forever, of course; eventually, someone would venture into Ramsay Bolton’s bedchambers and find what was left of Ramsay there, would realize what she had done, and her temporary lie would fall to pieces around her.

Arya didn’t intend to be here when it did, though. Didn’t intend to be blindsided by it, either.

Everything was progressing just as she had expected it to, when she had come up with this crazed plan in the first place, and not told Theon a word of it, because she knew that the moment he heard the details, Reek would emerge once more, and she had needed Theon, for this to work.

Needed to know that someone was going to keep Jeyne safe.

She took a deep breath, as she walked down the short hall to Jeyne’s chambers.

They had gotten the maester of Winterfell, a man whom Arya no longer recognized when she once had recognized the maester of Winterfell, to say that Ramsay was ill, that he had some sort of sweating sickness and could not be disturbed, or they would risk it catching to all of the castle.

That had kept the men away. Arya got the feeling that none of them were particularly interested in coming to ask how their lord felt, either.

Arya kept walking, head low, pretending to be nothing more than the serving girl who had been brought into the city to care for Ramsay, one of the few who could do so because she was just a Northern maid, not worth keeping alive if she did catch his ailment.

The maester was being kept in the crypts, just now. “Ramsay” had insisted on it, just in case he speak of Ramsay’s weaknesses to anyone. Arya had half a mind to visit him, but she decided that she had rather more pertinent concerns, just now.

She made her way to the kitchens, still lost in thought.

She knew that this was not going to last forever, that the men of Winterfell knew their lord didn’t trust his wife outside of her chambers most days, much less ruling Winterfell in his stead, but Arya would deal with that when it came to it, as well.

She paused just inside the kitchen doors, breathing in the scent of baking bread and closing her eyes. If she closed her eyes then, just for a moment, she could imagine that this was the Winterfell she was still familiar with once more, a place that she had both known so easily and loved so dearly.

That these were the same kitchens she would sneak down to between her lessons, or when she escaped her lessons, with the septa, and steal some snacks from Cook with her brothers. When Rickon was still just a child who loved sweeties.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the serving girl who had discovered her, and gone to Ramsay about her being in Jeyne’s chambers. The girl she had stupidly allowed to leave.

The girl was burning something over the fireplace, her eyes wide as they met Arya’s.

“You,” Arya said, coldly, crooking a finger so that the girl could not beg confusion. “Come with me.”

The girl shivered, glancing down at the fireplace, swearing softly as she reached down to pull the burning bread free, and then moved to where Arya stood in the doorway. The other servants exchanged glances, and immediately went back to their work.

Servants were always smarter than soldiers, after all; they knew that Arya was not just some ordinary serving girl, with the way she gave orders disguised as requests from above, around here.

Yet another reason why Arya knew this charade would not last much longer.

She all but dragged the serving girl who had found her in Jeyne’s chambers and gone immediately to Ramsay out of the room, and down the hall, to the nearest empty bedchamber that she could find, before she pushed the other girl into it.

The girl let out a whimper, and Arya felt a stab of pity for her. She did not hate the other girl, after all, for going to Ramsay; she understood what it was to be afraid, understood that this girl had only been doing what she felt she had to, even if it had been a betrayal.

But she had to protect them for as long as she could, just now, and this girl…she knew. She knew that Ramsay hadn’t wanted Arya here, she knew that Arya had been in Jeyne’s chambers, threatening her.

And threatening her would at least protect the stupid girl’s own self interest in her life, if nothing else.

So, Arya yanked her knife free from her blouse, and lifted it. The girl whimpered, and backed herself up against the wall.

“Listen to me,” Arya said, pressing the sharp end of the blade against the serving girl’s face. The serving girl who had gone to find Ramsay, the little traitor, when she had found Arya in Jeyne’s chambers.

The girl whimpered, beneath her, where Arya had her pressed into the wall.

“If you give anyone even a hint that something is wrong,” Arya told her, calmly, far more calm than she certainly felt, “I’ll make the things that Ramsay did to you feel like a kindness. I’ll make sure that you suffer for the rest of your…” she let the blade dig into the smooth skin of the girl’s neck, watched a bit of blood dribble down the girl’s chin, and told herself that she didn’t feel guilty for it, even if this girl was just as troubled as Jeyne likely was, even if it was entirely possible that this girl had once been a servant of the Starks’, not the Boltons’.

That didn’t matter now, though. She had a brother to protect, Jeyne to protect, even more than that. She couldn’t let it all come crumbling around her now because of one serving girl, even if that girl had once been a Stark serving girl, even if that girl might have once considered her a friend, if Arya hadn’t been so standoffish towards girls her own age.

And this girl was certainly close to her own age.

Arya didn’t much like that thought.

“…Miserable life,” she finished, firmly. She cocked her head. “Do you understand me?”

The girl whimpered again. “Yes, yes,” she pleaded. “I understand. I swear. I won’t say a word.”

Arya studied her for a moment, and then nodded, releasing her. “If you’re lying to me…”

The girl clutched at her throat, nodding slowly. “I won’t say a word,” she repeated.

Arya smiled, patting her shoulder. “Good girl,” she said, and then turned and walked out the door, letting it slam shut softly behind her.

She knew that the Lady of Winterfell was planning a visit to the surrounding village, and that she had little time before noon when that was set to happen, but she had one more visit to make, just before that.

She had a feeling that the Lady of Winterfell would not mind if Arya made her a bit late, either.

She walked back to her own chambers, just a few doors down from Jeyne’s own chambers, and they’d had a difficult enough time explaining that to the guards around them, but Arya had insisted on it.

So had Jeyne, who had not wanted to stay in Winterfell at all, though Arya herself had insisted on it.

And she had moved Rickon’s chambers to be right beside Jeyne’s, as well. Jeyne had informed the guards that her husband had had a change of heart, during his illness, about the boy, and no longer wanted him kept in the crypts, or with the dogs in their kennels.

The guards had wisely not questioned this, and now Rickon was at least sleeping in a real bed, which was as much as Arya knew she could do for him, for now. If she did more, she was rather worried that the guards would tip over into too much suspicion, and Arya wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet.

She took a deep breath, standing outside the door to Rickon’s chambers, measuring her breathing, reminding herself that she had been trained to be so many different faces, and she could surely find one now that would not let on to her little brother just how worried she was about him.

She opened the door.

Rickon was laying down on the hard floor beside the bed. He looked up, when she entered, and immediately scrambled back to put his back against the far wall, hugging his knees.

Arya bit back a sigh, raising her hands and lowering her shoulders so as to appear less threatening as she knelt down on the floor in front of the bed, far enough away so as not to appear threatening, but close enough that she could make eye contact with her brother.

If only he would meet her eyes.

Her little brother didn’t move, where he sat shaking against the wall between the bed and the bedside table, didn’t look at her, didn’t make a sound.

She got the feeling that he’d gotten rather good at not making a sound, during the time that he had been here.

Jeyne had tripped over her sentences, trying to explain to Arya where he had come from, how all of this had happened; evidently, the boy had not originally been here, when the Boltons had taken over. They had truly believed him to be dead, as the rest of Westeros did, alongside Bran, until Stannis had taken over Winterfell yet again.

And then Stannis had brought the boy here. Jeyne did not know why, and neither did Arya; it seemed to her strange, that he would want to bring a Stark heir to Winterfell when he was claiming it for himself because there were no Starks left.

And then the Boltons had taken back Winterfell because Stannis had left it all but open for them, and they had taken Rickon, as well.

He had been feral by the time the Boltons had found him here, evidently; Arya did not know whether to be relieved or not, that her brother’s trauma had not come from Ramsay himself, after hearing the things he had done to Theon, and to Jeyne, or horrified, that whatever had been done to him, he did not seem to be recovering from it, despite the time he’d had.

She forced herself to smile, just in case Rickon did look her way. “Jeyne is taking a few guards and I into the city today,” she said. “Theon is going to stay with you, to make sure that you’re safe.”

Rickon licked his lips.

“He won’t let anyone in to bother you, while we’re out,” Arya went on, despite the lack of a response, “But we won’t be gone long, I promise.”

Silence.

She’d made sure that he ate, earlier today, though he did not seem much interested in meat these days, only dried out bread and sweets, which Arya had insisted upon. She had a feeling that the servants thought Jeyne might be pregnant, that that was why she had so many strange…requests for food, with all of the things that Arya demanded be brought for Rickon.

But he still looked far too thin, for Arya’s liking.

She kept on her knees as she moved forward, forcing a smile on her features as she did so.

“Listen to me,” Arya told her brother, grasping him by the shoulders and flinching when he flinched, forcing him to turn and face her fully.

Rickon stared up at her with almost sightless eyes; there was not a hint of recognition in them this time, not like last time.

And dear gods, despite that, Arya wanted to cry from how much of a relief it felt, to finally hold her brother in her arms again, after so long apart, after hearing that he was dead and thinking that she would never even get to see his body again, just as she had never been able to see anyone’s save her mother’s, through Nymeria’s dreams, dreams she should never have even had.

And although they had taken Winterfell over, somewhat, for several weeks now, it still felt unreal, his shoulders underneath her touch. He was razor thin, and far too pale, a Shadow, Jeyne had called him, but very real, underneath her hand. And she could recognize him; even as he was, she knew he was her brother.

Gods, it felt so good to hold him again, offset only by the knowledge that, whatever it was Ramsay had done to him, whatever had been done to him before he had come under Ramsay’s dubious custody, there was clearly something terribly wrong with him.

He wasn’t the sweet little boy she’d known. He was a silent specter, a feral thing, and it terrified her, the longer she clung to him and realized that even if he had recognized her earlier, he didn’t know her, just now.

She swallowed hard, feeling another spike of guilt at the thought of what she was about to do, in that case.

“Rickon,” she whispered, leaning forward to press her lips against his forehead despite the way he tensed, a gentleness that she hadn’t exhibited in so long, it felt unnatural, under her lips. She closed her eyes, forcing in a deep breath.

When she opened her eyes again, she thought there might again this time be a hint of recognition in Rickon’s eyes, but it disappeared quickly enough.

Or perhaps it had simply been her imagination, the entire time.

“Gods, Rickon,” she whispered, and felt tears that she hadn’t allowed herself to cry in so long enter her eyes. “I don’t know what they did to you,” she whispered, because Rickon’s silence right now just felt…unnatural, almost as unnatural as Arya’s attempt to comfort him had been, “I don’t know what happened to you before he found you, either, but I promise you…I promise you, I’ll save you.”

Her brother jerked, under her touch, and Arya felt herself going very still, because that movement could almost convince her that her brother was in there, that he was listening to her. That he understood what she’d just implied she was about to do.

She stared intensely at him, trying to meet his gaze. He shrugged a thin shoulder, looking down again.

Arya sighed.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t back much earlier, little brother,” she whispered, hoarsely, felt the tears pricking at the back of her throat, heard the quiet gasp of the serving girl she’d ordered to keep guard over him, behind them, as she said those words. “But I’ll not leave you here much longer, all right? I promise.”

Her brother let out a sound that might have been a sniffle; Arya wasn’t certain.

“Rickon?” She whispered, because she had taken to saying his name as many times as she could, “Please. Look at me.”

He didn’t.

Arya took a deep breath, and pulled back from him. She had noticed over the last few weeks that he had his good days and his bad days, that there seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind any of those days.

Today was not one of his good days, and no matter what she attempted, she knew that she wasn’t going to get through to him.

She hated that. Hated that whatever had happened to him, whatever it was that had been done to him, he still was not quite there. That despite her resolve to get home and find her family again, the only family she’d yet to find had still been stolen away from her, in some small way.

She closed her eyes, getting to her feet and wiping down the gown that she saw fit to wear these days, to fit in as a servant of House Bolton.

Gods, she hated gowns. She missed very much being able to move around in clothes that fit her, that allowed her to fight without drawing comments from the guards.

She missed feeling like she was still No One, whoever that girl had been, which was odd, for she had not expected to miss that girl that she had been nonce at all, not after what had happened at the House of Black and White, before she had left it for good.

Arya glanced back at her brother, from where she stood in the doorway, watched the way he shivered and found his way back to his corner, closing his eyes an all but forgetting her existence again altogether.

She took a deep breath, tempted to go back and take the blanket from his bed to lay it on him, but she had the horrible feeling that if she did so, it would only be to watch him flinch back from her in terror.

She knew a little about creatures who, desperate and believing themselves moments from death, would lash out.

She did not want to see that in her brother.

No, more; she would not allow that for her brother, no matter what it took to bring him back from that place he went whenever he left her.

She took a deep breath, and shut the door, leaning heavily against it, waiting for the sound of her brother within. When it didn’t come, she kept walking, down to the chambers that had once imprisoned Jeyne Poole and now were her refuge from the prying eyes of Ramsay’s guards, all of them wondering, no doubt, why the fuck Ramsay Bolton would leave his wife in charge of Winterfell when all knew how little he regarded her, even if there were precious few others to take over those duties while he was…ill.

She wondered that the same room could become both a prison and a refuge, for one girl.

Wondered if Jeyne was ever going to survive what had…been done to her, just as she so often wondered whether her brother would.

She knocked on the door to Jeyne’s chambers.

The girl wasn’t even allowing servants in now, not without some great purpose, at the very least. She insisted on dressing herself, on eating her meals alone in her chambers, no matter how many times Arya insisted that the Lady of Winterfell ought to be eating out in the open, especially with Ramsay not about, and on sleeping alone, with Theon to stand guard.

Which in itself Arya found strange, after the stories she had heard from Theon about the…things that Ramsay had forced them to do. The things that Ramsay had forced Theon watch him do to Jeyne, when she had been forced to play the dutiful wife and Theon had not gone by that name.

But now, Jeyne would see no other guards but Theon and Arya, when Arya could manage it, though she could not too often leave Ramsay’s body alone, lest some hapless guard or servant happen upon it.

She took a deep breath, and pushed open the door after another knock, because she knew how easily both Theon and Jeyne spooked, these days.

Neither of them seemed to notice, as Arya stepped into the room, which she would have regarded as a welcome change were it not for the sight before her, not when they were surrounded on all sides by enemies.

She had to confess, she had not expected to walk in on the two of them…embracing, like this. Not after everything that they’d been through.

She would have thought…Would have thought it the last thing that either of them would want, just now.

Arya cleared her throat.

Theon and Jeyne pulled back from each other, their eyes both wide as if they had been caught in the midst of…well, in the midst of some tryst.

Arya’s eyes narrowed.

Dear gods, that was the last thing she wanted at the moment. She had enough issues to deal with, without having to add that one to it, as well.

Even if it was…something of a relief, to see that there was still something within the both of them, that they could find something like affection, after the things that they had been through.

Arya herself did not think that she would ever find love. She knew better about herself; the thing that she had become, was becoming, would not be capable of settling down as some lady of the house, taking care of the children, not after what she had been through.

What she had done to get here, when all the while she had found herself coming back home, the long way around.

Arya took a deep breath, reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes.

Slowly, as if he thought he might spook her, ironic, considering everything he and Jeyne had gone through that she had not, Theon lifted a hand. “Arya, we were just…”

Arya rolled her eyes, lifting a hand. She didn’t want an explanation, after all.

She would like to avoid one, if possible, in fact.

Instead, with a small smile that she could only hope was reassuring, when she could count on one hand the number of times she had smiled in recent years still as herself, she asked, “Are you ready?”

When both Jeyne and Theon both seemed to just stare blankly at her, she rolled her eyes again.

“To go down to the village, to speak with the people.”

She had seen enough of the wealthy of Braavos to know how important it was to go out among the poor, to be seen going out amongst them.

And Jeyne needed all of the support she could get, at the moment. To show the people that Jeyne was in fact Arya, of House Stark, and to remind them that they were proud, Northern stock.

To show them that Jeyne was not her husband, not in any stretch of the word. One day, that might just be important.

It would do nothing for them if the guards found them out, of course, to have the people’s support, but Arya had lived long enough amongst the little people to know that their affections and lack thereof still mattered dearly, where it counted.

And besides, this was only the beginning.

Jeyne and Theon exchanged another glance that Arya didn’t like at all.

“I was already there,” Jeyne said, and although she was arguing, Arya was almost glad to see the fight in her. “And then you asked me to come back here.”

Arya licked her lips. “Yes,” she said. There was no point in denying it; she needed Jeyne here, if this plan was going to work. And she needed Jeyne to stop fighting her on it, too.

“Arya I…” Jeyne stared between the two of them, at a loss. “I can’t do this,” she finally breathed, and Theon looked…looked like he believed her. Like he thought she was right, almost.

Arya hated that look, suddenly, ardently.

She hadn’t spent the last several weeks trying to convince them to do this thing only for them to give up the moment Arya asked something of Jeyne that meant she had to leave the walls of Winterfell.

The girl already acted like presiding over Winterfell, making sure the servants kept to their tasks and the soldiers to theirs, was too much for her.

Arya moved forward, taking Jeyne’s hands gently in her own, flinching a little when Jeyne flinched in turn at the unwanted touch, before she let go of Jeyne’s hands.

She needed to be able to depend on Jeyne to do much more than this, after all.

“But you can,” she said. “You’ve been…me, for the past…for years,” she said, when that only caused Jeyne to flinch again. “And you’re doing fine, now. Besides, I think it’s about time you get something back for all the pain that you’ve suffered because of that, don’t you?”

Jeyne’s lower lip wobbled, and Arya almost regretted bringing it up at all, even if she knew she was right. Knew it was one of the few things that might convince Jeyne to do her bidding.

“But I…I’m not good at this. I can’t be you, Arya,” Jeyne said, shaking her head, a tear slipping silently down her cheek. “I’ve been you for years, I have suffered under your name and for a man’s purpose.” Theon, where he stood in the corner, flinched again. “I have hated every…every second of being you, Arya.”

Arya flinched; she couldn’t help it, not even with all of her training in how to act like someone else, to not show all of her feelings to the world because she was someone else, in that moment, someone who wouldn’t be hurt by those words.

She must have somehow managed to force her face into some semblance of normalcy, for Jeyne would never have continued if she hadn’t.

“It’s true,” Jeyne said, forcing herself to meet Arya’s eyes, and Arya could see the tears the other girl was still holding back. “I’ve been you for years, and all it’s ever brought me was pain. I don’t want to be that anymore. Don’t ask it of me.”

Arya swallowed hard, moving forward, hesitating before she reached out to touch Jeyne’s arm again.

Theon flinched, as if for a moment he meant to come between them, as if he genuinely believed that Arya might hurt the other girl.

And then she remembered that he had watched her kill Myranda, and bit back a wince.

“I can’t begin to understand everything that beast put you through,” Arya said, quietly, and winced a little at the way that Jeyne flinched, again. “And I can’t tell you that pain will ever go away, nor can I do anything now to make up for what you’ve suffered in my name, Jeyne.”

Another tear slipped down Jeyne’s cheek.

“And I know that I have no right to ask anything else of you, Jeyne,” Arya went on, glancing down, and forcing herself to look back up and meet her eyes again. “I do know that. But I am asking you this, as a Stark, as Sansa’s sister, to please, help me.”

Jeyne worried her lower lip, glancing over at Theon.

And Arya…almost wished that she wouldn’t. Almost wished that the things Ramsay had ordered Theon to do to Jeyne as well, apparently, were enough that she would not look to him for belief, for trust.

And she didn’t know what that said about her, that she would even think such a thing, that she would be thinking so clearly about manipulating a girl that her sister had once considered a close friend, but Arya had a plan in place now, and now she was faced with the fear that it wasn’t going to work, not without Jeyne.

And Arya hadn’t returned to Winterfell for nothing. Hadn’t given up on her quest in the East, her quest for vengeance, for nothing. Hadn’t possibly given up Jon, according to her dreams from Bran, dreams she hadn’t had since last she refused to listen to him, for nothing.

Even if it was unfair, this was something she had to ask of Jeyne. Something that Jeyne had to agree to.

Because Arya herself couldn’t do it. Not only was she not cut out for it, but she had not been Arya Stark for many years.

Jeyne had.

“I was there, the night that my mother and brother were murdered,” Arya whispered, into the deafening silence that followed. “And I was too late.”

Jeyne swallowed.

“I was too late, and that was because I was a Stark,” Arya went on. “And maybe I wouldn’t have gotten there earlier anyway, but…” she worried her lower lip, swallowing hard as she remembered that night, remembered not realizing what had happened until it had been much too late, the Hound dragging her away.

“I can’t have that happen again,” she went on, tightening her resolve in the face of both Theon and Jeyne’s disapproval. “And it won’t, not the way I’m planning things.”

Theon cleared his throat. He’d barely said a word, she noticed, since everything that had happened with Ramsay. She wondered if he suspected what she’d done, unlike Jeyne, by the simple fact that Arya was standing before them now.

After all, between the two of them, only Theon had actually seen Arya kill anyone.

“What exactly is it that you’re planning?” He asked, brows furrowing as he stared at her, trying hard to meet her eyes.

Arya took a deep breath; she had a feeling that they were not going to accept what she was about to suggest any easier than they had suggested her last words.

She had tried to ask them to simply trust her, when she had first concocted her plans, standing over the still freshly warm body of Ramsay Bolton, covered in blood.

She should have known that would only last so long.

“Jeyne will remain at Winterfell, as Arya Stark,” she said. “We’ll…we’ll win it back from what remains of the Boltons, if we have to, but I don’t think that it will come to that. Not with what I’m planning.”

Theon glanced at Jeyne again. “And then?” He whispered.

Arya grimaced, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door, and turning back to Jeyne and Theon.

“The North,” she said. “And then, we take back the North.”

She had learned the benefits, of recent years, in machinations, compared to the blunt instrument that she had been when she had arrived at the House of Black and White, even if the thought of it still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She knew what she had to do, much though the thought of playing along, of pretending anything for the sake of an army which had followed a monster like Ramsay Bolton, sickened her.

She thought of the Merling Queen, of Shae, and the jumbled, random stories Shae had whispered to her about Sansa Stark, and what she had endured at King’s Landing because she was able to manipulate with the best of them, because she was able to survive in her own way.

Arya wanted to do more than survive.

And she thought she finally understood how to do just that.

As Arya Stark herself.

Optimistic, perhaps, but then, that wasn’t her whole plan. She didn’t think that Jeyne and Theon were ready for the rest of it, just yet.

Jeyne worried her lower lips.

“Arya…” Theon said, slowly. Then, “They’ll figure out something’s wrong before that. They’ll know. They’ll find Ramsay’s body, and then…Arya, you’ve not seen what they do to…”

She looked on the verge of panicking at the very thought.

Arya squeezed her hands, gently. “Do you trust me?” She asked.

Jeyne flinched. “I…”

And Arya could understand why she didn’t, after everything she’d been through. She didn’t know how Jeyne had found herself back at Winterfell, after coming with Sansa to King’s Landing, but she guessed that Jeyne didn’t still consider Sansa her friend, either way.

Not that Arya could blame her sister for that, but she could understand why Jeyne might.

It didn’t matter just now, though.

“I’ve seen what they do to their prisoners, to those they execute,” Arya said, sharply. “Do you forget so quickly what I just told you?”

Theon flinched again.

Jeyne cleared her throat, then. “Promise me something,” she said, and Arya braced herself. “You know what this will cost me. Promise me that it will be worth it. Whatever this thing is, that you’re planning.”

Arya swallowed hard.

She knew better than to make promises she couldn’t keep, these days.

“It will be,” she promised.

Jeyne swallowed hard, lifting her chin, and for a moment, Arya was reminded not of the girl she had grown up alongside in Winterfell, but of Sansa Stark, her stubborn, beautiful sister, insisting that she would be a queen.

She couldn’t have known at the time, of course, despite Arya’s childish warnings, what that meant, but Jeyne had to know what it was that Arya was asking of her, now.

If they did fail in this…

Well, just as Arya did not need to be told of what things happened to enemies of the Boltons, neither did either of them.

“Fine,” Jeyne said, tiredly, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “I’ll do it.”

Arya forced herself to smile as she pulled back from the other woman. “Thank you,” she said, and truly meant those words.

Theon looked furious, but Arya found it easier to ignore him now, somehow. She didn’t know if it was because she thought he finally understood who - and what - she was, or something else, something more.

But she turned her back on his stuttered protest, his furrowed brow, and barely felt a bit of guilt over it.

After all, it was not as if he had found a way to save Jeyne, and the North, before this. Far be it from him to critique Arya from doing so.

* * *

Arya had sent Jeyne and Theon to the inn, while she had dealt with Ramsay, before all of this, when they were fleeing for their lives and Arya had told them she killed Ramsay Bolton and freed them from his specter.

Or rather, Theon had taken Jeyne to the inn, had somehow covered her face as he brought her in there, which had been a foresight that Arya hadn’t had, and she was relieved by it, now, as they stepped inside the older woman’s inn and every eye in the main room turned to Jeyne and her fine, rumpled clothes.

Somehow, no matter what she was wearing, Jeyne’s clothes seemed to be rumpled, Arya had noticed that.

And although they had both come back when Arya asked them to, albeit wondering if perhaps she too was leading them into a trap, Arya got the impression that Jeyne had enjoyed the relative quietness of the inn.

That, and the fact that Arya had explored the place herself of late, was why she insisted that they go first, in their bid to maintain contact with the smallfolk.

The room went quiet, a stark contrast from the loud noise of a moment before. The innkeeper’s eyes, where she stood just in the doorway of the kitchen, went wide at the sight of Jeyne and her small entourage, in the doorway.

And then Jeyne moved inside, her movements a bit stiff, and Theon shut the door behind her.

Jeyne glanced nervously at Arya, who gave her a small nod as she glanced around the room, eyes narrowing at the few men who looked like they might have cross words for Jeyne, as she made sure that her knife was within close reach.

This first step would be the easiest, by far, that Jeyne had to take; Arya wanted to make sure that it didn’t scare the girl off too quickly.

She needn’t have worried.

“Lady,” one of the people in the crowd said, a great, burly man whose eyes went very wide at the sight of Jeyne. “We did not…Welcome, Lady Stark.”

So. He knew who she was.

Or rather, who Jeyne was pretending to be. Recognized her by her fine, Northern clothes and the fact that looked a bit like Sansa’s, rather than Arya’s.

Arya was almost relieved that he knew, that they did not have to explain who Jeyne was themselves, for she felt certain that the lie would fall flat the moment they did, and they were gambling with so much already.

Jeyne opened and closed her mouth, glancing over nervously at Arya, and Arya gave her the tiniest of nods; she herself had been to this inn lately, after all, and did not want the innkeeper recognizing her as the fine lady she had been putting up, before.

It would not do, for someone to put two and two together about Arya, now. She found she would fare much better, for her future plans, if the majority of people did not know who she was.

After all, she had no desire to be the Lady she had forced Jeyne to play, these past few days.

“I…” Jeyne cleared her throat, flushing slightly, and finally said the words that Arya had forced her to rehearse, before she brought her here. “With my husband gravely ill, I thought it time that I meet with my people of the North once again. I…As my husband’s regent, in these trying days,” she went on, and the guards who had accompanied them, Bolton guards who had once refused to let Jeyne leave Winterfell, exchanged nervous glances, “I hope that I might beg your sympathies, should I make any decisions that might disrupt your lives.”

Silence.

Arya supposed they were all musing over the fact that Ramsay Bolton was gravely ill; she did not see a sad look amongst the bunch.

No surprise there, she supposed. She doubted things had been much better for the villages surrounding Winterfell than they had been for Jeyne or Theon themselves, given the way the Bolton guards spoke and Ramsay acted most of the time.

A bastard in far more ways than one.

For a moment, Arya thought that none of them were going to respond, and she had been prepared for that outcome, as well; even if the Starks had been liked well enough by their own people, it had been many years since a Stark had ruled in Winterfell, and the pain these people might have suffered because of that may have been great; Arya simply didn’t know.

And then the innkeeper set down the pans she was holding, in the doorway to the kitchen, and came forward, standing before Jeyne. The silence was unnerving even Arya, then, but the innkeeper was not silent for long, dipping her head and performing a rather botched curtsey.

“My lady,” she whispered, and when Arya squinted at the woman, she found tears in her eyes; the innkeeper curtsied again before Jeyne, where the other girl stood awkwardly in the middle of the dining hall, and Arya watched this with the smallest of smiles on her features. “My lady.”

The inn keep took Jeyne’s hand in hers, squeezed it gently. “Oh, you poor, poor child. Dear lady. We are so glad to have some word of you. Any word.”

Jeyne’s lower lip wobbled; Arya almost had to look away.

Arya had been afraid that someone from amongst the smallfolk might recognize Jeyne Poole for the girl she had once been. Her family had, after all, spent their fair share of time amongst the smallfolk where other lords and ladies seemed to so disdain them, and Jeyne was the daughter of a steward.

But she needn’t have bothered; it had been so many years since all of that, after all, and from what she heard from Theon, it sounded as if Ramsay had barely let his little wife out of her rooms, much less out of Winterfell to see the people.

And she had grown up in that time, changed, irrevocably perhaps; Arya could see that well enough.

The gruff man who had addressed ‘Arya’ first spoke up, then. “It has been too long without sight of a Stark in Winterfell,” he said. “We are glad to see you well, madam.”

Arya didn’t bother to think about the many scars she’d seen on Jeyne’s back, the other day, about how the girl had been all but petrified, at being forced to play the part of Arya Stark, once more, even when Arya had assured her that she would keep her safe if she did.

Instead, she found it suddenly difficult to breathe, and was not entirely certain why.

For years, she had dreamt about what it would be like to reunite with her family, what it would be like to hold Rickon and Bran in her arms once more, to see Sansa’s smiling face, and know that at least some of her family still lived for her to love, for her to spend her life with again, for them to heal, together.

She had not given much thought to the smallfolk for whom House Stark had once been responsible, during all of that time. Oh, she had seen the terrible plight of the smallfolk at the hands of the Boltons and the Lannisters and others, had seen the way they always suffered, no matter who sat on the Iron Throne, had seen that their lives were not the simplistic, happy things she had once imagined them to be, when she was nothing more than a little girl as naive as Sansa, though in different ways.

But the smallfolk were not her home, were not her family. She had pitied them, but she had not given a second thought to how they might be hurting without her family there to protect them, not when she was actively trying so hard to forget her own pain at the loss of that family.

Now, standing before all of them, seeing the way they reacted to Jeyne’s mousy shyness and hurried words as if they knew without being told the traumas their lady had fared at the hands of a Bolton - and perhaps, she supposed, they did know, for perhaps their daughters had shared the same fates - Arya felt tears springing up in her own eyes.

It had been so long since she had cried as Arya Stark; she looked away, blinking rapidly, forcing those thoughts down.

Jeyne, too, when Arya returned her gaze to the other girl, looked as affected as Arya felt, and certainly wasn’t as good at hiding it. She glanced nervously back at her guards again, who were shifting on their feet, now, looking as if they weren’t certain how at all to respond to such words from the people their lord tyrannized, before she spoke again.

“Yes, well…” Jeyne cleared her throat, awkwardly. “I hope that as my husband’s regent, I can bring you some measure of pride in my work. And, to that end, I have ordered that my guards bring you back some of the food that was most recently…taxed from you.”

She glanced back at her guards again, who looked even more put out about this order than they had about Jeyne going down into the village in the first place, before they stepped out the door to retrieve the bundles Arya had carefully supervised them putting into wagons to bring back down here.

It wasn’t much; Arya would dearly have loved to bring more, with her knowledge of how much had been taken from these people in recent years, knowing, too, that winter was coming, but they had to keep Winterfell fortified, either way.

And that meant they needed the grain almost as much as the smallfolk did. Ramsay Bolton seemed more interested in razing fields to the ground than planting them.

The moment the guards were gone, the rest of the people in the common area - a good twenty, Arya thought, and that, at least, was a good start, here and now - stood to their feet before Jeyne, wearing identical somber expressions.

Arya knew they must have heard of, if not solely imagined, the horrors that Lady Stark had underwent, to look at her like…that.

She shivered, once again glad that she could not take up the mantle of Lady Stark, herself.

“Forgive us, Lady Stark,” the first, gruff man said, as he dropped down to one knee before a wide eyed Jeyne. “For the North Remembers.”

Jeyne swallowed hard.

Where she stood in the shadows, Arya shivered at those words.

She could see Jeyne, trying desperately to catch her eye where Arya stood in the shadows, the other girl looking terribly uncomfortable stuck around so many people, and Arya felt a stab of pity for her as she remembered that the other girl was likely not used to being around so many people at once, after the way that Ramsay had kept her of late.

But this moment wasn’t for the girl that Arya had become, of late. It wasn’t even for Jeyne. It was for House Stark, a reminder among a people who had desperately needed it, in recent years, that the North could remember, that it was needed of them.

And Arya could allow Jeyne to accept that for her, this time, because, she thought idly, Jeyne was just as such a Northerner as Arya herself. And right now, Jeyne was Arya.

And the people in this inn, perhaps they needed that as much as Arya needed them to, if this was their reaction.

And then the guards were returning, bringing in their bushelfuls and setting them down on the floor of the inn, as the commoners watched them in uncertain silence.

Jeyne spread her arms. “These are for you to distribute amongst yourselves as needed,” she said, as the guards once again left, and then returned with more. “Though I ask that you think of the widows and children, first.”

Silence met her words.

Jeyne cleared her throat. Loudly. Arya winced.

“I…I must return home,” she said, swallowing hard, and Arya resisted the urge to shake her, little mouse of a thing that she was, pretending to be Arya Stark or not, “For the hour grows late and my husband will have need of me. But I do hope to return, soon, if there is anything you need from me.”

And not a single commoner sat back down until they had gotten back on their wagon and were returning to Winterfell; Arya watched.

She watched until she saw them reaching for the bushels in the doorway of the inn, and then she turned back around, and remembered to breathe once more.

Beside her, she didn’t think that Jeyne had quite mastered that ability, yet.

* * *

_“You didn’t listen to me,” Bran said, and his voice was accusatory, almost…angry._

_Arya bit back a sigh, sitting up in her bed and crossing her legs together._

_She’d been…expecting this confrontation since the day she had awoken resolved to fuck destiny right up its arse, almost afraid to sleep all of this time, just in case she found herself having to face Bran again. She certainly didn’t want to; she had done exactly the opposite of what he’d asked of her, after all, even if he was nothing more than a simple figment of her imagination._

_She didn’t think that she could face her brother’s disapproval, though. It was why she’d been almost afraid to sleep, in the last few days, ever since she had disregarded his weird warnings about her not being able to save either of her brothers, if she didn’t go North to Jon, now._

_“Bran, I…”_

_He stared at her for a moment, and slowly, she trailed off._

_“I warned you, Arya,” he said, shaking his head, looking terribly disappointed in her, and Arya had to remind herself that this was just a dream, that it didn’t mean anything. “I warned you, and you didn’t listen to me. I don’t even understand why I’m here, if you won’t listen to me. I didn’t want to come, this time.”_

_Arya’s brows furrowed in confusion. “I…what do you mean?” She asked, but Bran was already shaking his head._

_“It’s exactly like you told Jeyne,” he whispered, and he sounded…sad. “You can’t take hold of your destiny because you’re not ready. Not ready for the task in front of you, though it can go to no one else, and not ready to become a Stark again, though that is what you have betrayed your destiny to become. We shouldn’t even be able to…communicate like this.”_

_Arya shook her head, mouth suddenly dry, hurt more than she wanted to admit at those words, at that denial in his tone, despite her refusal to believe that this was anything more than a dream._

_“Bran, you’re just a dream,” she told him, though she doubted that was going to help his disappointment, either way. “You’re just a dream. It doesn’t…this isn’t real. It’s just a dream.”_

_His eyes lifted to meet hers. “Is that what you told yourself?” He asked her, “When you refused to go to Jon, like I told you that you would have to?”_

_Arya crossed her arms over her chest, feeling suddenly vulnerable at his claims. “I…Bran…”_

_He sighed, and she suddenly got the impression that he was sitting before her, though he wasn’t._

_They were back in that cave, the one that sent shivers down her spine and made her feel uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t name, as if some old magic lived through it that she could never understand._

_She got the strange impression that Bran did understand it, but then again, she did not understand Bran, these days._

_“Do you think that just because you can convince a handful of smallfolk to love Jeyne, you’ll succeed?” Bran asked her, but this time, he didn’t scoff. Instead, he looked almost…sad, which was not what Arya had grown to expect from these dreams of her brother, of late. “Arya, I have seen Winterfell burn. You will not succeed, because Winterfell is already lost, just as so many of the lives you now seek to bribe, to improve, are lost.”_

_“They are not lost yet,” Arya whispered, her teeth chattering, though she was once again used to the pleasant cold of Winterfell._

_Bran’s smile was still sad. “They are. They will be; they were. Don’t you understand?”_

_“No!” Arya finally spat at him, hugging herself. “I don’t understand, because you will not explain it to me. You’re just…you’re just some wicked shadow of the brother who once made me laugh, was so sweet, and I barely know who you are, so why should I listen to you when you refuse to explain it?”_

_Her brother’s eyes were an unnatural white, now; she did not know if they had always been so, in her dreams, or if she had only now noticed._

_She licked her lips, and scooted slightly back from him, in the snow that had moments ago been her bed._

_“What exactly is your plan, Arya?” Bran asked, lips twitching. “I know that you don’t have one. You’ve convinced Theon and Jeyne that you do, dragged them back into danger where, at any moment, Ramsay Bolton might be discovered and you’ll all be killed, but they don’t even know that, do they? So what is your plan?”_

_Arya pressed her lips together. “I don’t have one,” she whispered, and somehow, it was easier to admit that to him than it was to admit that to Jeyne or Theon, even if this dream form of her brother terrified her. “But I’m working on it.”_

_Bran sighed, spreading his arms. “Yet more lives you are willing to sacrifice to betray your duties to destiny.”_

_Arya’s lower lip quivered. “I’m trying to save them,” she snapped at him. “To save my home.”_

_“Home is never a place, Arya,” Bran told her, and he was no longer angry, just sad. As if he had expected so much of her, and had found her responses far too disappointing to continue to argue with._

_He started to turn then, and Arya’s heart leapt in her throat at the thought that he was about to leave her here, in this cage, though she didn’t see why she should care, when he only ever seemed to state his disappointment in her._

_Arya swallowed hard. “You said that he had…changed,” she said, slowly. “What’s…what exactly is wrong with him?”_

_Her brother slowly turned back to face her, the action made harder by his obvious impediment, until he was facing her once more. “Rickon?”_

_She bit her lip, shook her head, even though she would have liked to know that, too, if that was something this dream could even tell her._

_But no, that hadn’t been what she meant._

_“You know that’s not what I’m asking,” she said, softly. “Jon. What is it that you think I will be too late to save him from?” She swallowed hard. “You didn’t even tell me that I had to go North to save him. You said that I had to…”_

_She could barely bring herself to utter the word, lest it become somehow more real than this dream did, when she woke._

_“You did,” Bran said, shaking his head sadly. “Need to. Or needed to. It’s too late now, though.”_

_Arya jerked. “I…what?”_

_“The End is coming, Arya,” he told her, sadly. “It’s coming for all of us, and there’s no way of escaping it, now. You’ve ensured that, by telling destiny to go and fuck itself so that you could selfishly save a childhood home that will be buried in snow and fire, in less than a year.”_

_Arya flinched; somehow it felt more wrong to hear her brother say that word than it did to hear that The End, whatever it was, was indeed coming because of her. “What…what are you talking about?” She demanded, hotly. “Seriously. I don’t…”_

_He sighed. “Arya, I know you think I’m being cruel, asking this of you,” he told her. “Or perhaps you don’t believe me at all. But I can’t afford to be gentle with you, not with what is coming. The Stakes are too high.”_

_Arya shook her head. “You’re not…this makes no sense,” she said. “You’re not making any sense. What…” Arya’s throat was very dry, now. “You’re…just a dream,” she repeated, getting to her feet, sliding off of the bed and wrapping her blanket around her a little more tightly, unnerved._

_Bran sighed. “You wanted to know what happened to him. Jon is dead, Arya,” he told her, bluntly, and Arya flinched. “He was killed by his own men, at the Wall, some time ago. I saw it, through the eyes of Ghost.”_

_Arya’s mouth fell open; she had the distinct impression that she was gaping like a fish. She felt as if ice cold water had just been poured down her back._

_She didn’t try to think too hard about her brother telling her how he had seen Jon’s death. This was all too…ridiculous, she told herself. It was ridiculous, all of these claims, because she knew them to be untrue._

_“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, that’s impossible. And besides, Theon said he was in Casterly Rock, not so long ago, that he stood by Stannis Baratheon when they convinced Jaime Lannister to travel North with them. You’re wrong.”_

_When they had convinced Jaime Lannister to go North with them to fight fairy tales. Told to her by a boy who had once been responsible for killing her brothers, never mind that he’d obviously lied about that._

_Arya shuddered. “No,” she breathed again, insistently. “That’s how I know that all of this,” she gestured between them, “is just a stupid dream. He’s alive.”_

_Bran huffed out a breath, clearly getting irritated with her. “No, Arya, I’m sorry. I truly am. That…thing that came back, in Jon’s body?” And he said it with such disdain, Arya flinched, as if the thing that was her brother was not even human. As if it was possible to come back from the…_

_She thought of the House of Black and White, and closed her eyes._

_Bran kept talking, much as she wanted to scream at him to stop, that she didn’t want to hear it, anymore._

_“It’s not him. And if you ever loved Jon, you would be rid of the thing walking around, wearing his face.”_

_Arya covered her ears, something she had not done since…so long ago._

_“Did you have to work so hard to convince yourself to kill the Merling Queen because it was what you needed to do?” Bran asked her, a small, sad smirk on his features, then. “Or did you just…do it because it was asked of you?”_

_Arya sucked in a breath. “How do you…”_

_“Because I know All, now, Arya. I know that the Jon that Theon saw at the Rock, it isn’t him, not anymore,” Bran went on, just as cruelly as before, and Arya flinched again, hugging herself. “And it was your duty, as his family, to see to it that the abomination that the Red Woman brought back out of her own hubris does not get us all killed.”_

_Arya stared at him. “What…” she shook her head, swallowed hard. “You’re insane, and I want to wake up now.”_

_But she didn’t wake, just because of those words._

_Still, she shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply._

_When she opened them again, Bran was still there, before her, half in his cave and half in her room in the inn._

_Bran stared at her for a moment longer, and then sighed again._

_“Remember this conversation, Arya,” he told her, tightly, “When the end of the world comes at the hands of two willful dragons and Death itself, remember that I warned you now and you wouldn’t listen to me when you had the chance. Remember it when you’re huddling in your precious, useless home in Winterfell as the walls burn around you, in this place you insisted you had to get back and damn the consequences, wishing you’d left it to burn. Remember that I warned you, and everything that’s come to pass - that’s coming to pass - will be on your hands.”_

Arya gasped awake, sitting straight up in her bed, shaking.

It took her a moment to remember where she was, to remember why she was in her old chambers in Winterfell, to remember that there was a body laying beside her. That Jeyne had insisted on not sleeping alone tonight, and that Arya had insisted on Theon standing guard for Rickon, which had meant that Arya needed to deal with Jeyne, herself.

She glanced nervously over at the other girl, as her shaky breaths slowly calmed of their own accord.

She much preferred the most recent dreams she’d been having, not of Bran haunting her sleep, but of Ramsay, screaming and gurgling on is own blood, that blood staining underneath her nails and making her feel almost euphoric in a way that she had never felt, whilst killing someone.

Jeyne moaned, where she lay in the bed beside Arya, waking just enough to glance over at her, face transforming to one of concern.

“Arya?” She asked.

Arya shook her head. “You have to get used to not calling me that,” she whispered hoarsely, hugging herself.

Jeyne snorted. “I’ve gotten used to answering to that name, believe me, these past few years,” she reminded Arya, and Arya flinched again. “I won’t forget. What’s wrong?”

Arya swallowed hard, turning on her side, away from Jeyne, so that she wouldn’t have to look at the other girl.

“Nothing,” she lied, hugging the sheets to her chest. “Just a bad dream.”

Just a dream, she told herself. That was all it had been, just a terrible dream, but it was over now. It was over, and nothing Bran had said had been real, because Rickon was still alive, but for all Arya knew, Bran was not.

After all, surely a man as driven and mad as Ramsay would have found him, had he been looking.

For a moment, Jeyne was silent. Then, she felt Jeyne’s arms reach out, wrap around her in the bed, and Arya went very still at the sudden, unwanted contact.

Jeyne let her hand there for a moment, on the blankets over Arya, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with it now that she had offered it in comfort, and Arya forced herself to breathe, in, and out.

“I get them too,” Jeyne said, clinging to her, just as hesitant as Arya suddenly felt, and Arya forced herself to relax, told herself that for a woman who’d been through what Jeyne had, offering comfort would be difficult enough without Arya rejecting it.

She swallowed hard; she didn’t want to reject it, either. She’d hugged Rickon. Every time she dreamt of Bran, she wanted to pull him into a hug and tell him that everything was all right, that he was safe, that these warnings he kept giving her were useless, because they could be a family again, if he was just alive, if he could just tell her that he was still alive, instead of sending her these cryptic messages, about Jon, and about the end of the world.

Arya had already faced the end of the world, after all, when she’d watched her father get murdered on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, and everything had only gotten worse since then. Nothing Bran warned her of could scare her more than losing her family had.

She only wished he understood that, and came home.

Sleep did not come again, that night, only fevered dreams of Jon, face a pale white and unrecognizable as her brother, crackling like ice.

* * *

When Arya awoke in the morning, Jeyne was already up.

Arya sat up slowly, surprised; usually, she awoke at the slightest of noises, after all.

But Jeyne didn’t appear to have moved far; she was still in her nightgown, sitting before her small table in the corner of the room, and staring down at something in her lap. She looked as white as a sheet.

With a small sigh, Arya sat up fully, and murmured, “What is it?”

Jeyne spun around, eyes very wide, and that caught Arya’s attention, too. She immediately tensed, climbing off the bed and moving over to the other girl, glancing down in her lap to see…a letter, addressed to the Lady of Winterfell, of all things.

“What is it?” She repeated, reaching out to pick up the letter. Jeyne flinched slightly, but didn’t attempt to keep her from it.

The seal had already been broken; Arya raised a brow at Jeyne, but the other girl didn’t bother to explain, just waited, looking skittish.

Arya opened the letter, scanned it slowly, her unease growing as she did so.

“It’s…from Lord Baelish,” Arya breathed, staring down at the letter in something like shock.

Well, she hadn’t thought that coming back would be anything easy, after all. She just hadn’t been expecting him to move this quickly, she supposed.

Jeyne snatched the letter from her hands, and Arya was too startled to fight the other girl on it.

“Lady Stark,” the other girl read out, and though her voice was shaky, Arya thought it was almost from anger, rather than fear, “I have heard of the sickness which has befallen your dear husband, and wanted to offer my sympathies.” Jeyne could not withhold a scoff. “And pledge any use which you might have of me to be at your service.”

Jeyne all but tossed the letter away from her, then. “As if he gives a damn about me,” she whispered, and Arya was almost surprised by the vitriol in the other girl’s tone, before she remembers that Baelish had been the one to marry “Arya Stark” to House Bolton in the first place.

And that reminded her that there were things she needed to ask Jeyne about Baelish, in the now very likely event that she would have to do something about him, needed to ask Jeyne about what sort of man he was, even if she had a horrible feeling that she already knew much of the answer to that.

She remembered how Baelish had seemed once to be a friend to her family, but, from what she had heard, had risen high since her father’s death. She doubted that was a coincidence, even if she would like it to be.

It seemed to her that no good could come of rising high in Westeros, not when every single member of her family seemed to have suffered because of it.

Jeyne’s hand was shaking, as she continued to read the letter. “He claims that he is Regent of the Vale, now, and that he can send an army here to help us, if we have need of the protection. I…” she reached up, covering her mouth with her hands. “Oh, gods. He must know. He would never make such an offer knowing that it might fall into the hands of Ramsay Bolton; he knew what sort of madman he was, I’m sure of it.”

Arya licked her lips, opened her mouth to ask about that, about why Baelish would insist on such a marriage at all, then, with such an unpredictable force, but she didn’t get the chance, not before Jeyne kept going.

“He knows,” she whispered. “He knows that something has gone wrong with his plans, or he would never have sent a letter.” Jeyne began to pace back and forth, then. “He knows.”

Arya lifted a hand. “We don’t know that…” she tried, even if she secretly agreed with Jeyne. “He and the Boltons, the Crown? They’re allies. It’s only natural that he…” she shook her head. “Besides, no one else knows. There is no way he could have found out so quickly.”

“He was the one who gave me over to the Boltons, Arya,” Jeyne hissed out, staring down at the letter on the table between them as if touching it again might burn her. “He knows that I am just a pawn, a plaything, for them, just as they knew I was no true Stark. He knows something, to send a letter to me directly, and when I’ve received no letters in my name since I arrived here because my dear husband will not - would not - allow it.”

Her name, she’d said.

Arya closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she forced on masks that she’d tried to put away for good, sending the other girl a reassuring smile.

“Then I’ll deal with it,” she said, and Jeyne stared at her incredulously.

“He said he would send an army,” she protested. “The moment the Bolton men realize what we’ve…what you’ve done, the opportunity that I’ve taken from it, they’ll kill the four of us, make no mistake. And Baelish, if he’s sending an army, that means he’s ensuring that I cannot act against him, in the off chance that we somehow continue this farce long enough.” She swallowed hard; she looked close to fainting.

Arya ran a hand through her hair. “Then we’ll just have to change his mind,” she said, and Bran’s words were still ricocheting through her thoughts, haunting her no matter how much she tried to push them aside.

That no matter what she tried to do to save it, Winterfell would burn.

Jeyne opened and closed her mouth. “How, by the Seven, do you intend to…”

But Arya was already picking up quill and parchment and walking out the door, heading down the hall, to the place where she knew the guards were starting to get too curious for their own good. One of these days, they would wonder whether the maester was truly remaining in the crypts to keep everyone else healthy when he’d never shown much concern for them in the past, whether Ramsay Bolton was even truly ill at all.

She opened the door, making sure that the two guards standing outside could not see in, with a quiet, “I’m here to tend to him for the day.”

They left her to it, but she knew that they would not, for long.

The moment she shut the door behind her, Arya sagged against it, lost in thought.

She had a terrible feeling that Jeyne was right, that Baelish was only just now contacting them because he knew about what they had done, about their little coup, and was trying to put a stop to it lest it negatively effect whatever plans he had for Winterfell.

He may have known that Ramsay was just as much of an unpredictable madman as Joffrey had ever been, but clearly, Baelish had his uses for unpredictable madmen.

“My lord,” she sneered, as she turned around to face the cooped up figure lying on Ramsay Bolton’s bed, a bed that her mother and father had once lain in.

Of course, the bed was not quite the same as it had been, in those days.

Arya had ensured that some…adjustments were made to it, when she had carefully moved Ramsay here with the help of that damned maester.

Ramsay Bolton, trussed up like an animal about to be led to the slaughter, glared at her from inside his cage on the bed, and, were she not so very clear of the fact that she had the upper hand here, she might have been frightened by the look on his face.

And then she remembered how frightened Rickon had looked, inside his own cage, and her own fear of this man was replaced by that same, cold fury.

“I came to see if you needed anything,” she said, forcing a demure smile, pretending, for a moment, that she wore the face of the Merling Queen.

As she said those words, she moved toward the cage and ripped off the gag covering his mouth. He worked his jaw, clearly furious.

“Yes. I had a question, one you still refuse to answer. Why didn’t you just kill me?” Ramsay asked, sucking in a breath as he moved, with great difficulty, to sit up in the dog cage that she’d left him in.

The dog cage that he’d had her brother in, suspended above his beasts.

She’d insisted that it be moved to Ramsay’s chambers; that he wanted his favorite dog to spend time with him, whilst he was ill, and she rather liked the look of it, him cooped up in a cage much too small for him, the way that Rickon had been, and choking on his own blood, barely clinging to life because Arya had made it so.

Because Arya still could not quite bring back the brother she had lost in the body of the little boy down the hall.

Her brother, who could barely string together words beyond his sister’s name, who had cried when she had gotten him out of that cage, who had flinched when she had tried to touch him, who had stared at her with those wild eyes and terrified her, because, for all that he’d said her name earlier, she saw no recognition in his eyes, just then.

And even after she’d ordered the Bolton maester to look over him, to make sure that he was well in the name of the Lord of Winterfell, because no one here knew who she was, after all, though soon they would, she hadn’t been able to get that look out of her mind.

She imagined that it was painful, the way that he was laying in that cage, partially sat where it was atop his bed, and with a stab wound like that.

Good.

She imagined that every movement hurt. The maester had ensured that Ramsay would live because Arya had needed it so, in case everything did go to seven hells and one of his men investigated, but had done little more for him, because Arya had insisted on that, as well, before she had the man thrown in the crypts.

Arya knew exactly what that stab wound looked like, of course. What it would do to someone. She’d done it enough to others, in the past.

A part of her was almost surprised that he was still alive, but then again, becoming the type of killer she had, she had learned how to keep her enemies alive, too.

That was an important lesson, from the House of Black and White.

She stared down at him dispassionately, forcing herself not to think too hard about the pleasure she found, from seeing him like this, broken and at her mercy, barely clinging to life. If she thought about it too hard, it might disturb her.

She had far greater concerns, at the moment.

So Arya forced herself to move closer to his cage, and to crouch down in front of him, as she thought about the drugs that had been forced down her brother’s throat to get him to sleep, tonight, with the way he’d been thrashing in his own bed, screaming for a mother that hadn’t been alive for years.

“Because I still have need of the Lord of Winterfell, I’m afraid,” she said. “And…” she paused, where she stood in front of the doorway out of this horrible place, this place whee her brother had been kept like an animal for…for months, as far as Jeyne could tell her.

Jeyne, who had not been allowed to interact with anyone for months, either, locked away in Arya’s rooms while Ramsay fucked her, and pretended that she was a Lady of Winterfell, and of course Arya sympathized with what Jeyne had gone through, as a girl who had once been friends with her sister, but it made her just as mad, to think that Ramsay had been fucking Jeyne like that, had been treating her specifically like that, because he was pretending that she was a Lady of Winterfell.

That he had the right to her, because of that.

Arya’s fists clenched at her sides.

“Because I am not the one who has the right to kill you,” she said, calmly, “And when he’s ready, when she’s ready, they’re going to do just that. But for now? You’re an example.” Her lips twisted into a cruel smirk, as she thought of the way that Braavos had reacted to the Merling Queen’s death.

She wasn’t proud of that death, was even less so when she realize that it had been a useless death to begin with, but she was proud of the way that the people had reacted to the shadow who had killed her.

That was the thing that Jeyne, that Theon, they didn’t seem to understand.

Ramsay scoffed. “You think they’ll ever grow the spine for that?” He taunted her, and then shook his head. “I know them far better than you do, these days.”

Arya lifted her chin. “Perhaps you don’t,” she said, thinking of the way that Jeyne seemed to be coming alive these past few days, even if she had made clear her displeasure about being here at all.

Ramsay scoffed. “If you want me dead, Wife, do it yourself. Otherwise, don’t depend on them for much. Theon cannot give you an heir, and Jeyne could not hope to.”

Arya sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I have an heir,” she pointed out to him, “just down the hall. I certainly don’t need a Bolton heir to occupy Winterfell.”

Ramsay stared at her a moment longer, and then laughed. “You Starks and your stubbornness,” he said. “You won’t last five days without me, at least you know that, but I dare you to kill me anyway. If you don’t, I will make sure that you regret it, little wife.”

Arya sniffed, and thought of the regrets she had already, the dreams of Bran that she still didn’t quite understand.

“You’re right, that I still need you,” she said. “Though, fortunately, you won’t have to leave this room to give me what I want.”

His eyes widened, and his hands reached up to clutch at the cage. He looked more dead than alive.

“The Lady of Winterfell has it in mind to…host a feast,” she said, and couldn’t help it that she reveled in his confusion. “The people of the North have suffered greatly in recent years, and she thought to use this as a way of…celebrating the slow peace that has somewhat returned to the North.”

Ramsay snorted. “Your lady would feast amongst the rabble?” He asked her.

Arya’s smile was cold. “No,” she said, trying not to imagine how Jeyne might react to what she was about to suggest, “But she will be feasting with the lords of other realms. The likes of Lord Baelish and Lord Walder Frey. All allies of House Bolton these days, from what I understand.”

She could just see Jeyne fainting in the back of her mind, and forced that thought from her head.

Ramsay sneered at her. “They’ll know that you’re up to something; they’ll never come, and they certainly won’t feast with only my wife, Stark or no.”

“I imagine that after my brother and mother were killed at a wedding with such people, and with the Boltons partially behind it, they would be…wary, yes,” Arya said. “But surely it would be…insulting, to stage such an event, again.”

Ramsay’s eyes widened. “You’re a little fool,” he told her. “And here I thought you were the smart one. They’ll bring their armies, they’ll find out what you did to me, and you won’t last through the night. Do you know what we did to your mother?”

Arya stepped forward, and then paused. Smiled at him. “You’re going to invite them,” she said. “With your seal and signature. They will come, if you do. You’ve…had a miraculous recovery, and wish to celebrate that with them, as well.”

Ramsay shook his head. “You’re a fool. They won’t come.”

She held out a quill and a piece of parchment that she’d stolen from Jeyne’s room to him. “Write the invitation,” she ordered. “And let me worry about that.”

He stared at her; Arya forced a smile.

“If you do,” she said, “I’ll make sure that the maester gives you a little something more for the pain. What do you think of that?”

Ramsay took the quill and parchment from her, wrote out what she dictated, grinding his teeth all the while.

When he was done, he thrust it back out of his cage, towards her.

Arya took it, scanned it to make sure that there were no hidden surprises, and then smiled at him. “And a few more copies, please.”

He all but growled; he looked like a kicked dog, though, in this cage.

When he was done, and Arya had read over every single letter and then gone to the corner of the room to give each copy of the letter his seal, then had stuffed the gag back in the worthless bastard’s mouth that ensured his screams had no syllables for the guards outside the door, she moved back towards the door.

She was glad, in the next moment, that she hadn’t bothered to open it.

“Wait, please,” Ramsay called after her, and she paused, slowly turned back around to face him.

“Kill me,” he whispered, and the words transported her to a room not far from here, where she had found Jeyne, the girl pretending to be Arya Stark for all of this time, alone save for a boy who went by Reek rather than is own name.

She snorted, and walked out the door, shutting it behind her, thinking to herself that he ought not to beg so quickly for his death.

That would come, in time.

The sounds of Ramsay’s howling fury - Arya had killed the dog she’d brought in there to disguise her lie, and only felt a slight guilt at doing so - sounded almost like the sounds of dogs, howling, with the door shut and the guards forbidden entry lest they catch this horrible sickness.

She nodded to both of the guards standing outside the door, and kept walking, smiling softly to herself.


End file.
